We spent the weekend in Lexington, Virginia going back and forth between VMI and Rockbridge High School for a tournament. we went up on friday afternoon to play at 5PM and my parents met us there. they were returning home after a week at massanutten on a time share (or massa-NOTHING, as my mother said, as there was just nothing to do there.) in any case, it was a strange trip because austin kind of made a new leap in the success of austin baseball story. first, he got to play for a change. he made a webshot kind of catch on first base, and that was pretty cool. he hit pretty well, nice night.
then saturday we had 2 games, and he was the DH in the first game. he hit one over the VMI fence, and that was pretty cool. my matron of honor from my wedding, rose tinsley, came over from stuarts draft with her son and stepson to see austin play. it was a very pleasant visit and a bit touching. her youngest, tim, went behind the stadium wall and found the ball austin had hit and came back and asked him to autograph it! austin was a bit freaked out, as he had never had anyone ask him about doing that. kind of cute. but the big shocker was when he went in to close the last inning of the game.
they have a permanent radar gun in that stadium that registers the speed of the thrown pitch. the numbers show up on the big scoreboard at center field. i wasn't paying any attention to this until my parents came over and told me to look. austin was throwing 90-93 mph fastballs. that is major league stuff. he snuffed out the opposition and then the speculation was on.
he ended up sunday DH'ing in the first 2 games and then the last game, championship, was against the lee davis bulldogs, a pickup team made up mostly of kids from the LD baseball team that andrew plays for and austin would have played with had i not moved him. taylor sandefur was pitching for them (he plays with austin at atlee) and there were a couple of other kids i didn't know. in any case, it got to be the nightmare of my life...erickson keeton, who was to be the ace, bombed out pitching. by the end of the 2nd inning, we were down to the LD team 2-6. then they put austin in. bigger nightmare for me.
he sucked it up. he pitched them out of the game and we won it. he had only 2 hits, and one of them was an error and should have been an out, but was misjudged by the center fielder and dropped. he struck out 7 people on the way and walked one, the first person he pitched to.
but the biggest deal was that taylor went out and they brought mike kluver in.
austin and mike have a long history and much of it is based upon animosity. the last time they went up against each other, mike struck austin out (ld vs. atlee, first time this season.) this was a big blow to austin, so when he got the second chance, he got to bat...and mike hit him with the first pitch. you have to wonder about that (or not, as most of us didn't, as it seemed pretty obvious what was going on.) well, nightmare continues in the new lexington venue. two outs and they bring mike in...and austin gets out on a called 3rd strike. however, this worked in his favor...he just got pissed and pitched better, and the team picked him up. we ended up coming back and beating them 8-6, with the final 2 runs coming from andrew, who really needed the boost. his RBI's were the ones that clinched it. austin had a 2 RBI double off of taylor before he got the called out.
it was kind of sweet, and gives us both cause to pause, thinking about what might happen, but trying to keep it all in perspective. it is fun to think about, but awkward to express....
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