North Star Stature Showdown, Game 6: The Restov the story

The Tall Tales clearly had the more star-studded lineup in the North Star Stature Showdown, featuring Hall of Famers Joe Mauer and Dave Winfield along with many more power bats (e.g. Cotton Nash, Miguel Sanó).

But in Game 6 of the Showdown, it was Michael Restovich that emerged as the lineup’s hero.

Restovich pinch-ran for Mike Poepping in the fourth and led the team with three hits, the Tales pummeling Lee Stange once again and emerging as Showdown champions with a 15-9 victory.

The game echoed Game 2’s offensive dominance as the score was 5-5 after two innings. The Stories used singles, a double, and an error to get theirs across both frames while the Tales used power, their second inning featuring doubles by Poepping and Nash before series MVP Mauer (.484 AVG on the series) launched a two-run dinger to cap the inning.

The next two innings belonged to the Tales. Stange allowed the first five men in the third to reach base before being relieved by Danny McDevitt, who fared no better: he immediately allowed a two-run double to Terry Jorgensen and later surrendered a Miguel Sanó sacrifice fly. In the fourth, he loaded the bases with one out and walked in a run before Carmen Cali came out of the bullpen; his inning was similar to McDevitt’s third, immediately surrendering a two-run double (this one by Scott Stahoviak) and later giving up a sac fly to Sanó.

Three innings later, Kennys Vargas finished off the Tales’ scoring with a bases-loaded RBI single.

Alas for the Stories, their nine runs off Mike Smithson were not enough for a win. César Tovar led their offense with three hits, including a home run; only one other of their 12 hits (the aforementioned early double by Donovan Solano) went for extra bases.

With that, the North Star Stature Showdown has concluded. What this means about tall people versus short people, obviously, is absolutely nothing, for Out of the Park Baseball is a computer game.

See you for the next tourney.