Baseball Rams are looking for a turnaround W and a lucky streak after losing 5 straight games
May 8, 2024 at 10:15 p.m.
Buddy, can you spare a lucky sausage?
The hard-luck Port Chester baseball Rams could certainly use one.
And that leads into this "saws each his own" tale, "saws each" being the way sausage is pronounced in the street vernacular.
The Rams are looking for a lucky break in any size, shape or form.
Because no matter how you look at it, each in your own way, if the Rams didn't have bad luck, they wouldn't have any luck at all.
Right now the Rams are heading in the wrong direction after dropping their last five games in a row in the past week or so.
They lost a home-and-away series to Ossining, an away-and-home series to White Plains and an away game to Horace Greeley Monday (5/6).
Eye on Twins sausage
So you couldn't blame Rams head coach Sean Burke if he cast an envious eye towards Minnesota and the Major League Baseball Twins head coach Rocco Baldelli. The Twins were playing just so-so ball until they came up with the idea of the summer rally sausage.
Not that the sausage in question had any mystical, magical powers.
It just seemed to.
It was just sitting there on the clubhouse buffet table, a promotional gift from Cloverdale Foods to infielder Kyle Farmer for doing some promotional work along with his wife and their newborn babe. Kyle left the sausage on the clubhouse table in its plastic wrapper because he figured maybe somebody would like to take it home for a snack. But then came a special moment that gave birth to a superstition.
Nobody is quite sure why it happened, but this much is certain: The Twins were having a hard time against the lowly Chicago White Sox when somebody suggested throwing that hot sausage package up in the air to see if could heat up the team's sleeping bats.
They did. And did it ever.
How streak began
In a span of 16 batters, the Twins smoked five home runs and they were off on a winning streak that began Apr. 21. Each time they needed a rally, the flying sausage came into play. Up in the air it went. And the hits rained down. So much so that Minnesota won four straight games at home. And when the Twins hit the road to play the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif., hitting coach David Popkins gave the sausage to catcher Ryan Jeffers, who volunteered to transfer the encased meat cross country in his packed shoe.
And lo and behold, the once dormant Twins bats that had been more or less asleep for their first 20 games woke up like they were Rip Van Winkles instead of Louisville sluggers and produced 32 runs in a three-game sweep.
Enter the Red Sox
And while all good things must come to an end, even a hot sausage, the rally sausage had a good run with Twin players relishing it by touching the sausage for luck before at bats and including it in home run celebrations because, well, boys will be boys, and even grown men playing a boys’ game as men will be boys as well. The rally sausage led to a Twins winning streak of 12 games, the second-longest stretch in team history. It ended, alas, Sunday (5/6) when a late four-run rally by the sausage-less Boston Red Sox led to a 9-2 loss at Target Field. The Twins went 3 for an unlucky 13 with runners in scoring position but nonetheless came up just short of the franchise's longest winning streak since the 1991 Twins won 15 straight games.
Undaunted, the Twins are giving the rally sausage another try albeit with a new sausage.
Senior Ryan Gagnon is accompanied by his mother Judy, father Steve and sister Alyssa on Senior Day, Apr. 30.By Lennon Anderson
And while the Rams aren't looking to emulate the rally sausage, or even thinking about trying a rally hot dog, they are rubbing the 10573 area code on the back of their uniform jerseys for a change in their luck because if truth be told, they have been running into a stretch of bad luck since they won four in a row to go over .500 on the season after winning Port Chester's own Anthony Foust Tournament with wins over Edgemont and Blind Brook. But that winning streak led to the current losing streak against Ossining, White Plains and Greeley.
Ossining ups, downs
But even in losing, the only bad game included the 15-1 Senior Day loss to Ossining, best remembered as forgotten because the Rams can't figure out what happened that day except that if it could go wrong, it did. But the next day was a different story when they lost to the same Ossining team 4-3 with the Pride getting a walk-off base hit in the last inning. Up until that moment, junior catcher Scott Sullivan had kept the Rams in the game with two base hits (including a double), sophomore pitcher/outfielder Jordany German had come through with two clutch hits and John (Tommy) Tomassetti had tied the score with a home run. And the Rams came close to matching Ossining shot for shot, getting outhit 8-7 before losing by one run.
It was just as close in the first game against rival White Plains and hurt even more because German pitched a gem, striking out 11 batters, with the Rams leading 1-0 going into the last inning. Tomassetti came on in relief and gave up three runs with only one ball hit hard against him. Then the Rams lost the second game 4-3 and walked away thinking about what could have been because four errors cost them that game.
Sachs victimized
The Rams are still thinking about the other one that got away against Greeley because sophomore pitcher/shortstop Bryan Sachs allowed just two hits, struck out five batters and threw only 70 pitches yet lost 3-2 despite senior pitcher/first baseman Josh Virella going three for three and German getting a couple of base hits. It was a game Sachs deserved to win. But he didn't. And that was the Rams’ loss.
"If you throw out that Ossining Senior Day loss, we've lost six games by three runs or less and are still 6-10-1 which should be good enough to get us into the playoffs," Burke said in summing up the losing streak that followed the winning streak. "We've shown we can compete against the area's better teams and have the kind of pitching that can make us a threat in the playoffs. But we are a young, relatively inexperienced team. So we still have a lot of work to do. But we are close to being winners. Very close. But we are also well beyond moral victories. And we are still learning how to win the close games. And not give winnable games away. But we are getting there. And we will get there."
The upcoming deuce
That kind of determination makes what will happen in the Rams’ next two games especially intriguing because they include a winnable home game against Lincoln Friday (5/10) and a tough test Monday (5/13) at home against John Jay/East Fishkill (JJ/EF is 6-2-1, the third-ranked team in Section 1 Class AAA, just behind Ketcham and Arlington and ahead of North Rockland, Mamaroneck, Ossining, New Rochelle and Port Chester).
Of added interest: JJEF was undefeated until they lost to Clarkstown North and Arlington last week. So the Patriots are looking to get back into the winning column. And the Rams are looking to turn around their season.
That's what makes the upcoming matchups so interesting.
Sausages, anyone?
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