*Photo from the Akron Beacon Journal*
On the night of the 4th Little League classic, played at Bowman field in Williamsport, PA, the host town of the Little League World Series, Cal Quantrill wanted to put on a show for the Little leaguers and their families, who were in attendance to watch the big kids play. Quantrill shut out the opposition, Amed Rosario homered, and the Cleveland Indians shut out the Los Angeles Angels 3-0 on Sunday night.
Quantrill said of playing in front of little leaguers that "I hope that they all see that it’s not that crazy that they can probably do what we’re doing. We’re not that much older than them. We’ve got a really young team."
Despite the Indians having won the game, the night was all about Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout of the Angels. While Trout was not playing, he was still there, participating in the festivities, taking pictures, signing autographs, you name it. As was Ohtani. He received the biggest ovation out of anyone there, and there were kids screaming "take him yard" even though Ohtani was unable to do that.
During the game, the players in the dugouts for both teams were busy interacting with the little leaguers in attendance, with Indians pitcher Triston McKenzie drawing the most attention, for his autograph signing, as well as throwing MLB game balls up into the crowd, for the kids to keep as a forever souvenir.
Angels manager Joe Maddon said of the environment that "It's wonderful. The kids are into it. They had their thundersticks, which I think we started in 2002. And they were fun before the game. They came down for autographs and wanted pictures, that kind of thing. I love that stuff. When you see the kids and how eager they are and how much they enjoy being here, it's pretty special."
As for the actual scoring, Rosario got things going in the first inning, cranking a two run home run to left field, giving the Indians an early 2-0 lead to work with. In the 4th inning, Jose Iglesias robbed Myles Straw of a hit, and made a pretty sick play to get Andres Gimenez at second, but he couldn't prevent Austin Hedges from scoring, giving the Indians a 3-0 lead, which stuck.
Quantrill turned in another dominant outing, continuing a solid stretch of play since the all star break. He allowed just two hits and two walks, fanning 9 hitters while throwing 7 shutout innings in front of the Williamsport crowd. Bryan Shaw and James Karinchak combined to finish the 8th inning, while Emmanuel Clase got his 18th save of the season in the 9th inning.
Acting Indians manager Demarlo Hale said of Quantrill that "Since the All-Star break, it just seems like he’s commanding more of his pitches, you know? You think about the nine strikeouts he had tonight, he used his cutter a little bit more. He also got a couple strikeouts with his fastball and also his slider. You see him pitching, he’s using his repertoire much better and it’s just not one or two pitches that he’s going to. He’s been throwing the ball and pitching the ball very well."
Jose Suarez fell to 5-7 for the Angels, taking the loss while giving up 3 runs on 6 hits and two walks, striking out 4 hitters while lasting just 4 innings. In relief came Austin Warren, who provided two shutout innings, as did Steve Cishek.
Next year will be the 5th playing of the Little League classic, right back at Bowman Field. The Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles were supposed to play in the 2020 Little League classic, but since that got cancelled due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, they will instead play each other in the 2022 game, on August 21 of 2022.
As for the Angels and Indians, both teams have a day off on Monday, before returning to action on Tuesday. Eli Morgan starts for the Indians as they welcome the Texas Rangers to town. The Angels travel to Baltimore to face the Orioles, where former Oriole Dylan Bundy will start the opening game.
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