Venezuela Clutch Defense Ends Central America Cinderella Run

The most excited play in Statis-Pro Baseball is the Clutch Defense play down the 3rd or 1st base line, because the corner defender can do anything from a great catch and double off the runner, to letting it get by for a bases clearing extra base hit. Clutch Defensive plays, plus one defensive throw save Venezuela for a 3-2 win in 11 innings to advance to the playoffs.

Here is the clutch defense chart we use from the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. 

With Central America trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th, Rod Carew hit a ball down the third base line after the speedy pinch runner Omar Moreno has stolen second base and used his OBR A to advance to third on a groundout.  If the ball had gone down the line Central America would have won the game in the next inning after two straight come-from-behind upsets of Asia to make a stunning playoff run.

Instead third baseman Omar Vizquel, who had replaced Edgardo Alfonzo (we allow shortstops to play third or second base), made a diving Clutch Defensive play to not only record the second out but then tag the third base bag to eliminate Moreno.

In the bottom of the 9th Central America did tie the game with one-out singles by Frankie Austin and Jorge Orta. After Carlos Lee drew a walk to load the bases with two outs, Ben Oglivie singled in the game-tying single. However, it appeared it would be the game-winning single to send Central America to the playoffs until left fielder Bobby Abreu threw Orta out at the plate to force extra innings.

Still it looked like Central America had the edge with Mariano Rivera on the mound, and we do allow relievers to go more than their normal maximum innings if they do not enter the game until the 9th inning or later. Rivera's RR (endurance) is 3, but because he threw a perfect 9th and 10th, he still had RR1 left going into the 11th. He kept that in tact by striking out Salvador Perez to start the inning and leave the extra inning runner Miguel Cabrera on 2nd base with one out. Rivera then induced a grounder to short from Magglio Ordonez that made it eight up and eight down.

The on what should have been his last batter to make it three straight 1-2-3 innings before being lifted for a pinch hitter, Rivera induced another grounder to shortstop, only this time Austin needed to come up with a Clutch Defensive play and he did not, allowing a ground single do go through to score the runner and ultimately make Rivera the loser despite allowing only the unearned inherited runner.

Venezuela was way past their top closer and set-up pitchers by the 11th, so had to put in PB 4-7 Freddy Garcia for the save, but he retired them 1-2-3 for the 3-2 win. Venezuela advances to the first playoff poll against California, the Dominican Republic and either Pennsylvania or New York with only one team advancing for the 6-game poll to make the championship pool against Texas, Puerto Rico and Florida.
 

1-game playin	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11		R	H	E
Venezuela	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	1		3	6	0
Central America	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0		2	6	0

 

Venezuela	Pos	AB	R	H	RBI	Note		Central America	Pos	AB	R	H	RBI	Notes
Ronald Acuna Jr.	7-OF	3	1	1	0	3b		Rod Carew	3-1B	5	0	0	0	robbed
Jose Altuve	4-2B	5	1	1	0			Roberto Kelly	7-OF	5	0	0	0
Luis Aparicio	6-SS	5	0	1	2			Frankie Austin	6-SS	5	1	1	0
Bobby Abreu	7-OF	4	0	1	0	sb		Bobby Avila	4-2B	4	1	1	1
Miguel Cabrera	3-1B	4	1	1	0	2b		Everth Cabrera	PR	0	1	0	0
Salvador Perez	2-C	5	0	0	0			Jorge Orta	4-2B	2	0	1	0	3b
Magglio Ordonez	7-OF	5	0	0	0			Manny Sanguillen	2-C	4	0	2	0
Edgardo Alfonzo	5-3B	2	0	2	0	2b		Carlos Lee	7-OF	3	0	0	0
Omar Vizquel	5-3B	3	0	1	1	GW		Ben Oglivie	7-OF	4	0	1	0
Pablo Lopez	1-P	1	0	0	0			Vinny Castilla	5-3B	1	0	0	0	2 bb
Victor Martinez	PH	1	0	0	0			Omar Moreno	PR	0	0	0	0	sb
Cesar Tovar	PH	1	0	0	0			Aurelio Rodriguez	5-3B	1	0	0	0
Carlos Gonzalez	PH	1	0	0	0			Teddy Higuera	1-P	1	0	0	0
Andres Galarraga	PH	1	0	0	0			Adolfo Phillips	PH	1	0	0	0
								Rennie Stennett	PH	1	0	0	0
								Mariano Rivera	1-P	0	0	0	0	Sac
								Alex Trevino	PH	1	0	0	0
Totals		41	3	8	3			Totals		38	3	6	1

   

Th	Venezuela Pitching	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W	K	Dec
RHP	Pablo Lopez	4-7'	4	0	0	0	0	1
LHP	Ranger Suarez	2-8'	1	2	1	1	1	3
RHP	Ugueth Urbina	2-8'	1	0	0	0	0	0
RHP	Carlos Carrasco	4-7'	1	1	0	0	0	0
LHP	Felipe Vazquez	2-9'	1	0	0	0	1	0
RHP	Francisco Rodriguez	2-9'	1	3	0	0	1	0
RHP	Anibal Sanchez	4-7'	1	0	0	0	0	0	W
RHP	Freddy Garcia	4-7'	1	0	0	0	0	1	S
Th	Central America	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W	K	Dec
LHP	Teddy Higuera	4-7'	4	3	0	0	1	3
RHP	Cy Acosta	2-8'	1	0	0	0	2	0
RHP	Yovani Gallardo	4-7'	0.2	1	2	2	1	0
RHP	Joakim Soria	2-8'	0.1	2	0	0	0	1
RHP	Roberto Osuna	2-8'	1	0	0	0	0	0
RHP	Mariano Rivera	2-9'	3	1	1	0	0	4	L

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