The Missouri Amigos are not only based out of Missouri; but they play better in Missouri as well. On Sunday, June 3rd, the Amigos took on a talented Owls squad at GCS Stadium in Sauget, IL. The problems for the Amigos during this lopsided defeat, were that they forgot to bring their catching gloves and their accurate throwing arms. The Amigos also made base running blunders and were not productive at all with their bats mustering only 3 runs. The game against the Owls ended after 7 innings and the Amigos walked away with their sombreros tucked between their legs because of a 13-3 drubbing. With the defeat, the Amigo’s dropped to 2-3 with the second game of the back to back looming on Monday, June 4th against the St. Louis Buds. The Buds are the STLBFL’s gold standard with multiple consecutive league championships and an undefeated 2018 campaign heading into their matchup with the Amigos. Most of the Las Vegas Sports Books had the Buds as the favorite with a -330 money line. As Monday’s game began, the Amigos immediately found themselves in unfamiliar territory; not on the Missouri side of the river, but scoring first in a game. The typical Amigo game plan is to get behind by 4 or 5 runs and then rally to make games close. This was not the case on Monday. The Amigos bats came alive (cobro vida en espanol) early. After two, the Amigos led 4-1 and were up 5-1 after three. The Amigos would go on to put up 4 more runs while only surrendering 1 and cruised to a 9-2 victory over the Buds. Mike Schneider silenced the bats of the first place Buds. He didn’t have his best stuff but he had good enough stuff to keep the high-scoring Buds to two runs which is 10.5 runs below their average runs per game this season. Ray Rico entered the game in relief of Schneider to hold the Buds scoreless in their final two at bats.  The hitting of Craig Fyfe, Ray Rico, Brian Senseny, Chad Towers and Ben Turner turned in multiple hits each and accounted for all of the Amigo’s RBI. The Brothers Warnecke and Greg Rhoades were at the game but didn’t do much except to fill holes in the line up and keep score during the game. Jim Jarvis played solid defense in Right Field and didn’t get picked off first or run into any outs. For the first game all season, the Amigos played solid defense across the board. In typical, Amigo fashion; however, there were multiple muscle strains. The play of the game came in the later innings when Brian Senseny sent a rocket to the centerfield fence. Chad Towers was on base as the ball was hit. While circling the bases, Brian and Chad both became hobbled by groin injuries at the exact same time on the base paths. The good news was that the ball was hit far enough for Chad to score and Brian to creep safely into second with a stand up double.  Despite knocking off the defending champion and first place Buds on Monday, the Amigos have yet to reach their full potential in their inaugural season in the STLBFL.  The best is yet to come.