2017 Smokies Repeat In Lexington (KY) Adult Baseball League

Lexington Adult Baseball League

Smokies 9, Diamond Dogs 5

‘Smokies Earn ‘Back to Back’ Behind the Arm of Chris Works’

Submitted by Matt Roberts, Smokies manager

An early lead helped the Smokies defeat the Diamond Dogs 9-5 on Sunday. This Championship game was a rematch of last year’s title game, except the Dogs came from a last place regular season finish this year and a loss in the first game of the playoffs to the Smokies to make the championship. The Smokies were making their fourth straight appearance in the championship game.

The Smokies finished the season only losing two of their 20 games on the year and had first place locked up with a third of the season still remaining. Able to coast into the playoffs, the Smokies were ready to repeat as champions. The Smokies only trailed for four innings the entire playoffs.  The team is one of the best all-around teams in the LABL and has been for the better part of three years, which makes life easy for me to manage. The Smokies hope to turn the back to back championships into a three peat next season with most of the team committed to return.

The championship game saw the Smokies in control early as they scored on a single and a wild pitch in the first inning and a single by Taylor Pickett in the second inning. The Smokies scored two more runs in the fourth starting with a home run by 48 year old Mike Speck, playing in his last career game. This gave the team an extra jolt of energy. They also added three runs in the fifth inning. The Smokies’s big inning was driven by a walk by Speck and a steal home by Justin Cain.

The Diamond Dogs scored three runs in the ninth inning to make the game look a little more respectable, but the regular season last place team just did not have enough to keep up with the Smokies.

Chris Works, who won the pitching triple crown with a 0.83 ERA, 89 Ks, earned the win for the Smokies, his tenth of the year. He tossed eight innings, surrendering two runs, eight hits, striking out eight, and walking one. With the win, Works quite possibly earned league MVP honors as he was dominate all season long.

Forrest Walters took the loss for the Diamond Dogs. He went three and two-thirds innings, surrendering five runs, five hits, and striking out one.

The Smokies collected ten hits. Justin Cain and Speck each collected multiple hits for the Smokies while Speck and Nathan Martin each drove in two runs.

The Smokies offense was able to roll even without two of their biggest bats in the line-up. Eric Myer, who led the league in batting average at a .520 clip and led the league in every offensive category except home runs. He also set records with 30 stolen bases and scored 36 runs. With more regular season games he would hold countless single season records. The Smokies were also without their clean-up hitter, Jesse Tudor, who hit over .400 with a home run and was in the top three in RBIs in the league.

The Diamond Dogs had 11 hits in the game. Adam Blackwell and Chris Laporte each collected multiple hits for Diamond Dogs.  Blackwell went 3-for-4 at the plate to lead Diamond Dogs.