A Rough Opening Night

Local radio AM 930 KBAI picked up the broadcast of today’s opening day matchup, so this was one of the few games that I (unfortunately) wasn’t able to call! I would have loved to welcome you to “The Joe” for 2010's first pitch, but instead you were treated to Mark and Tom from KBAI with the play-by-play.

After a smile-enducing six innings, when the Bells had a 5-2 lead, it looked like smooth sailing next to the northwest coastline (it had rained earlier in the day, but it ended up being a nice night!). However, they gave up a seventh inning scoring spree to the Kelowna Falcons and suffered a 10-7 opening night loss.

Bells ace Tyrell Poggemeyer started the game and was impressive through six innings, striking out four and allowing only two runs. Then, in a critical, and stomach-churning, seventh inning, the B-Town Boys surrendered five runs. The bullpen went on to walk five consecutive batters in the next inning and gave up three runs.

On the offensive side, the lineup jumped out to an early lead in the second inning when catcher Mike Chiarelli pounded a three-run double into right-centerfield. The subsequent inning yielded two more runs when returning first baseman Beau Brett smashed a shot into right, producing two runs. The boys from Bellingham mounted a comeback in the bottom of the eighth inning on a fielder’s choice and a past ball, but it wasn’t enough for the Bells to take a victory.

Here's a link to the box score: http://westcoast.bbstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=5549&teamid=3135

There are plenty of reasons that the Bells didn't show too well tonight. I pointed out in my last post that most of our big-name players aren't here yet (NCAA tourney), so we had a roster of players who, on average, haven't faced live pitching for about two weeks. But the same can be said for the Falcons, so chalk it up to that horrid seventh inning. Tyrell had tossed about 95 pitches and Coach Kevin Matthews was reluctant to yank him since he'd been wonderful until that point.

The bats were cold after the first few frames, most notably from the top of the lineup: the Bells' first four hitters produced two hits in 17 combined ABs. This stat I'm sure will improve once the season gets rolling, but it's something to get working on in the cage nonetheless.

Coach Matthews told me after the game that Cordell Greene will get the start tomorrow. He's one of the best small-college players in the country, and the coach tells me that he's pretty sure that by the time school roles around in September, Cordell won't be a "small-college" pitcher anymore. What's the rumor? Tune in tomorrow night to find out!

First pitch from JMF is agian 6:30, click the link on www.belllinghambells.com to find the stream.