2007 BARB WORLD SERIES, GAME FOUR

ROOKIE DELIVERS, FINCHES TIE SERIES

Yuma—On the road, down 2-1 to the home team, the visiting Finches rolled the dice and cast their fate in the hands of rookie Yovani Gallardo, who posted a 4-1 mark with a 3.14 ERA in nine appearances after August this season, seven of them starts. Gallardo, highly-coveted in trade talks, did not disappoint. Staked to a big lead early on by the bat of David Ortiz, Gallardo would end up going the distance, needing 111 pitches to frustrate the Firebirds, who pretty much were behind the eight ball the entire affair.

Carlos Guillen, in the DH role after earlier errors in the Series, led off the game with a single. Polanco bunted Guillen over as the Finches played small ball. With one down, though, Ortiz got into a Carlos Zambrano pitch and hit it the other way, out of the ballpark, for a 2-0 Darwin lead! Chipper Jones doubled and Lance Berkman, the hero of Darwin’s playoff, drew a walk to put two on with one out. Aaron Rowand flew out softly to Markakis in left, but Jeff Francouer cleared the bases with a two-run triple in the alley over the glove of a diving Granderson and came home to score a moment later when Zambrano’s wild pitch to Estrada eluded C Russell Martin:

Darwin led, after just one half-inning of play, 5-0!

After that, it was seemingly a matter of throwing strike for Gallardo. Brian Roberts tripled and scored in the bottom of the frame for the Firebirds, but Yuma would score only a total of three runs through eight innings. By that time, Khalil Greene had gone deep off the controversy-plagued Roger Clemens in relief, Berkman had singled home a run, and Ortiz had crunched his second homer of the contest, a three-run shot.

So it was that, with a 10-3 lead, Gallardo (1-0, 3.60) was allowed to work the ninth having thrown only 96 pitches through eight frames. Markakis fanned, Tejada grounded out to Jones and when DH Raul Ibanez flied harmlessly to Jose Cruz Jr. in left, that was the ballgame. After some close games at home, the Finches had come into Yuma and evened the Series by scoring 20 (count ‘em, twenty!) runs in two games. If they could win Game Five, they would need only take one of the next two games at home to bring the Finches a world title!