Written by Biko Skalla:

 

The Nanners ventured out to Macon for a little July 4th baseball and escaped with a nail biter of a victory, 19-3. The nickname train is gonna be straight guzzling coal in this article because as you can tell, a few guys had decent games tonight.

It all started with a Jesse, If You Think I’m Mad About Weak Contact You Couldn’t Be More Wrong, I Just Wanna Score Runs, Sherrill, leadoff walk. Innocent I know, leadoff walks happen all the time. Unfortunately for the Bacon and their giddy fans who were hoping for an Independence Day victory, what followed the leadoff walk was a pure potassium fueled pounding. Danny, If I Get Drafted Next Week I’m Asking for a Clause in My Contract That I Can Play for the Bananas in the CPL Playoffs, Oberst, drove Jesse in with a line drive single. Then Livan, Just Think How Good I’ll be When My Hand is Fully Healed, Reinoso, drove in Dan with his own line drive single. Bryson, I Mean I’ll Take it, Bloomer, reached on an E-5 and Eduardo, I Went 2-4 Today With a Double, 2 RBI’s, and a Run Scored, Do We Really Need to Mention My Strikeout Looking in the First, Malinowski, struck out looking. Then Tristan, I’ve Got Dumb Pop in Batting Practice but Darnit I Just Love Hitting Singles in Games, Peters, drove in Livan with a single through the right side. Bill, Honestly I Don’t Think the 4th Inning Tonight Was That Cool, Knight, drove in Bryson with, you guessed it, a single up the middle. Zane, Eduardo and I Just Cannot Comprehend Why These 1st Inning Strikeouts Matter at All When We Both Had Big Nights and the Team Won By 16 Runs, Denton, struck out swinging. With 2 down, Nick, Now’s Probably a Good Time to Head to the Grocery Store for Some Salami, Mustard, and Rye Bread, Clarno, yanked a grounder down the left field line and was robbed by his former North Georgia teammate Niklovs Levensteins (pronounced like Frankenstein), of extra bases and an extra RBI, keeping Clarno to an infield single as Peters scored and Knight went from 2nd to 3rd.

All in all, the Bananas left the 1st inning up 5-0 on 5 RBI singles, which is quite cool in it’s own right. After a scoreless 2nd, with 2 outs in the top of the 3rd Zane stroked a double to right-center field, bringing home Tristan to make it 6-0.

Then the 4th inning happened. Oh my did the 4th inning happen. Once again Jesse was the spark plug, chopping an infield single over the pitchers mound and easily beating the wrap from short. Danny cranked a single up the middle and the boys double stole 2nd and 3rd before Livan walked to load the bases and Bryson walked to push home Jesse. Eduardo broke his bat on a flare single to right bringing home Danny. Tristan put another ball through the right side to bring home Livan. Bill, (who as you’ll remember, didn’t think the 4th inning was all that special), flew out to right. Zane then walked to push home Bryson. Then Clarno came to the dish, and this happened…

Some thought it would never happen, but Nick Clarno never gave up. Here it is…

Clarno’s first career Bananas home run. pic.twitter.com/SdP3ieSUgu

— Biko Skalla (@BikoRicoSuave) July 5, 2021

It was a glorious moment in Savannah Bananas history and I’m not sure the video even truly shows how much joy that grand slam gave me. With the guys already up 10-0, (and as I mentioned on the broadcast after the top of the 1st inning, broadcaster jinx be damned, the game was already over at that point), nobody hitting that grand slam could have been any greater for my personal enjoyment than Nick. Congratulations on being one quarter of the way to your preseason prediction my man! When I asked Clarno about his first Nanners home run, he gave credit to his 1st baseman and as well as pure luck.

“It felt really good because it goes to show the high and in tee drill that Dan showed me is f$%#&@g working, but also I just closed my eyes and said a prayer on that one.”

Sometimes it just works when you swing hard. So that was the 9th man to hit in the inning, and if you’re thinking that’s the end of the 4th, ooooooeeeeee you’re wrong about that. Back at the top of the order, Jesse laced a single to left-center, Danny lined a single to left, Livan roped a 2-run double down the left field line, Bloomer struck out looking (at least you didn’t make 2 outs in the inning buddy), Eduardo ripped a double down the left field line bringing in Livan, Tristan lined a single to right, and then Bill popped out in foul territory to end the inning (in his defense it was somewhere around the 10th pitch of the at-bat and his college teammate Ryan Archibald made a sweet full-sprint, over the shoulder catch on it).

So anyway it was 17-0 after the 11 run, 16 batter 4th inning.

On the other side of the ball, Tyler, The Boys Will Be Running Polls Tomorrow for Not Throwing Their Third Straight Shutout, Gillum, and Corey, I Took Some BP Today Just to Find Out if Hitting is That Hard or Our Pitchers Are That Good and it’s Probably a Little Bit of Both, Pye, turned to Tom, I Almost Finished Season 3 of Orange is the New Black While Sitting Through the Top of the 4th Inning but Had to Go Back Out There and Pitch Thanks to Bill, Vincent, for the start. Tom was terrific as per usual, only allowing an unearned run over 4.2 innings while striking out 5. Davis, Don’t Get Me Started on Saltines, Hare, came in and only gave up one earned run over 2.1 innings of relief.

The Nanners tacked on 2 insurance runs on a Jesse groundout in the 6th and then a Jesse single in the 7th as they took down the Bacon 19-3, (anyone else notice that was their record in the 1st half of the season? Kind of cool right).

Some stats just to put the whole thing into perspective before I stop writing here:

Jesse Sherrill: 3-5, BB, 2 RBI, 2 R, SB

Danny Oberst: 3-4, RBI, 3 R, 2 SB (to improve to 16 of 17 in stolen base attempts this summer).

Livan Reinoso: 3-5, 2B, BB, 3 RBI, 3 R

Eduardo Malinowski: 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI, R

Tristan Peters: 3-3, 2 BB, 2 RBI, 3 R, SB

Zane Denton: 2-4, 2B, 3B, 2 RBI, 2 R

Nick Clarno: 2-3, HR, BB, HBP, 5 RBI, R

When historians discover this box score 500 years down the road, July 4th 2021 will be dubbed the Macon Massacre. Also if that actually happens Biko Skalla will be dubbed a profit. Either way, this box score is worthy of being placed in time capsule for the next 5 centuries (not like I’m gonna do it but if someone else wants to that would be sweet).

So I think I covered at least most of the bases here, quite possibly I got to all of them. Wild, wild, wild night in Luther Williams Field. Ya know, at least the home crowd got fireworks after the game, they’ll always have that… Anyways, the guys get an off day on Monday before hitting the road again to take on the RedWolves (soon to be the team formerly known as the RedWolves), up in Florence. Pregame will go live at 6:50pm on Bananas Insiders. Maybe this time they’ll put 20 runs on the board so everyone in the comment section can finally get 20 Biko Stars like DJ Dano so desired tonight. Also, quick shoutout here to the incredible Adam, Biko Really Should Have Given Me This Shoutout Like 7 Articles Ago, Morreau, who comes up with/helps craft a majority of the nicknames for guys on these away game stories. The nicknames would really be about 27% as strong as they actually are if not for all the help from him, so if you see him out in the world scream at the top of your lungs that you love him for all his does for these stories. Okayyy, I think that is all. See you Tuesday night!