NoCo Commits Six Errors in Another Crazy Loss

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- This Thirst-Day Thursday game in Colorado Springs was drunk.

Fittingly, a walk-off error ended things. The Owlz (7-7) committed six errors that turned into six unearned runs. They only scored seven themselves, four of them on a grand slam and one as a gift, and the Vibes (6-8) took advantage of two ninth-inning NoCo errors to take a second-straight win.

A game that got delayed more than an hour started with a pair of pitchers making their first starts of the season.

For the Owlz, CJ Grant-DeBose posed as the spot-starter. He allowed five runs in his 1.2 innings of effort. Not a single one of them went down as earned. Grant-DeBose walked two and tossed no strikeouts.

He stepped aside for Austin Schneider, who himself entered the game off a spot start. On Sunday, the reliever made it through four innings. On Thursday, he upped the ante and added 4.2 innings. In doing so, he now owns NoCo's longest relief appearance of the year. 

The Owlz offered run support for the first time in the fourth. Tim Bouchard began the inning with a walk. Kevin Higgins and Abdel Guadalupe both bopped a single. First pitch with the bases loaded, Cameron Phelts felt the rush of recording the Owlz first grand slam since the move to NoCo. His moonshot made the score 5-4.

It stayed that way until the seventh. The home team tacked on two insurance runs off Schneider.

And given what happened next, they needed them both.

The Owlz usual suspects started the inning with consecutive hits. Bouchard doubled. Higgins hacked his third hit of the night. Nothing out of the ordinary. Higgins' hit scored Bouchard, and Dakota Popham plated Higgins with a two-out single to center.

That's when things got hairy. Hang in there while we explain this ...

With Popham on first, Ty Lewis laced a liner that just snuck into fair territory down the right field line. It was so close, in fact, that any member of the Vibes bullpen could have reached out and touched it.

That contact's exactly what happened. But that's not what the umpires said at the time. 

In real time, Popham tried scoring all the way from first and got thrown out at home, 9-3-2. In hindsight, the crew determined a reliever reached out and touched the live ball.

So, after a play at the plate just prevented a run, the Owlz scored a run anyway. Best guess is that the crew claimed the ball should have been called dead when the Rocky Mountain reliever touched it and automatically moved everyone up a base. 

Truthfully, though, your guess is as good as mine. Not many of us heard an explanation as to how the umps came to that conclusion.

Someone who did hear the explanation was Vibes manager Joe Mikulik. He did not like it, and he did not last long into his argument before being ejected.

Worse for the Vibes, all that nonsense knotted up the game.

It stayed tied until the bottom of the ninth. The Owlz botched a likely double-play opportunity, and an errant throw on a bunt attempt the next at-bat brought home Rocky Mountain's winning run. 

Their six errors ties the team's season high in that category. NoCo's committed that many only on other time. It actually came vs. the Vibes, back on June 2. 

Despite the disappointing fielding performance, certain birds banked pretty good nights with the bats. Higgins has himself 30 multi-hit games this season, including 11 three-hit games. The shortstop's socked three hits in three of his last four games. He's recorded an RBI in all four of those games. Popham put together a multi-hit game of his own, his second two-hit game since joining NoCo last home stand. Robbie Kellerman conked a couple singles, giving him his fourth two-hit game of the year.

Phelts matched his season-high mark for RBI in a game with four, providing more than half the team's total runs with that one swing.

I'll say it again: it's always something in Springs.

Back again for the absurdity on Friday. First pitch between these two is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.