The Coral Gables A's vs South Dade Suela. It doesn't get more men's league than that.
The Coral Gables A’s played our archrivals, South Dade Suela, in the second round of our league playoffs. Did we finally slay our playoff Suela demons? Or did they rise to the occasion once again?
You Again?
As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the Coral Gables A’s and South Dade Suela will play in multiple win-or-go-home games per year. We play in the same league, go to the same national tournaments, and win a lot. That’s a recipe for some high-stakes clashes.
We finished this season 10-2 and the number-1 overall seed heading into the playoffs. Suela, curiously, went just 6-6 and squeaked into the playoffs as the eighth and last seed. We had a bye and they took care of business in round one, so surprise, surprise, they lined up to play us in round two. Each team is well aware that they will likely have to beat the other team in order to win a title, any title. Might as well get them out of the way.
THAT Guy
Our winning percentage against Suela hinges on one factor and one factor only: do they have their ace on the mound? If he is not pitching, we take care of business, as we did in our two meetings in the regular season. If he is pitching, well, we need to be ready to battle.
The last time he pitched against us was in a national tournament in the championship game. We lost 1-0 in 11 innings. He threw an 11-inning shutout and allowed one hit, which was questionable. You could make an argument he threw an 11-inning no-hitter. The last time he pitched against us in our league playoffs, he threw a 9-inning shutout and struck out 18. Suela is a talented and deep team without him, but he is their trump card. Without him, we are the better team. With him, they seem invincible at times.
His name is Orestes and he pitched in the Phillies organization. He’s a lefty, throws a fastball, changeup, slider, and curveball in any count and from different arm angles, has pinpoint control, and has a rubber arm, as evidenced by his 11-inning gem. His fastball can range anywhere from the low-80s to the low-90s; he’s excellent at mixing speeds. All three of his off-speed pitches can get swings and misses. He has a good pickoff move to first and second base. To put it simply, Orestes has no exploitable flaws as a pitcher. In order to beat him, you just have to beat him. I hate hyping up opposing pitchers, but this guy is just good.
We were hoping to face somebody new, but no one was expecting to see anyone else toeing the rubber for Suela. It was us versus Orestes.
A Rivalry Renewed
Nick couldn’t make it to this game, so I was the acting manager. I walked to the home plate meeting between managers and umpires, and was surprised to see a face I hadn’t seen in years. A home plate ump who used to get a lot of our games, but hasn’t in a while for some reason. “Surprised” might be the wrong adjective to describe my emotional state upon seeing who would be behind the plate. Horrified is more like it.
The book on this umpire has always been very clear. Imagine the most sensitive person you know. Imagine the most sensitive person you have ever known. Now take that person’s level of sensitivity and amplify it tenfold. Throw in a rudimentary, at best, understanding of the strike zone. You’ve now created this umpire. We are not a quiet team, but we mostly just chirp. Our gripes with umpires are not ejection-worthy; we know when to stop most of the time. Nevertheless, this itty bitty umpire used to throw one to two of our guys out per game. Your first questioning of his infallibility would result in a warning for the whole team. On the next objection of any kind, you’re gone. He used to dye his hair bleach blonde to complete the look of being the biggest fucking tool imaginable.
In summation, I wasn’t ecstatic seeing who would be calling balls and strikes. “Where’s Miguel?” he asked me as I handed over the lineup card. Miguel was our longtime manager who was last in our dugout three years ago. It’s been that long since we had this guy. Maybe he’s softened up? Maybe the loss of the bleached blonde look, now replace by a salt and pepper buzzcut, signified the development of an evolved, more mature version of himself?
This was a masterclass in glass-half-full thinking on my part.
Trip Aces
Suela might have had Orestes on the mound, but we were right with them in the arms race. We had Aldo, Oscar, and Angel ready for this game, with the plan being for each of them to go three innings. Lefty-righty-lefty. Make it hard for any of their hitters to get used to a particular look.
Aldo finished the regular season with a 1.39 ERA. Oscar was at 2.46. Angel was at 2.04. There’s no denying how good their ace is, but I liked our chances with our stable of horses.
The first batter of the game was a lefty. With a full count, Aldo throws a cutter that starts at his hip and darts over the plate. Over a good chunk of the plate. Over a good chunk of the plate that no umpire, being of sound mind and body, would call a ball. I was playing centerfield and got a perfect vantage point. Ball four. Aldo gets mildly frustrated. He doesn’t direct his frustration at the umpire, but says something generic like "goddamnit" or "c’mon." Heeeere comes the dick-measuring contest.
Umpire takes his mask off, walks in front of the plate, points at Aldo and gives him a warning. One batter into the game and our team has now been hamstrung on disputing any balls and strikes for fear of an immediate ejection. The strike zone remained the same for the rest of the inning, as in, if Aldo didn’t throw it over the heart of the plate, it was a ball. One run came across. The umpire pulled me aside as I was running into the dugout after the inning to reiterate that he had given Aldo a warning and that no one would be arguing balls and strikes today.
Maybe the blonde hair actually suppressed his Psychology textbook-worthy fragility and insecurity. He’s gotten worse.
Slaying the Dragon?
Falling behind early is certainly not something you want to do against Suela in the playoffs, but there we were down one-zip in the bottom of the 1st. Xavier, who goes by X and is our usual shortstop and leadoff hitter, has always hit Orestes relatively well, somehow. The one hit he allowed in his 11-inning shutout was X’s, and in general he’s just seen his pitches better than most. That continued here, as he led off the inning with a single. Amed would smoke a double into the gap two batters later and X motored around to score. 1-1 after the 1st. Our first run scored off Suela's ace since…I don’t even know.
Unfortunately, the dragon we couldn’t slay was behind the plate. It’s not like they were getting an enormous zone, but at least the corners were there for the taking. Aldo had no corners to work with, and their lineup picked up on that immediately. Their two-strike swings looked like hitter’s count swings. Why protect the zone when there’s practically no zone to protect? They were being selective and looking for pitches to drive even if they were down 0-2. Didn’t matter. Two more runs came across in the 2nd inning to make it 3-1, them.
Their ace cruised through the bottom of the 2nd. Aldo, somehow, threw a scoreless 3rd. Orestes got around a hit and a hit-by-pitch in the 3rd for another scoreless inning. Still 3-1 going in the 4th. We replaced Aldo with Oscar.
No Swing, No Strike
Still no strike zone to speak of. Oscar gets to two outs and two strikes, spins a beautiful 12-6 curveball that darts over the plate; a strike in every era of baseball that has existed. Ball. The hitter doubles later in the at bat to make it 4-1.
Amed barked at the ump a bunch on his way to the dugout from the outfield. Napoleon marches towards our dugout ready to toss him if I don’t get in the way, which I do. Amed stays in the game.
We go quietly in the bottom half of the 4th, and a misplayed ball gives them a run in the 5th. 5-1 now, and running out of real estate.
A base hit by me, a hit-by-pitch from Amed, and a walk by Andy got us in business in the 5th. Matt chopped a ball through the 5-6 hole to bring two runs in, though Orestes later got out of it by inducing an inning-ending double play. 5-3.
Suela continued to take advantage of the iPhone-sized strike zone and laced three hits to bring in two more runs in the 6th. 7-3. Centerfield was not the place to be for this shitshow, since I got such a good view of just how much we were getting fucked with balls and strikes. Once or twice an inning I’d scream things into my glove that would make a drunk sailor uncomfortable.
Speed Kills
We finally put a dent in things in the 6th. Alex, our catcher, led the inning off with a single. Two batters later Cisco, a speedy outfielder, smoked a ball over the centerfielder’s head for a double that brought Alex all the way around from first. 7-4. X reached on an infield single that Cisco did not advance on, so I came up with two men on.
Cisco is a terror on the basepaths. For one, he’s a rocket. But he’s also a risk-taker who torments pitchers and catchers. I saw him creeping farther and farther off second base after each pitch. Suela’s catcher has a good arm and likes to use it; it wouldn’t be long before he tried to pick him off. Sure enough, the catcher eventually snapped a throw to second on a ball out of the zone, which Cisco was baiting him to do. He broke for third as soon as the catcher let go of the ball and was safe with a head-first slide. First and third now.
I grounded into a fielder’s choice that scored Cisco from third. 7-5. Andy battled and battled before drawing a well-earned walk. That brought Matt up, who would not be denied that day.
Orestes left a fastball up and Matt did what he’s done all season; punish it. He sent a ball into the right-centerfield gap that cleared the bases. Tie ballgame. 7-all.
Ten vs. Nine
Oscar was replaced by Angel, who had a similar time dealing with the absence of a strike zone. Looking only for pitches down the middle, Suela used two walks and a hit to score two runs, after the walks advanced on a passed ball. An error led to one more run, and the inning ended with us down 10-7.
Orestes managed to throw one more inning, tossing a scoreless bottom of the 7th. Angel worked a scoreless bottom of the 8th. Orestes was replaced by a tall righty who lives off his change-up.
We’ve faced this guy a few times and gotten mixed results. I distinctly remember a shutout he threw against us in a tournament, probably four or five years ago. After that game, however, we’ve seen him maybe a handful more times, always in a relief appearance. We’ve hit him well in that role.
As for Orestes, we have never had that kind of success off him. I have seen him have slightly better stuff. His slider was loopier than usual; it became more of a curveball, as opposed to the sharp, darting action it normally has. His fastball was also down a tick or two. I doubt he threw anything higher than 87 or 88 and probably averaged something a little below that. Although our strike zone was infinitely larger than theirs, it was still on the smaller side, which helped our offense. I was damn proud of how we handled him.
We couldn’t get anything going in the 8th off the tall righty. Angel ran into some trouble in the top of the 9th, letting up two more runs. A third run came across on an error.
We went quietly in the 9th. Final score: 13-7. We had no shortage of words for the umpire as he was leaving the field.
Can I Speak to Your Manager?
There’s not much more I can say. After a 1st place finish in the regular season, we were one-and-done in the playoffs, largely on the back of a singular performance by an old nemesis behind the plate. We did not play good defense, and to their credit, they adjusted to the strike zone and did a good job off our pitching. They are excellent hitters. But the influence of balls and strikes cannot be understated in this game. “The worst part is he’s Puerto Rican,” said Alex near the end of the game. Alex is also Puerto Rican, something he and the umpire established in the 1st inning. No amount of shared patriotism was going to help us get a better zone to work with on that fateful Sunday morning.
With the wound still fresh, I decided to vent to the commissioner of our league shortly after the game like a real Karen. I wasn’t protesting. No rules were technically broken and there’s no shame in losing to Suela. I just wanted to make it crystal clear how blatant the bias was behind the plate, and to strongly suggest that this man not officiate any more of the league’s playoff games. He’s overly sensitive, holds grudges, apparently across multiple years, and is fully willing to use his influence to sway the outcome of the game in one way or another.
The commissioner called me immediately. He explained that he has been trying to get this umpire removed from his league for years, and for the same reasons I just highlighted. It’s not just us, apparently. The problem is that the head of the umpire organization that our league uses is a good friend of this umpire. So no matter how many times our commissioner has asked the “head ump,” so to speak, to get rid of this jabroni, he won’t do it. And one bad egg isn’t worth losing access to all the other umpires used in our league.
Understandable, I guess. He then asked me if I could re-write my complaint in a more formal manner and send it to the head of the ump organization. Perhaps hearing it from someone else would make him finally change his mind. I did. Let’s see what happens.
Thaaaat’ll do it for the Coral Gables A’s 2024 Spring season. We had some spectacular highs and lows, finishing 10-3 overall. This was certainly a sour note to end on, but looking to the future, we have a good core of guys who are hungry to avenge our unfortunate playoff exit this season. We’ll be back in action soon.
Stay tuned for some big developments…
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