So I’ve given a wrap-up for the players, for the league, and now it’s time to turn inward. I am going to mostly talk about me here and pretty much ignore Steve. This isn’t to demean his contributions, or to suggest he was perfect or awful, but mostly because I feel like I am in no position to evaluate my co-coach. So if I use I or me, I’m talking exclusively about me, and if I use we or our, I’m talking about the collective effort of me and Steve.
Looking back on the season, I’m not really sure what to think. I admit that I feel a certain amount of insecurity about my baseball coaching skills. And so the fact that we lost so much? That didn’t help.
There are certain aspects of my performance that I’m very pleased about. I’ve played on winning teams, but I’ve played on more losing teams then winning teams. And I’ve seen a team give up and stop caring. And I’ve seen teams that continued to fight all the way despite losing. So I’m proud of the way our team played this season. Considering that this was a bunch of 9-12 year olds they very clearly could have given up and packed it in. Now, I won’t lie. After that Red Sox playoff game I know several players did pack it in. And there were bits of defeatism at other points in the season. However, with the time off by the time Sunday came around they were ready to fight again. And I know Steve and I deserve credit for that.
Further, I know that we made a difference, at least for a time, in the lives of several of our players: Avi, Bobby, and Trey. Before this week I wouldn’t have put Trey on that list, but he happened to be riding his bike by my house as I was reading and so he stopped and talked. And in his own way, simply because this kid will never be a fountain of emotions, it was clear that Trey had a lot of respect for me. So that was cool. Avi and Bobby I’ve talked about before. You hear a common refrain in teaching how they hope to really just impact one kid and that’s good enough. Well that’s never been good enough for me. However, I do give us credit for the way we handled the social aspect of the team.
But then again, what we did is my minimum expectation. I don’t know how to write this without sounding like a braggart, but it’s important in understanding where I’m coming from here. I have been told by many people who have years of experience in the area that I have a “gift” for dealing with kids. I think I often get more credit then I deserve, but it does mean that I have a certain expectation for my performance in this area. So, I would say that I all I did was meet those expectations.
Also in the plus column is our devotion to fairness. We are scrupulous about following the rules and even go above and beyond them during the regular season, for the most part. This sort of dovetails with the point above, but I feel good about how we conducted ourselves. Even in games with unexpected no shows, I worked hard to follow the rules, and our unofficial rules, to the letter and always succeeded. This is very important to me and so again I have a very high minimum expectation and I feel like that was met, though not really exceeded.
On the field managing, I feel once again got stronger as the season went on. I haven’t grown as much here as I’d like, simply because I’ve had no one to push me here or to learn from, as this simply isn’t one of Steve’s strengths. I still have a bit to go to reach the level of where I want to be, but give me a passing grade for the area. I’m continuing to make progress, simply not at the rate at which I’d like.
But that brings me to the area of player development. And this is where I just don’t know what to say. I simply don’t have the experience or background to say how good of a job I did. And so looking at the results it would suggest that I did none too hot. Of course, the team was bad to start with, so maybe Steve and I just got bum luck this year. All I have to compare is our team last year and our team this year. And looking at the base talent of the two years we’re not even in the same ballpark. The team I had last year was more gifted then this year’s team. But that still doesn’t let me off the hook. And that’s because we didn’t have a player “breakout” this year. Last year there were a couple who made significant and noticeable strides in all parts of play. And we simply didn’t have that this year. And so I can’t help but think that perhaps the extra coach last year was the difference. I mean I know this guy was a great hitting coach and so perhaps holding myself to that standard isn’t fair. But it’s the only comparison I have to make.
The two areas where we really focused our energies this year were fielding and pitching. In fielding, there is no doubt that we got significantly better as the season went on. However, all teams get better. So, did we make more progress then the average team? I just don’t know. I do know that we didn’t do enough with hitting this year. I have some ideas of things we can do better next year. For instance, we should be doing soft toss before every game. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the game for which we did soft toss beforehand was also the game we played the best.
As for pitching? Well, I think I did an OK job here. Was I great? No. But I don’t think I gave “bad” coaching to any of our players though again I wonder how much help I really was. But, “first do no harm” is a pretty good philosophy for a coach in a house league environment and on that level I guess I was fine as a pitching coach.
What this all means is that I am going to continue to seek ways to improve myself. I did a lot of self study and work to be a better coach this year then last year and I will continue to try and find opportunities to improve myself. I just found a website which offers online courses in coaching youth baseball and I plan on completing that. I don’t know how worthwhile it’ll be, but they also certify coaches for high school coaching (though not online) so I figure it’ll be worth the time and money. If I find other ways to improve my skills I’ll do it as well and hopefully it’ll be enough.
All of this introspection does obscure something important. I do this to have fun. And while all the losing was VERY rough on me, I did have fun. The kids I was working with mostly had fun as well. And so on those levels? This season was an unqualified success. Except for all the qualifications listed above.
And with that I wrap-up my year of baseball.
Showing posts with label bobby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bobby. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Sunday, May 7, 2006
Game Report
Well it was another disappointing game. Once again we got shelled in the first inning with Everett up for us on the mound. Once again he was pitching well. The other coaches even commented on how well he could vary his control and speed. Despite this, kids who have never hit a double before hit a double. We had one homer against him, as we were playing at 1 of the two fields with fences. Everett gets hit the hardest when he gets ahead in the count.
Their pitching was horrendous which made things more difficult for us as we had very few pitches to hit the whole day. This made getting a rally going very difficult. We had a ton of walks, but also far more strikeouts looking since the umpire had a tendency, and this was true for both teams, to expand the strike zone after 4 or 5 pitches.
Bobby got a chance to pitch in the 2nd, as I wanted to make sure we saw him pitch, and had a lot of control problems. We ended up having to yank him. Percy, who was perhaps our only good news, came in and looked terrific. He had originally been scheduled to pitch in the 4th, so we had him pitch in the 3rd as well and again he pitched very well overall. Avi wondered why Percy jumped ahead of him, and I reminded him he had a chance to pitch two innings on Tuesday, which seemed to mollify him. Even when we again changed things around later and had Trey pitch the 4th on he didn’t complain, which I was surprised about. Bobby seems very concerned that he’ll never get a chance to pitch again, which just isn’t an option for us.
Trying to think of interesting things that happened:
I worked with Kelvin on bunting before the game and he looked really good. Unfortunately, we never got into a game situation where he could bunt so he hasn’t had a chance to try it in a game. But, this was encouraging to see.
Jesse saw a man cheating at 3rd, and even after Jesse walking him back, he didn’t move so he threw to third and the ball got by our 3B. He later expressed frustration at how tired he got behind the plate, which makes sense as he was getting a lot of pitches.
We once again induced a throw to second on a 1st and 3rd situation. What made this amusing was the first basemen even said “He’s going to steal on the first or second pitch” as he had over heard me. So off Jim went on the first pitch. The catcher threw it down and Jim was going to be safe, but the 2nd baseman also dropped the ball. Avi, not listening to Steve, didn’t take off a long time, which then caused a throw home after the SS recovered the ball, and he too was safe, advancing Jim to third. The opposing coaches, who were substitutes, laughed and in general were very good natured about the game, which made things a bit nicer.
In the 4th inning, which technically we weren’t supposed to play due to their lead, and the closeness of the game to the time limit, Brendan barreled over the catcher on a play at home. Both Steve and I have, in response to questions, have previously told him he had to slide always at home which made it frustrating. Even after that Bobby then did not slide on his own close play at home. On a Brendan note, his father also spent an inning in the outfield talking to him from behind the fence which we are not very happy about.
Despite our good practice on Wednesday, it’s clear the team is starting to get down on themselves. And all the losses too are bothering me, as well. Today we didn’t play poorly, but neither did we play well and we got killed. I think I had been maintaining a really even keel about things, and my ability to remain on an even keel is even considered one of my strengths as a teacher, but I got very frustrated Saturday, and Steve even more so.
We had a pretty long talk after the game. We talked about how there have been side conversations going on when Steve and I have been talking. We talked about how there has been coaching going on in the field, rather then encouragement. We talked about how there have been questioning of our decisions in places where that hesitation could make a difference. We talked about how the regular season doesn’t matter but their outlook about the game does matter.
Following this, we had a private talk with Bobby who has been our worse offender on a lot of these things and also who seems to demand every two seconds the score, which Steve and I aren’t big on focusing, whether we’re ahead or behind. While we briefly retouched on the topics from the whole team discussion I also mentioned how the only time the score matters in this league is at the end of the game if it’s close. Otherwise it’s just going out there and playing. Steve also talked about moping in the field, which he certainly did after he got pulled from pitcher.
After the game we had a nice talk with one of our favorite sets of parents from last year, whose son misses us a lot because his coach isn’t so great this year. Despite how depressed I was when I got home, I think this talk was good at relieving some of my self-doubt though there’s still quite a bit of that there.
I know that we can win. We’re going to put up Trey in innings 1 and 2 on Wednesday to try and give us an early lead, which worked well enough against the A’s. Then we’ll try Percy for 2 with Avi and Everett filling out the rotation. We really need to come out gung-ho as that’s been a problem for us. Hopefully Steve has something in his bag of tricks to get us fired up so we come out strong. I know as much as we’re snowballing now we can snowball in the opposite direction and hopefully that will be Wednesday.
Their pitching was horrendous which made things more difficult for us as we had very few pitches to hit the whole day. This made getting a rally going very difficult. We had a ton of walks, but also far more strikeouts looking since the umpire had a tendency, and this was true for both teams, to expand the strike zone after 4 or 5 pitches.
Bobby got a chance to pitch in the 2nd, as I wanted to make sure we saw him pitch, and had a lot of control problems. We ended up having to yank him. Percy, who was perhaps our only good news, came in and looked terrific. He had originally been scheduled to pitch in the 4th, so we had him pitch in the 3rd as well and again he pitched very well overall. Avi wondered why Percy jumped ahead of him, and I reminded him he had a chance to pitch two innings on Tuesday, which seemed to mollify him. Even when we again changed things around later and had Trey pitch the 4th on he didn’t complain, which I was surprised about. Bobby seems very concerned that he’ll never get a chance to pitch again, which just isn’t an option for us.
Trying to think of interesting things that happened:
I worked with Kelvin on bunting before the game and he looked really good. Unfortunately, we never got into a game situation where he could bunt so he hasn’t had a chance to try it in a game. But, this was encouraging to see.
Jesse saw a man cheating at 3rd, and even after Jesse walking him back, he didn’t move so he threw to third and the ball got by our 3B. He later expressed frustration at how tired he got behind the plate, which makes sense as he was getting a lot of pitches.
We once again induced a throw to second on a 1st and 3rd situation. What made this amusing was the first basemen even said “He’s going to steal on the first or second pitch” as he had over heard me. So off Jim went on the first pitch. The catcher threw it down and Jim was going to be safe, but the 2nd baseman also dropped the ball. Avi, not listening to Steve, didn’t take off a long time, which then caused a throw home after the SS recovered the ball, and he too was safe, advancing Jim to third. The opposing coaches, who were substitutes, laughed and in general were very good natured about the game, which made things a bit nicer.
In the 4th inning, which technically we weren’t supposed to play due to their lead, and the closeness of the game to the time limit, Brendan barreled over the catcher on a play at home. Both Steve and I have, in response to questions, have previously told him he had to slide always at home which made it frustrating. Even after that Bobby then did not slide on his own close play at home. On a Brendan note, his father also spent an inning in the outfield talking to him from behind the fence which we are not very happy about.
Despite our good practice on Wednesday, it’s clear the team is starting to get down on themselves. And all the losses too are bothering me, as well. Today we didn’t play poorly, but neither did we play well and we got killed. I think I had been maintaining a really even keel about things, and my ability to remain on an even keel is even considered one of my strengths as a teacher, but I got very frustrated Saturday, and Steve even more so.
We had a pretty long talk after the game. We talked about how there have been side conversations going on when Steve and I have been talking. We talked about how there has been coaching going on in the field, rather then encouragement. We talked about how there have been questioning of our decisions in places where that hesitation could make a difference. We talked about how the regular season doesn’t matter but their outlook about the game does matter.
Following this, we had a private talk with Bobby who has been our worse offender on a lot of these things and also who seems to demand every two seconds the score, which Steve and I aren’t big on focusing, whether we’re ahead or behind. While we briefly retouched on the topics from the whole team discussion I also mentioned how the only time the score matters in this league is at the end of the game if it’s close. Otherwise it’s just going out there and playing. Steve also talked about moping in the field, which he certainly did after he got pulled from pitcher.
After the game we had a nice talk with one of our favorite sets of parents from last year, whose son misses us a lot because his coach isn’t so great this year. Despite how depressed I was when I got home, I think this talk was good at relieving some of my self-doubt though there’s still quite a bit of that there.
I know that we can win. We’re going to put up Trey in innings 1 and 2 on Wednesday to try and give us an early lead, which worked well enough against the A’s. Then we’ll try Percy for 2 with Avi and Everett filling out the rotation. We really need to come out gung-ho as that’s been a problem for us. Hopefully Steve has something in his bag of tricks to get us fired up so we come out strong. I know as much as we’re snowballing now we can snowball in the opposite direction and hopefully that will be Wednesday.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Game: Marlins vs Braves
Before the Game
So I go over to Steve’s house and we agree that Avi should be our first pitcher. We had no sooner agreed to this then Steve’s phone rings and he looks at the caller ID and goes “uh-oh”. Long story short, Avi is going to be about a half hour late to the game. We can deal with this and so he gets the nod for the sixth. We end up deciding to start Trey, but also decide we want to see a lot of different pitchers and so we only pitch each of our pitchers for an inning. The pitchers we want to see are:
Trey, Everett, Avi, and Percy
Percy, if you recall, had a disastrous outing. However, he’s been throwing very well in “bullpen” sessions so I want to see how he does in a game. We put in Jim in for the 5th figuring he had a bad outing the last time and would still be able to come in for relief if Percy can’t get the ball over.
We don’t expect to get past the 5th, with the exception of our first game we haven’t gotten past the 5th and it’s cold, with a chance to rain, further decreasing the chance we’d get past the 4th, let alone 5th. Not to mention we expect the other team to be scoring runs. With all that in mind, we decide to go ahead and schedule Bobby to pitch, since he’s looked pretty good, and have Brendan catch him. We need to start developing Brendan and so we figure this would be a good way to say that he’s going to get some chances without actually having to worry about him catching. It also gives Steve an excuse to work with him before the game.
Steve and I decide to start keeping track of who is showing up the requested 20 minutes before the game. We’ll then have them do something not too onerous, but enough to get our message across such as run laps. Today, Brendan is the surprise first arrival, with Everett & Fuller there shortly after. With Jesse and Avi excused it still leaves an awful lot of late people, though all are there 10 minutes before the game, except Avi, as expected.
I work with Bobby and Percy before the game and they both look ok but not great. We’ll see how it goes. Steve does his work with Brendan and he looks not so great.
The Game
We’re the home team. Trey comes up and takes care of business on 9 pitches with 1 strikeout. Meanwhile, the bottom of our lineup doesn’t get anything going, except for Kellen getting a single and a couple of steals.
Everett, as usual has a rough time of it. Jesse, who was sitting out, even comments that he throws good pitches so it’s kind of surprising that they hit him as much as they do. I think we need to work on his pitching rather then throwing. He’s pretty good about getting ahead in the count, which makes it all the more frustrating. He allows 2 runs and we get out of the inning without more damage after we double up a player on a popup. Now it happens to be against the heart of their order, so it’s not the worse thing, but still isn’t great.
In the bottom half of the inning, things don’t look so good when Trey and Everett both fly out on well hit balls. But then Brendan gets on base and steals 2nd. Jesse rips a ball, which was over his head, into left for a run scoring single. After stealing second, he then scores when Percy hits a triple. Bobby follows it up with a double to score Percy and we end up with 3 runs, all produced after we had 2 outs, after Fuller grounds out to end the inning. It was pretty nice. And the great thing is that pretty much everything was legitimate. It wasn’t like Percy got lucky with the triple, he really deserved it. Score is 3-2 good guys and we are definitely in a game we didn’t think we would be.
Avi then pitches the top of the 3rd. He walks the first batter and gets the next one to line out. The 3rd batter rips a ball into center that gets by the outstretched hand of Jodi. Trey runs over from right and relays it to Jodi who then tries, against what Steve and I were saying, to throw the runner out at 3rd. She naturally overthrows and the run scores. However, the batter never gets a chance to score as we retire the side while holding him at 3rd.
In the bottom of the 3rd, Ethan, of all people, gets a nice one out single and then scores, when Kellen, of all people, hits a double. Kellen steals 3rd and then scores when Jodi hits one back to the mound. Jim walks, steals second and then tries to steal third but comes up short of the bag on his slide and gets tagged out. Ending the inning.
At this point we’re moving fairly quickly in his game and it’s starting to drizzle. It’s a little early for the predicted rain, which considering the fact that we’re ahead is a shame. Anyhow Percy, the first of our real tests, is up on the mound. After I threw with him I had him throw to Jesse and both insist that Percy has a nasty slider. However, when he tries to show me it keeps rising instead, so I tell him to stick with fastballs. Worse yet he starts off facing the heart of their order. Sure enough their slugger hits a solid single. On the next play we get him out on a fielders choice. Overall Percy looks good and while that runner on the fielder’s choice ends up scoring after a single and a putout at first, he only lets up the 1 run. I was pretty sure that the first appearance was a fluke and this seems to bear that out. Going into the bottom of the 4th it’s 5-5
As we start off the inning, Trey confides in me that he hates leading off. I think this fits in my overall picture of Trey as someone who puts a lot of pressure on himself (as does dad) and one of the times he feels this pressure is leading off. Obviously there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, but it’s an important thing to realize for the playoffs when we do have flexibility over the batting order. Anyhow, Trey gets an infield single. He then steals second on the first pitch. Before the inning, I had told Everett that if Trey got out that I wanted to see him bunt. He told me that he doesn’t really feel comfortable bunting as he doesn’t practice. I told him I understood that, but to consider it in-game practice and also assured him we’d be working on it as a team. When the count becomes 1-0 after the passed ball with Trey advancing, I tell him to do what we had talked about. He squares around a couple times but can’t get contact. The second time was a ball. After the inning I tell him one of the reasons I want him to practice bunting is he knows where the strike zone is and so he shouldn’t be bunting at balls. Anyhow he gets behind 1-2 and ends up striking out. Trey does manage to steal third during Brendan’s at bat when he walks. This gives us runners at first and third. I tell Brendan on the first pitch he should steal. For whatever reason their catcher throws down to the base. The ball goes into center and Trey scores without a problem. On the very next pitch Brendan steals third. Jesse then hits ANOTHER ball that was way to high and bloops it for a single, though Brendan had to hold up as it was on the third base side. I tell Jesse to steal on the first pitch, as we have the 1st and 3rd situation again, but on the first pitch Percy hits a single advancing Jesse to third. I tell Percy he should then steal. And he does and gets a good jump. Yet AGAIN the catcher throws, though his throw is on time this time and in a close play Percy is called out. However, Brendan does score giving us a run for an out. Later in the game their coach confides in me that he can’t believe his catcher threw down the second time and let us have another run. Bobby grounds out to second to end the inning, but putting us up 8-5.
Now we’re in the 5th. There is still 25 minutes left before the mandatory stop time of an hour and a half. I hope for a LONG inning as I do not want to have to throw Bobby. Jim is once again having clear control problems. He walks the first batter. The second one grounds out to short, he then walks the third batter. Both score on a double, where we once AGAIN overthrow 3rd. Their slugger gets another great hit and drives in the guy who was on second scores on a close play at the plate. The guy however overruns 3rd and Everett makes a dead on throw to Avi who applies the tag and we get the out. Now was the guy really out? I don’t think so, neither does Steve, or the other coach. But as the other coach said even if he wasn’t out it was the right call to make as kids shouldn’t be overrunning third. Despite the 3 runs that scored when we get that out it was a clear momentum shift and Jim strikes out the next batter. Overall, Jim did not have great stuff, but neither did he fall apart on the mound. He kept his cool and got us through the inning. It’s now tied. Out bottom of the order acts like the bottom of the order as they bring in their ace pitcher, and we strike out 1-2-3.
As we were are coming in from the field I say to Steve that Brendan shouldn’t catch in the inning and we should use Jesse instead. He agrees. Steve goes over and explains to Brendan that since we’re in a close game and Jesse has “more experience” (which I thought was an excellent way of phrasing it) that we were going to have him catch. Brendan takes this well. All of this is karma for our pitching a pitcher who we didn’t want to pitch. Anyhow Bobby gets up and walks the first batter. On four pitches. Steve turns to me and says “I want to keep him on a short leash.” I ask him “Who can we sub for him?” The answer is nobody. Our choices at his point would be Kellen or Jodi, neither of which is appealing and Bobby almost for sure has better stuff then both of them. He starts to pitch better but does allow a run to score. We end out getting a man out at third on a caught steal and Bobby had a nice inning. Overall, Bobby got better the more he threw which was great and just what we needed.
As we head out into the field I hope that their ace will not be on the mound again. He is. However, we have the top of our order up. Jim gets permission to bunt. He then lays down a great bunt… if he was trying to sacrifice. Unfortunately, bunting right back at a travel team pitcher with no one on base does us no good. Still, I’m glad we tried it. Trey, with no doubt a good deal of self imposed pressure, strikes out. This gives us 2 outs. Everett gets a nice single. I give him the green light to take off and he goes on the second pitch. Alas, Brendan reverts to form and strikes out ending the game with a 9-8 loss.
Post Game Analysis and Looking Forward
Well the good news is that we didn’t allow any big innings. The most they scored in an inning was 3, which is good. Our fielding was terrific. We were hitting the ball hard and having multiple people score. Percy and Bobby both had good outings, Jim, not as much.
During the post game speech Steve said if they think about where they were at during the first game and where we’re at now it’s a huge improvement. Bobby, little wise guy that he is, says “So you’re saying we used to be crap?” which draws a large chuckle from the parents. I mean that is what Steve is saying, but still. If you all could see the progress they’d made you would agree that we’re improving far more then most teams. It’s a shame we don’t get the victory here, but unlike last game where I think there were some decisions which could have given us the runs we lost by, in this game we were right in it, and got shut down by their ace pitcher when we threw 6 pitchers.
The good thing is that it has given us enough confidence that we’re going to try and not pitch Trey next game, or to save him for a relief situation. If we can keep getting good outings from six kids we’ll be in great shape come the playoffs. It’s frustrating that we haven’t had practice in so long, especially as they are forecasting rain again for Wednesday, but we’re looking good, especially as we play a team that I was not impressed with when we scouted. So once again the future is looking great even if the individual result was not as much.
We had the kids, after our short speech, do the “name something good you saw” and they all have no problems naming 11 different things. We awarded Percy the ball for a great day at bat, a nice inning on the mound, and a heads-up play as a RF when he backed up Trey on a play that Trey blew at 1st.
So I pretty hopeful that when I write the next game recap on Tuesday or Wednesday I am talking about a win.
So I go over to Steve’s house and we agree that Avi should be our first pitcher. We had no sooner agreed to this then Steve’s phone rings and he looks at the caller ID and goes “uh-oh”. Long story short, Avi is going to be about a half hour late to the game. We can deal with this and so he gets the nod for the sixth. We end up deciding to start Trey, but also decide we want to see a lot of different pitchers and so we only pitch each of our pitchers for an inning. The pitchers we want to see are:
Trey, Everett, Avi, and Percy
Percy, if you recall, had a disastrous outing. However, he’s been throwing very well in “bullpen” sessions so I want to see how he does in a game. We put in Jim in for the 5th figuring he had a bad outing the last time and would still be able to come in for relief if Percy can’t get the ball over.
We don’t expect to get past the 5th, with the exception of our first game we haven’t gotten past the 5th and it’s cold, with a chance to rain, further decreasing the chance we’d get past the 4th, let alone 5th. Not to mention we expect the other team to be scoring runs. With all that in mind, we decide to go ahead and schedule Bobby to pitch, since he’s looked pretty good, and have Brendan catch him. We need to start developing Brendan and so we figure this would be a good way to say that he’s going to get some chances without actually having to worry about him catching. It also gives Steve an excuse to work with him before the game.
Steve and I decide to start keeping track of who is showing up the requested 20 minutes before the game. We’ll then have them do something not too onerous, but enough to get our message across such as run laps. Today, Brendan is the surprise first arrival, with Everett & Fuller there shortly after. With Jesse and Avi excused it still leaves an awful lot of late people, though all are there 10 minutes before the game, except Avi, as expected.
I work with Bobby and Percy before the game and they both look ok but not great. We’ll see how it goes. Steve does his work with Brendan and he looks not so great.
The Game
We’re the home team. Trey comes up and takes care of business on 9 pitches with 1 strikeout. Meanwhile, the bottom of our lineup doesn’t get anything going, except for Kellen getting a single and a couple of steals.
Everett, as usual has a rough time of it. Jesse, who was sitting out, even comments that he throws good pitches so it’s kind of surprising that they hit him as much as they do. I think we need to work on his pitching rather then throwing. He’s pretty good about getting ahead in the count, which makes it all the more frustrating. He allows 2 runs and we get out of the inning without more damage after we double up a player on a popup. Now it happens to be against the heart of their order, so it’s not the worse thing, but still isn’t great.
In the bottom half of the inning, things don’t look so good when Trey and Everett both fly out on well hit balls. But then Brendan gets on base and steals 2nd. Jesse rips a ball, which was over his head, into left for a run scoring single. After stealing second, he then scores when Percy hits a triple. Bobby follows it up with a double to score Percy and we end up with 3 runs, all produced after we had 2 outs, after Fuller grounds out to end the inning. It was pretty nice. And the great thing is that pretty much everything was legitimate. It wasn’t like Percy got lucky with the triple, he really deserved it. Score is 3-2 good guys and we are definitely in a game we didn’t think we would be.
Avi then pitches the top of the 3rd. He walks the first batter and gets the next one to line out. The 3rd batter rips a ball into center that gets by the outstretched hand of Jodi. Trey runs over from right and relays it to Jodi who then tries, against what Steve and I were saying, to throw the runner out at 3rd. She naturally overthrows and the run scores. However, the batter never gets a chance to score as we retire the side while holding him at 3rd.
In the bottom of the 3rd, Ethan, of all people, gets a nice one out single and then scores, when Kellen, of all people, hits a double. Kellen steals 3rd and then scores when Jodi hits one back to the mound. Jim walks, steals second and then tries to steal third but comes up short of the bag on his slide and gets tagged out. Ending the inning.
At this point we’re moving fairly quickly in his game and it’s starting to drizzle. It’s a little early for the predicted rain, which considering the fact that we’re ahead is a shame. Anyhow Percy, the first of our real tests, is up on the mound. After I threw with him I had him throw to Jesse and both insist that Percy has a nasty slider. However, when he tries to show me it keeps rising instead, so I tell him to stick with fastballs. Worse yet he starts off facing the heart of their order. Sure enough their slugger hits a solid single. On the next play we get him out on a fielders choice. Overall Percy looks good and while that runner on the fielder’s choice ends up scoring after a single and a putout at first, he only lets up the 1 run. I was pretty sure that the first appearance was a fluke and this seems to bear that out. Going into the bottom of the 4th it’s 5-5
As we start off the inning, Trey confides in me that he hates leading off. I think this fits in my overall picture of Trey as someone who puts a lot of pressure on himself (as does dad) and one of the times he feels this pressure is leading off. Obviously there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, but it’s an important thing to realize for the playoffs when we do have flexibility over the batting order. Anyhow, Trey gets an infield single. He then steals second on the first pitch. Before the inning, I had told Everett that if Trey got out that I wanted to see him bunt. He told me that he doesn’t really feel comfortable bunting as he doesn’t practice. I told him I understood that, but to consider it in-game practice and also assured him we’d be working on it as a team. When the count becomes 1-0 after the passed ball with Trey advancing, I tell him to do what we had talked about. He squares around a couple times but can’t get contact. The second time was a ball. After the inning I tell him one of the reasons I want him to practice bunting is he knows where the strike zone is and so he shouldn’t be bunting at balls. Anyhow he gets behind 1-2 and ends up striking out. Trey does manage to steal third during Brendan’s at bat when he walks. This gives us runners at first and third. I tell Brendan on the first pitch he should steal. For whatever reason their catcher throws down to the base. The ball goes into center and Trey scores without a problem. On the very next pitch Brendan steals third. Jesse then hits ANOTHER ball that was way to high and bloops it for a single, though Brendan had to hold up as it was on the third base side. I tell Jesse to steal on the first pitch, as we have the 1st and 3rd situation again, but on the first pitch Percy hits a single advancing Jesse to third. I tell Percy he should then steal. And he does and gets a good jump. Yet AGAIN the catcher throws, though his throw is on time this time and in a close play Percy is called out. However, Brendan does score giving us a run for an out. Later in the game their coach confides in me that he can’t believe his catcher threw down the second time and let us have another run. Bobby grounds out to second to end the inning, but putting us up 8-5.
Now we’re in the 5th. There is still 25 minutes left before the mandatory stop time of an hour and a half. I hope for a LONG inning as I do not want to have to throw Bobby. Jim is once again having clear control problems. He walks the first batter. The second one grounds out to short, he then walks the third batter. Both score on a double, where we once AGAIN overthrow 3rd. Their slugger gets another great hit and drives in the guy who was on second scores on a close play at the plate. The guy however overruns 3rd and Everett makes a dead on throw to Avi who applies the tag and we get the out. Now was the guy really out? I don’t think so, neither does Steve, or the other coach. But as the other coach said even if he wasn’t out it was the right call to make as kids shouldn’t be overrunning third. Despite the 3 runs that scored when we get that out it was a clear momentum shift and Jim strikes out the next batter. Overall, Jim did not have great stuff, but neither did he fall apart on the mound. He kept his cool and got us through the inning. It’s now tied. Out bottom of the order acts like the bottom of the order as they bring in their ace pitcher, and we strike out 1-2-3.
As we were are coming in from the field I say to Steve that Brendan shouldn’t catch in the inning and we should use Jesse instead. He agrees. Steve goes over and explains to Brendan that since we’re in a close game and Jesse has “more experience” (which I thought was an excellent way of phrasing it) that we were going to have him catch. Brendan takes this well. All of this is karma for our pitching a pitcher who we didn’t want to pitch. Anyhow Bobby gets up and walks the first batter. On four pitches. Steve turns to me and says “I want to keep him on a short leash.” I ask him “Who can we sub for him?” The answer is nobody. Our choices at his point would be Kellen or Jodi, neither of which is appealing and Bobby almost for sure has better stuff then both of them. He starts to pitch better but does allow a run to score. We end out getting a man out at third on a caught steal and Bobby had a nice inning. Overall, Bobby got better the more he threw which was great and just what we needed.
As we head out into the field I hope that their ace will not be on the mound again. He is. However, we have the top of our order up. Jim gets permission to bunt. He then lays down a great bunt… if he was trying to sacrifice. Unfortunately, bunting right back at a travel team pitcher with no one on base does us no good. Still, I’m glad we tried it. Trey, with no doubt a good deal of self imposed pressure, strikes out. This gives us 2 outs. Everett gets a nice single. I give him the green light to take off and he goes on the second pitch. Alas, Brendan reverts to form and strikes out ending the game with a 9-8 loss.
Post Game Analysis and Looking Forward
Well the good news is that we didn’t allow any big innings. The most they scored in an inning was 3, which is good. Our fielding was terrific. We were hitting the ball hard and having multiple people score. Percy and Bobby both had good outings, Jim, not as much.
During the post game speech Steve said if they think about where they were at during the first game and where we’re at now it’s a huge improvement. Bobby, little wise guy that he is, says “So you’re saying we used to be crap?” which draws a large chuckle from the parents. I mean that is what Steve is saying, but still. If you all could see the progress they’d made you would agree that we’re improving far more then most teams. It’s a shame we don’t get the victory here, but unlike last game where I think there were some decisions which could have given us the runs we lost by, in this game we were right in it, and got shut down by their ace pitcher when we threw 6 pitchers.
The good thing is that it has given us enough confidence that we’re going to try and not pitch Trey next game, or to save him for a relief situation. If we can keep getting good outings from six kids we’ll be in great shape come the playoffs. It’s frustrating that we haven’t had practice in so long, especially as they are forecasting rain again for Wednesday, but we’re looking good, especially as we play a team that I was not impressed with when we scouted. So once again the future is looking great even if the individual result was not as much.
We had the kids, after our short speech, do the “name something good you saw” and they all have no problems naming 11 different things. We awarded Percy the ball for a great day at bat, a nice inning on the mound, and a heads-up play as a RF when he backed up Trey on a play that Trey blew at 1st.
So I pretty hopeful that when I write the next game recap on Tuesday or Wednesday I am talking about a win.
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