Sunday afternoon, the Sod Poodles finished an inauspicious opening to their 2024 season at Hodgetown. They lost to the San Antonio Missions 9-4 as San Antonio came to town and completed a three-game sweep of the Soddies.
It was a disappointing start to the season for the Sod Poodles, who return several catalysts from last year’s team which won the Texas League championship. The good news is that there are 137 games left in the season to right the ship.
New Sod Poodles manager Tim Bogar found the three days to be eye-opening to say the least.
“This was an interesting first three games for us,” Bogar said. “We need to throw more strikes, we need to play better defense, we need to run the bases a little bit better. It’s all part of understanding who we are. I thought we played hard, we just didn’t get the results we needed to get.”
The loss in the series finale was actually to closest game in the series for the Soddies, who were beaten by a combined 39-14 margin over three days. That’s an indication of how rough a series it was for the Sod Poodles’ pitching staff, especially the bullpen.
Symbolizing a rough series for the bullpen in general was Saturday’s performance, which the Sod Poodles lost 18-5. That wasn’t even the whole story, though, as six Sod Poodles pitchers combined to walk 14 Missions batters, setting a dubious franchise record.
The Sod Poodles used their entire bullpen in the series, and the good news is that they know what they have to work with and what needs to be done from this point.
“We don’t have roles right now per se,” Bogar said. “We’ve got guys who can go multiple innings back-to-back. We’re trying to put them in the best position possible to see if they can succeed. I think all that’s going to be cleared up in the next couple of weeks.”
The series opened with left-hander Yu-Min Lin, the top rated pitching prospect in the Soddies parent club Arizona Diamondbacks organization, going three innings. Lin gave up a first inning run, but that was it.
San Antonio took control of the game (and the series) by scoring seven runs in the top of the fifth en route to a 12-5 win. The Sod Poodles didn’t lead the entire series.
Here are some offensive highlights from the series.
The home run that wasn’t
The Sod Poodles trailed 10-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning of the first game and had cut the score to 10-2 when Deyvison De Los Santos came to the plate with two outs and two runners on base.
De Los Santos lined a shot which ricocheted off the top of the short fence in right field, and San Antonio’s right fielder Robert Perez couldn’t corral the bounce and it hopped off him and over the wall, appearing to result in a three-run home run.
However, after a delay, the umpires gathered and ruled the ball was a ground-rule double, scoring one run and putting De Los Santos at second and Ivan Melendez at third. Missions reliever Omar Cruz then entered the game and struck out Caleb Roberts, and the Soddies got no closer.
Graham cracks lineup, shows he belongs
Through the first two games of the season, Sod Poodles outfielder Kevin Graham spent most of his time on the bench, making a forgettable debut in Saturday’s second game when he struck out in a pinch-hitting appearance in the eighth inning.
Graham was placed in the starting lineup batting seventh on Sunday, and had a better day. He went 4-for-4 with two RBIs and a double for the best individual single game offensive performance in the series by a Sod Poodle.
Bogar said he liked what he saw from Graham in spring training but isn’t going to base his expectations for the season for Graham entirely on one game.
“We’re going to stick to what we’re supposed to be doing and we’ll see what happens,” Bogar said. “He’s going to get his opportunities, and obviously when he gets them and he does well, it’s going to breed more. He did nothing to hurt himself.”
Vukovich’s feast or famine
Through his first five at-bats of the season, outfielder A.J. Vukovich didn’t exactly remind the Hodgetown faithful of why he was the team’s most accomplished returning hitter from last year. Vukovich struck out in each of his first five at-bats.
But when Vukovich led off the fourth inning of Saturday’s game with a tape-measure homer to left center, he looked like the guy who hit 24 homers and 96 RBIs last season. It was the first of his two homers on the game, as he also had a two-run shot to right in the eighth inning and finished the game with four RBIs.