Sports
Baysox Still Wondering About Tough Ending
Baysox come up just short; team releases 2012 schedule
Baseball can be a very strange game sometimes. The Bowie Baysox will confirm that, especially after what happened at the end of their season.
The Baysox just missed an Eastern League playoff spot due to an odd rule situation, and it's something that made a good season end in a tough manner.
Heading into the final day, Bowie needed a win plus a loss from Richmond to tie for the final playoff spot and set up a sudden-death playoff game. The Baysox won, and Richmond took a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth inning of its game before the contest was delayed at that point and then stopped due to rain.
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People assumed that meant the game would go back to the last completed inning, leaving the game tied—the rule that fits in most situations like that. But there's a small rule that states that because this was the final time those two teams met that, as long as the game is official, both teams don't have to bat the same amount of times.
"It's a stated rule," said Bowie communications manager Matt Wilson. "It was unfortunate, but there was really nothing we could do about it. That's baseball. Those things happen."
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Bowie finished with a 75-66 record, one-half game behind Richmond (76-66) in the Western Division. The Baysox played one less game because of the large amount of problems with rain throughout the final weeks of the season.
Scheduling problems kept the Baysox from making up one of the games they lost, and not getting the chance to play 142 games helped keep them out of the playoffs.
"It was really tough," said Bowie pitcher Tim Bascom. "We didn't play great towards the end, but we strung it together and really battled to get those wins we needed at the end of the year. For us not to be in there is really tough and for it to come down the way it did...is really, really hard."
The Baysox also released their 2012 schedule earlier in the week. This will be the team’s 20th season, and they open it with a home game versus Harrisburg on Thursday April 5. They play 71 home games overall.
