Team effort lets Ambler even series with Lansdale
Brewers take Game 2 Wednesday night
Most nights, a gamewinning home run by the No. 9 hitter who doesn’t hit very many of them would be the highlight of the contest.
Wednesday night, it might have been the third or fourth most eventful thing that happened in the Perky League semifinal Game 2 between Ambler and Lansdale. By the time Ambler won 11-9 to even the series 1-1, the game had stretched nearly three hours, seen five lead changes, said home run, both teams miffed at the strike zone, a starting pitcher forced from the game with injury and guys coming in and going back out of the game like crazy.
Ambler came in and knew it couldn’t afford to go down 0-2. Thanks to some unlikely and unprepared heroes, it did what it needed.
The guy who seemed to be at the middle of all of it was Brewers catcher Mike Dertouzos, who clubbed the eventual game-winning homer in the sixth inning and handled four different pitchers.
“This was very eventful, it was back and forth, this was the only game we had this year that was like that,” Dertouzos said. “I was talking to somebody on the bench and we were saying usually our pitchers have been so good that when we get a lead, we don’t need to score that many runs. It’s hot, the ball was flying out, we were going back and forth but it was a good team win because I feel everyone who played did something for the team.”
In Game 1, the Brewers took a 3-0 lead then gave up the next 12 to Lansdale, a team that has hit them well all season. Dertouzos said Ambler might have laid off too much at the plate after taking the lead in Game 1, but wasn’t going to do that again on Wednesday. After taking a 4-0 lead in the top of the first inning, the Brewers were behind 5-4 two innings later after a three-run homer by Lansdale’s Tyler Coleman in the second and RBI from Joe Casselberry and Matt Albaugh in the third.
Ambler responded with three runs in the top half of the fourth on a Chris Hens RBI double, a Ryan Pater sac fly and bases-loaded walk from Danny Long to temporarily regain the lead. Then, in the home half of the frame, the craziness really began.
The Tigers’ No. 9 hitter, Rocky Ferrier, came up big when he scooted an RBI single through the first base gap to cut the Ambler lead to one at 7-6 with one out. Rob Zinsmeister, the leadoff man and one of Lansdale’s top guys all season, then hit a screamer right back at Ambler player/manager Peter Moore, the starting pitcher, and hitting Moore’s right hand.
Moore exited immediately, his pitching hand already swelling up and he left to have X-rays done, posting an update late Wednesday night on Twitter that his hand was not broken. With two men on base, the unenviable task of filling in fell to Colin Kennedy, a rising senior at Hatboro-Horsham who plays there under Moore, who was not remotely close to ready to go in.
“That was not an ideal situation. I knew I was coming in if needed but Pete, well Coach Moore to me, usually throws complete games so I was hoping he was going for it,” Kennedy said. “Him getting hit in the hand like that shocked me a little bit. I just tried to get in there and get ready as fast as possible.”
Kennedy did what he could to stretch out and warm up quick, but coming in so cold, he wasn’t able to keep Lansdale off the scoreboard with Matt Hanson ripping a two-run single off the Hatter for the first hitter he faced. An error allowed one more run to score, giving the Tigers a four-spot and a 9-7 lead, but Kennedy got through without any further damage.
As soon as he got off the field, he got out his resistance bands and started stretching while the offense went back to work. The Brewers got one back when Hens doubled in Blake Rapoport, who had perhaps the quietest 5-for-5 game in history. However, they couldn’t tie the game up when Ferrier made a tremendous throw from right field on a Kennedy single to cut down Hens at home.
Still, Ambler was right where it wanted to be.
“It was our mindset coming in that whatever needed to be done, we needed to win this game and I feel like everybody contributed to accomplish that goal,” Dertouzos said.
Kennedy returned and threw a 1-2-3 shutdown inning in the fifth, a huge stop for Ambler’s defense after Lansdale had scored the prior three innings. In the top of the sixth, it was Dertouzos’ turn to be a hero, making up for his three prior at-bats that had ended in a fly out and two strikeouts.
“I had not been seeing the ball well my first couple at-bats and I just wanted to hit the ball hard somewhere,” Dertozous said. “I don’t hit very many home runs, but I wanted to hit the ball hard somewhere. That was my adjustment in my approach, to try and see a pitch out of his hand and hit it hard somewhere.” Somewhere was over the right field fence off reliever Mike Ferrier, who came in the prior inning throwing hard. Ambler then added on another run when Rapoport, who also had four runs with his five hits, scored on a Chris Kersey long single for an 11-9 lead and still time for more to happen.
And happen it did. Lansdale loaded the bases off Long, who came in to pitch the sixth, forcing Andy Noga, the slated Game 3 starter, to come in to a pressure cooker spot. Noga needed just three pitches in the sixth, getting a short comebacker that he charged off the mound to field, flipping to Dertouzos for a force at home with the catcher then rifling down to first for the inning-ending double play.
Noga stayed out to pitch the seventh and got out of that while stranding two runners. Jason Brooke, who led off with a single, injured his left leg running the bases on Coleman’s double and got thrown out hobbling into third base for the first out, giving Ambler some unexpected help in picking up the win.
Both teams now look at the series as a best-of-three, with Ambler hosting Games 3 and 5, if needed. Despite losing Wednesday, the Tigers had plenty of reasons to be confident, given their 21 runs scored in the first two games of the series.
“It’s a three-game series, we have to figure it out,” Tigers manager Jeff Murtha said. “We have to find a way to get a ‘W’ (Thursday) and put it back in our court. We’ve had good atbats, good approaches at the plate and guys running the bases well.”