(August 1, 2026 – Carrollton, TX) It certainly wasn’t the start the league’s number two seed was looking for on Saturday morning as they headed into playoff action as the Spirits (50+) squad tripped up and dropped the ball with a 7 to 4 loss to the Laguneros.
To add insult to injury, the team had to live through losing to a temper tantrum laced squad that has build a bit of a rivalry against the Spirits based on short fuses and bush league play.
“It’s a kick in the groin,” team skipper, Shawn Lee mentioned. “We try to take the high road when they are losing their minds on the field yelling at one another or bullying the umpires, only to see ourselves ending up on the losing end. They have a good team, but you just know you’re in for a long seven innings when you play them.”
To add some controversy to the picture, Lee later found out that the team was brining bad baseballs onto the field each time they played defense, effectively leading to some dead hits and at-bats that would normally see the baseball travel better.
“I found out about this after the fact,” Lee continued. “You can bet your ass we would have done something about it otherwise.”
The Laguneros started out fast with a 3-run first inning off of Spirits starter, Kevin Simmons. Simmons only pitched for 3.2 innings and gave up a total of 5 earned runs off 6 hits and struggled mightily with control, walking 8 while fanning 2.
Earl German did his best to stop the bleeding in his 3.1 innings of work, allowing just one earned off a single hit while walking 2 and striking out 1.
Unfortunately for the ghosts, the main ingredient to their success was lacking with that ingredient being a high-octane offense. The team settled for 9 hits but only put up 4 runs. Dee Mauldin and Kirk Sipila each finished with a pair of hits, with Sipila adding a double. Brian Kellner and Steven Nutt also added doubles with Kellner adding a run and a pair of runs batted in but the Spirits offense failed to find ways to put runs on the board or to string a number of hits together.
The loss only sets the team back momentarily as they head into a second game in the best-of-three series over the weekend.
Spirits Players of the Game
Brian Kellner (1-3, 2B, R, 2 RBI)
Kirk Sipila (2-3, 2B, 2 R)
Dee Mauldin (2-3, R)