{"id":282213,"date":"2018-08-14T06:04:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=282213"},"modified":"2018-08-14T06:04:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:04:19","slug":"aces-falcons-boost-playoff-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/aces-falcons-boost-playoff-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Aces, Falcons boost playoff bid"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Falcons pitcher makes eye contact with their catcher before throwing to home plate during their first round game against the Blue Jays in the 2018 Saipan Baseball League at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Defending champions Aces and last year\u2019s finalists Falcons strengthened their playoff chances after prevailing in separate matches last week at the resumption of action in the 2018 Saipan Baseball League at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield.<\/p>\n

The Aces edged the Mariners in last Thursday\u2019s game, 5-3, while the Falcons dominated the Blue Jays last Wednesday, 14-6. With their victories, the Falcons and Aces improved their records to 11-5 and 11-6, respectively. <\/p>\n

The Falcons moved up to solo third place in the team standings, while the Aces are in fourth place, slightly ahead of the Mariners (10-6). The Falcons, Aces, and Mariners are battling for the last two playoff berths, as the Chalan Kanoa Bears (15-1) and Go See Mark (13-3) have already secured the first two semis tickets. The Blue Jays (4-11), Titanium (9-8), Ballistics (5-11), Indians (2-13), and Outlaws (0-16) complete the standings and have been eliminated.<\/p>\n

The Aces pulled off a come-from-behind win over the Mariners after scoring three runs at the bottom of the eighth inning. The defending champions started the pivotal inning behind, 2-3, and then stole the lead, 4-3, when John Tudela and Barry Sunumai reached off the Mariners\u2019 errors. Ben Jones added one more run when he made it home off a hit by pitch before Angel Falig flied out at center field for the third out. <\/p>\n

Nate Smith\u2019s catch on Falig\u2019 shot left three Aces\u2019 runners stranded and kept the Mariners in the game. However, the Mariners failed to counter at the top of the ninth inning, as the Aces got the two quick outs\u2014Ton Tenorio was beaten at first on a 6-3 play and Devyn Flores flying out at centerfield\u2014and Pat Tenorio went down on a 6-4 putout play after Yamada advanced to first off a fielder\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n

With the close lose, the Mariners needed to win against the Indians last night to remain in playoff contention. After yesterday\u2019s game, the Mariners are supposed to have one more match, but their duel against Ballistics will no longer be played and the former automatically get the win, as the latter had already forfeited it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Falcons are in a good position to march into the playoffs after notching win No. 11 with two games left in their schedule.<\/p>\n

A 10-run top of the fourth inning powered the Falcons to the important victory over the Blue Jays. The Falcons were down after three complete innings, 1-3, before they made a run at the top of the fourth. Frankie Lifoifoi highlighted the Falcons\u2019 juggernaut, as he blasted a two-run triple and also scored one run. Bradley Lieto and J.J. Lifoifoi added two runs apiece and the Falcons got six of their runs off the Blues Jays\u2019 defensive meltdowns.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays never recovered from thereon, as the Falcons shut down their foes from the fifth to seventh inning and also in the ninth. The Blue Jays\u2019 three other runs made in the fourth and eighth inning were all unearned.<\/p>\n

After beating the Blue Jays last week, the Falcons will return to the \u201cTan Ko\u201d field today to face the Aces in a crucial game. The Tanapag-based team will then close out their regular season campaign this Friday when they challenge the streaking Bears, who have yet to drop a game in the second round of the elimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defending champions Aces and last year\u2019s finalists Falcons strengthened their playoff chances after prevailing in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":282215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22316,10493,133,1352],"class_list":["post-282213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-barry-sunumai","tag-blue-jays","tag-run","tag-saipan-baseball-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}