Boom Let One Flip Away Analysis

Boom Let One Slip Away

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. – The second night in a row produced the same result, as the Altamonte Springs Boom suffered a 3-2 loss to the Sanford River Rats, at Lake Brantley High School, Wednesday night. They now sit one and one-half games out of first place, with 12 games left in the regular season. They also wasted another quality start by their starting pitcher, this time it was Matt Hardy (Nova Southeastern), who took the hard-luck loss. “I was in a really good groove the first six innings.” Hardy said, “I did not have the same feeling in the seventh.”

His start was the second in two nights for Boom starting pitchers, however they both suffered tough losses. After allowing two hits and one walk in the seventh inning, with one out, Austin Glorious (St. Thomas) relieved him out of the bullpen. The first batter walked to score the tying run, before Glorious uncorked a wild pitch, which allowed the second run to come in. The River Rats tallied one run in the top of the eighth to saddle Hardy with the loss.

After leaving one runner on second in the previous inning, the eighth looked as if the Boom would at least tie, if not take the lead. Daniel Sweet (Dallas Baptist), Michael Gizzi (State College of Florida) and Matt Gandy (Creighton) worked consecutive base-on-balls to load the bases with no one out. Sanford made a pitching change, with Cody Henry (Alabama) coming to the plate. He lined a frozen rope over a ducking Gizzi, right at the short stop, who beat Gizzi back to the second base bag, for the double play. Sweet scampered home, as the first pitch of Garrett Wolforth’s (Dallas Baptist) at-bat, got away from the catcher. Wolforth earned the fourth walk of the inning, before Chris Townsend (Central Arkansas) was thrown out, when he tried to reach base on a bunt