Steve and I had decided that we wanted to see 6 different pitchers for this game, after going with the typical 2-2-1-1 setup last game. It was time to see some new pitchers, so we decided to give Jared another chance, and also to give Nof and Matt S their first chances to pitch. We were careful to have a good pitcher ready to come in for relief if need be. When we get to the field we realize that we’re going to be playing the Braves which means we’ll see Percy (from last year) and Steve and I are both excited about that.
We start off well, with Nick hitting a single. We then proceed to run ragged on their catcher, who is Jesse's little brother from last year, with Nick advancing to third. Jared draws a walk, steals second. Matt S also draws a walk. Nick then scores when Austin is hit by a pitch. During Alec’s at bat Jared scores on a passed ball. Unfortunately even after he walks to load the bases we can’t get anything more going as their pitcher has finally found the strike zone. Still we come out with a 2-0 lead.
Jared is first up on the mound for us. And he starts off with his continuing habit of throwing off the plate. He ends up walking the first guy. However, during that at bat he pitched one high but over plate. I stressed to him that was what we wanted him to do. Just get the ball over, even if it is high. And he settled down some and was able to start to throw some strikes. In pretty ugly fashion, assisted by the fact that he looked to be facing the dregs of their lineup he strikes out the next three. It was a good inning from him and nice to see him have some success.
After Jeremy Me strikes out, Jeremy Ma walks and scores after being advanced to second my Cameron’s single and then home on a double by Nick, which turns into a triple when Cameron is thrown out at the plate (when I sent him) on a close play. Jared strikes out to end the inning.
Jeremy Ma does not start off well, throwing some balls and then hitting the batter. We have a particularly weak infield behind him so he really needs to record some Ks I feel for this not to be a bad inning. The next batter gets on base and the two runners are able to advance when the batter hits the ball back to the pitcher. On the next play there is a wild pitch and a run scores. Next play up there is ANOTHER wild pitch and this time we get the guy out at the plate, which was great to see. This was just one of several good plays made by Austin behind the plate. He was great at getting the mask off real quickly, was real nice. This helps him with his ability to catch popup fouls that most catchers at this age don’t have a prayer with. He didn’t catch any today but he will. Anyhow after that wild play the batter is walked and ends up at third on some steals, but Jeremy strikes out the batter to end the inning. 3-1 Sox
In a continuing theme Matt S starts off the inning by getting hit by a pitch. When Austin grounds out to first he advances to second and is then thrown out steal third. The kid should never steal a base but since we preach aggressiveness it’s hard to criticize him there. Nof then hits a double scoring Alec. Sean walks. Jeremy F hits a single scoring Nof, but our rally is ended when Jeremy Me grounds out to end the inning.
Our big question mark is now on the mound: Nof. As he finishes his warm ups I express to him how important it is to just get the ball over the plate. We don’t care if they get a lot of runs as long as he’s throwing strikes. First batter up, which we think to be close to the heart of their order, he gets up 0-2 before the guy rockets a triple to center. He scores easily when the next guy hits a single. The onslaught continues when the next batter gets a single due to bad fielding. Fortunately only one more runner scores after a grounder to third for an out, a ball down the line at third where Jared astutely gets out a runner going for home and another grounder to third. We’re up 5-3 at the end of 3.
As the fourth starts it looks like it’ll possibly be the last inning based on the time limit. Jeremy Ma then grounds out. Cameron comes through with a bloop single into right and ends up at third when Nick doubles. Cameron scores after Jared grounds out and that’s all we get.
I’m happy to have Jeremy Me up on the mound here. He starts off shaky, however, allowing the first two runners on. They end up scoring, but that’s all they get, including a great play made by Nof to get the third out. Everyone was giving him praise as we went into our team circle at the half inning which was so great to see. He had that smile of pride, where you could just tell how happy he was. It’s moments like that which make me glad to be coaching.
Of course there is still time left to start another inning. It did look real bad at first when Jeremy Me let up those first two hits that we’d have the double whammy of them scoring enough to extend the inning and thus end the game because we couldn’t start a new inning. But fortunately that didn’t happen.
Austin starts off with a walk and a steal. Alec singles him home and gets called out at second trying to get second after they throw home. He overslides the base and gets called out which he was quite upset about. Nothing else going so we now have a 7-5 lead going into the last half inning.
Steve and I had decided that Matt S, who was scheduled, would not pitch if the game was still close. Instead we’d throw Nick. I let Nick know at the start of the half inning that if it was close he’d be pitching. Matt S asks me if he’s going to pitch. He’s been very excited to pitch and his dad is standing close enough to the dugout to overhear what I say to him. And the explanation is “Depends on how many runs we score. I’ve never really seen you pitch and I’m not going to throw you out there for your first chance in a real close game. We’ll go with Nick instead. I want you to be successful and pitching for the first time in a real close game isn’t the right situation. You will, however, pitch in the first or second tomorrow.” Matt was real accepting of this and after the game his dad thanked me for handling it like that.
So Nick is on the mound to save the game for us. And things don’t start well when he hits the first batter. However, that batter gets thrown out by Jeremy Me at third when tries to advance on the next batters single. Nick pretty much settles down after that and we win the game 7-5.
This game was close, and frankly I’m not sure why. We were so much better fundamentally than they were. The real answer, I feel, is that our bats were just not as alive as they had been. Sure we score 7, but we didn’t hit the ball as much and having to go station to station, rather than have some doubles and triples thrown in there, makes life hard.
So far, so well. The only negative of the season is the continued difference between Steve and I over how important winning is versus growth. For Steve all is well as long as we win, and I know that’s just not quite true. Not a big issue while we’re winning, but I’m worried about what will happen if we lose a game or two.
Showing posts with label percy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label percy. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Saturday, July 1, 2006
Playoffs vs Red Sox
Again sorry for the delay. This is the first of several end of season/after season posts. I hope to do the rest tomorrow, though it might not formally conclude until Monday. I am doing this all from memory, so I don’t have tons of specifics, but you should get a pretty good feel for what happened.
Steve and I had announced the day before that Percy would be our pitcher. This was after he had a terrible showing, as we wanted to express our support for him. After thinking it over, we decided that since games go 6 innings in the playoffs that we would go Percy, Avi, Everett, Everett, Trey Trey. The idea being get our weaker pitchers out of the way early and close out strong. When we played the BoSox the previous week, having Trey available at the end of the game was crucial towards producing our tie (and moral victory).
So it’s a Wednesday night and we are expecting the full team. Steve and I arrive to the field early, though not excruciatingly early. The team starts to arrive, but very very slowly. Enough that I start to get worried. I get more worried when somebody tells me Percy had injured his foot at school. However, I know they’re super responsible about calling so they would call.
Fortunately, the game before us runs late as we only have 9 players show up right at game time. Kelvin, after being bitched out a couple of times about not calling us if he was going to be late, does call and say he’s going to be late. Percy shows up and we are told he was doing dry heaves in the car on the way over. So injured and sick. What a combo. I believe, but am not sure, that all our players do end up showing up. Ethan might not have.
Anyway, we give an extended pregame speech. About playing hard. Doing the little things. Relaxing out there and playing as well as we know that they can. I feel good as we go out there. We lose the flip so we’re up to bat first. And their pitcher, the kid who we had coached last year , basically blows right by us. We might have had a hit, but we get nothing going.
So Percy is sent up to the mound. And, well, it’s painful. He has no control just like he hadn’t the night before. He throws walks. He gets hit. He gets hit some more. And he throws some more pitches which are balls. After his third walk I go up there and basically say “I don’t care how you throw it, just throw it over the plate.” No dice. He walks the next batter and we’re forced to auto yank him. In comes Bobby. He starts off poorly, but in the end gets us out of the inning, though after allowing three walks himself. After the third walk I went back to the mound and gave him a similar speech to Percy, and said that I know if he takes something off of it he can get the ball over. So he did, and got us out of the inning. It was bad, because as I was walking away the other coach thought that was 4 walks and we had to switch again. But fortunately that was not the case and so the inning ends and we’re down 5 or 6 to nothing.
Next inning we once again fail to get any offense going. Up comes Avi, and they just rock him. We let up 7 runs and only get out of the inning because of the cap on how many runs a team can score in an inning.
Through-out the game, it should be noted, our defense didn’t help things out. It wasn’t exactly that they were playing poorly, it’s just that that they weren’t playing well. So with the pitchers pitching so poorly, having a mediocre didn’t really help.
Third inning new pitcher, new hope. Except that this guy is clearly their ace. Completely overpowering. In his two innings of pitching we had exactly two players make contact with the ball. Like even for foul balls. It was not good. So we don’t score in either of this innings.
But at least we have some hope when Everett comes in to pitch. At least our bad pitchers are over with. Except that Everett isn’t throwing well. Fortunately they only manage a couple of runs before Everett pulls it together and gets us out of the inning. As mentioned earlier, our second inning against their ace isn’t better then the first. The good thing is that we get to the top of the order for the new pitcher in the 5th. Everett pitches very well in the bottom of the 4th and doesn’t let up any more runs.
The bad thing is that when we enter the 5th is that we need to score runs. The game is currently 13-0. Which means that if we don’t score 6 or 7 runs the game is over as we would be mathematically incapable of catching up in the 6th. We get a little bit of a rally going, but can only scare up 2 runs and so the game is over: 13-2. We were crushed.
Our team spirit was pretty good throughout the game, which was good. But our batting was not. Our pitching was not. Nor was our fielding anything to write home about. There were not really any positives I could take out of the game.
The situation only gets worse. We already knew that Ethan wasn’t going to be there on Saturday. Then I learn that Fuller is not going to be there on Saturday. As we’re leaving the field Trey and his father come up to me. Trey had asked before the game started about when he was pitching. We explained we wanted to save him for the end since it was a six inning game and that he should pitch. I honestly didn’t anticipate being so far behind that we wouldn’t play either the 5th or the 6th. Trey mopes away. Trey’s father then lets me know that Trey has front row tickets to the Cubs/Sox game on Saturday and since we lost that he will likely not be at the game. He says he will call me on Friday to confirm one way or the other, but that we should plan on not having Trey.
And so my despair only deepens. The next day I get a call from Jim’s mother who is very concerned that we won’t have enough players for Saturday’s game. By our count we’re sitting exactly at 9. Anyhow she is very sweet and offers to have some of JS’s friends come if need be. It was very nice. She ended up talking to both Steve and I, and while I forget the details of it, she talked to Steve after she talked to me and Steve completely rocked the conversation. On Friday I get the phone call confirming that there will be no Trey.
Saturday morning I wake up ridiculously early, despite the fact that I had been up pretty late the night before with friends. I am NOT looking forward to this game. We are going to play the Angels, who if you recall beat us pretty soundly earlier in the season. And we’re going to do it without our star pitcher. But the good news is that when I wake up it’s raining oh so lightly. I like rain. As a pick me upper, I make one of the Cinnabuns I had in the freezer and it works some to cheer me up, not to mention letting me have enough calories and fat for the rest of the day. At 7:15 I call the weather hotline and get an update that the games are postponed, but picture day is on. A real decision will be made at 9 o’clock regarding the games.
At 9 o’clock the games are canceled. I am secretly very happy. Steve and I can’t decode the message to figure out if they’re going to reschedule the games and squash them into Sunday or just cancel the playoffs. I head over to his house well before picture time anyway so we can make up team awards. It is his birthday and so I give him his present, a copy of Moneyball. At this point Steve’s mother insists on making him pancakes, just like she used to do when Steve and I had sleepovers. We go and make the awards and then I get to have my second breakfast of the morning. We eat, print out the awards, and head over to the rec center to have our team picture.
At the rec center it’s an absolute mess. There are no Park District employees anywhere. There are teams everywhere. It’s nuts. We have about half the team show up for the photo. We hear that our game has been rescheduled to the next day. This gives Steve mixed emotions. He’s glad we get to play again, but not as glad that it will limit his ability to go to bars that night for his birthday. As we are walking out to the parking lot and talking about the team, Steve tells me that wants to do it again next year. This is a big relief. I honestly thought he had tuned out the team, with us doing so bad, and was sick of the commute down to the suburbs form the city three times a week. Anyhow, it’s a big relief to know that I will be able to do this again next spring with Steve.
Bobby had suggested that we go out to breakfast and so 5 players plus me and Steve head over to breakfast. It was a great breakfast. Avi makes me sad as he proves again how distrustful he is of everyone when he orders the French Toast, I tell him it’s good, and he doesn’t believe that I’ve ever had it before. Steve backs me up and he believes it, but it makes me sort of sad to see him go through life thinking so suspiciously of others. During breakfast, Bobby confides in us that we’re his favorite coaches ever since we’re the first coaches who haven’t just stuck him in the outfield all the time. Knowing what Bobby’s athletic ability was when I was student teaching at his school, I can understand how that was true that his previous coaches had done that, but it was still a great thing to hear.
Steve and I head back to his house and find out that when they rescheduled the games, they redid the brackets. Instead of playing the Angels, we’re playing the Braves We’re very excited about that. We make some phone calls and then head down into the city to hang out at his apartment for a while.
After a depressing week with baseball, knowing that we’re going to have Trey and we’re going to be playing a team that is very beatable, gives me a lot of hope.
Steve and I had announced the day before that Percy would be our pitcher. This was after he had a terrible showing, as we wanted to express our support for him. After thinking it over, we decided that since games go 6 innings in the playoffs that we would go Percy, Avi, Everett, Everett, Trey Trey. The idea being get our weaker pitchers out of the way early and close out strong. When we played the BoSox the previous week, having Trey available at the end of the game was crucial towards producing our tie (and moral victory).
So it’s a Wednesday night and we are expecting the full team. Steve and I arrive to the field early, though not excruciatingly early. The team starts to arrive, but very very slowly. Enough that I start to get worried. I get more worried when somebody tells me Percy had injured his foot at school. However, I know they’re super responsible about calling so they would call.
Fortunately, the game before us runs late as we only have 9 players show up right at game time. Kelvin, after being bitched out a couple of times about not calling us if he was going to be late, does call and say he’s going to be late. Percy shows up and we are told he was doing dry heaves in the car on the way over. So injured and sick. What a combo. I believe, but am not sure, that all our players do end up showing up. Ethan might not have.
Anyway, we give an extended pregame speech. About playing hard. Doing the little things. Relaxing out there and playing as well as we know that they can. I feel good as we go out there. We lose the flip so we’re up to bat first. And their pitcher, the kid who we had coached last year , basically blows right by us. We might have had a hit, but we get nothing going.
So Percy is sent up to the mound. And, well, it’s painful. He has no control just like he hadn’t the night before. He throws walks. He gets hit. He gets hit some more. And he throws some more pitches which are balls. After his third walk I go up there and basically say “I don’t care how you throw it, just throw it over the plate.” No dice. He walks the next batter and we’re forced to auto yank him. In comes Bobby. He starts off poorly, but in the end gets us out of the inning, though after allowing three walks himself. After the third walk I went back to the mound and gave him a similar speech to Percy, and said that I know if he takes something off of it he can get the ball over. So he did, and got us out of the inning. It was bad, because as I was walking away the other coach thought that was 4 walks and we had to switch again. But fortunately that was not the case and so the inning ends and we’re down 5 or 6 to nothing.
Next inning we once again fail to get any offense going. Up comes Avi, and they just rock him. We let up 7 runs and only get out of the inning because of the cap on how many runs a team can score in an inning.
Through-out the game, it should be noted, our defense didn’t help things out. It wasn’t exactly that they were playing poorly, it’s just that that they weren’t playing well. So with the pitchers pitching so poorly, having a mediocre didn’t really help.
Third inning new pitcher, new hope. Except that this guy is clearly their ace. Completely overpowering. In his two innings of pitching we had exactly two players make contact with the ball. Like even for foul balls. It was not good. So we don’t score in either of this innings.
But at least we have some hope when Everett comes in to pitch. At least our bad pitchers are over with. Except that Everett isn’t throwing well. Fortunately they only manage a couple of runs before Everett pulls it together and gets us out of the inning. As mentioned earlier, our second inning against their ace isn’t better then the first. The good thing is that we get to the top of the order for the new pitcher in the 5th. Everett pitches very well in the bottom of the 4th and doesn’t let up any more runs.
The bad thing is that when we enter the 5th is that we need to score runs. The game is currently 13-0. Which means that if we don’t score 6 or 7 runs the game is over as we would be mathematically incapable of catching up in the 6th. We get a little bit of a rally going, but can only scare up 2 runs and so the game is over: 13-2. We were crushed.
Our team spirit was pretty good throughout the game, which was good. But our batting was not. Our pitching was not. Nor was our fielding anything to write home about. There were not really any positives I could take out of the game.
The situation only gets worse. We already knew that Ethan wasn’t going to be there on Saturday. Then I learn that Fuller is not going to be there on Saturday. As we’re leaving the field Trey and his father come up to me. Trey had asked before the game started about when he was pitching. We explained we wanted to save him for the end since it was a six inning game and that he should pitch. I honestly didn’t anticipate being so far behind that we wouldn’t play either the 5th or the 6th. Trey mopes away. Trey’s father then lets me know that Trey has front row tickets to the Cubs/Sox game on Saturday and since we lost that he will likely not be at the game. He says he will call me on Friday to confirm one way or the other, but that we should plan on not having Trey.
And so my despair only deepens. The next day I get a call from Jim’s mother who is very concerned that we won’t have enough players for Saturday’s game. By our count we’re sitting exactly at 9. Anyhow she is very sweet and offers to have some of JS’s friends come if need be. It was very nice. She ended up talking to both Steve and I, and while I forget the details of it, she talked to Steve after she talked to me and Steve completely rocked the conversation. On Friday I get the phone call confirming that there will be no Trey.
Saturday morning I wake up ridiculously early, despite the fact that I had been up pretty late the night before with friends. I am NOT looking forward to this game. We are going to play the Angels, who if you recall beat us pretty soundly earlier in the season. And we’re going to do it without our star pitcher. But the good news is that when I wake up it’s raining oh so lightly. I like rain. As a pick me upper, I make one of the Cinnabuns I had in the freezer and it works some to cheer me up, not to mention letting me have enough calories and fat for the rest of the day. At 7:15 I call the weather hotline and get an update that the games are postponed, but picture day is on. A real decision will be made at 9 o’clock regarding the games.
At 9 o’clock the games are canceled. I am secretly very happy. Steve and I can’t decode the message to figure out if they’re going to reschedule the games and squash them into Sunday or just cancel the playoffs. I head over to his house well before picture time anyway so we can make up team awards. It is his birthday and so I give him his present, a copy of Moneyball. At this point Steve’s mother insists on making him pancakes, just like she used to do when Steve and I had sleepovers. We go and make the awards and then I get to have my second breakfast of the morning. We eat, print out the awards, and head over to the rec center to have our team picture.
At the rec center it’s an absolute mess. There are no Park District employees anywhere. There are teams everywhere. It’s nuts. We have about half the team show up for the photo. We hear that our game has been rescheduled to the next day. This gives Steve mixed emotions. He’s glad we get to play again, but not as glad that it will limit his ability to go to bars that night for his birthday. As we are walking out to the parking lot and talking about the team, Steve tells me that wants to do it again next year. This is a big relief. I honestly thought he had tuned out the team, with us doing so bad, and was sick of the commute down to the suburbs form the city three times a week. Anyhow, it’s a big relief to know that I will be able to do this again next spring with Steve.
Bobby had suggested that we go out to breakfast and so 5 players plus me and Steve head over to breakfast. It was a great breakfast. Avi makes me sad as he proves again how distrustful he is of everyone when he orders the French Toast, I tell him it’s good, and he doesn’t believe that I’ve ever had it before. Steve backs me up and he believes it, but it makes me sort of sad to see him go through life thinking so suspiciously of others. During breakfast, Bobby confides in us that we’re his favorite coaches ever since we’re the first coaches who haven’t just stuck him in the outfield all the time. Knowing what Bobby’s athletic ability was when I was student teaching at his school, I can understand how that was true that his previous coaches had done that, but it was still a great thing to hear.
Steve and I head back to his house and find out that when they rescheduled the games, they redid the brackets. Instead of playing the Angels, we’re playing the Braves We’re very excited about that. We make some phone calls and then head down into the city to hang out at his apartment for a while.
After a depressing week with baseball, knowing that we’re going to have Trey and we’re going to be playing a team that is very beatable, gives me a lot of hope.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Game Report
Yesterday was our last regular season game. Despite the fact that entering the bottom of the 4th, and last, inning we were down by only 3 it was never really a close game. Of course the bottom of the 4th made the score slightly more lopsided. Which is fine, since we wanted it to be more relaxed and for some players to get a chance to do things they hadn’t gotten a chance to do before. Anyhow, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Percy’s Catching: Evidently he had asked to catch a couple of times. Did Steve or I ever really hear that? Not so much. Quite honestly he is a better catcher then Brendan. I feel upset with myself for not having found this out earlier. It is also things like this which make me want to be able to keep all my 5th graders next year. Percy is now very likely to see some real duty behind the plate in the playoffs.
Ethan’s Flyball Catching: Ethan caught not just one or two but THREE flyballs in the outfield. He did drop the first one hit to him, but after that he was flawless. It was good stuff. I just wished Dad hadn’t been such a complete ass in helping him there.
Bobby’s Pitching: I worked with him before the game and had him throw about 20 pitches. We worked out a couple of kinks in his mechanics and he also toned down his velocity. These things together worked well as in the game he was able to get through an inning. Granted he threw a lot of pitches, in doing it, but as an emergency option in the playoffs he would be just fine.
Avi’s pitching: Pitching 1 and a third innings he did quite well. He was able to settle himself down after a few bad pitches. He saw a lot of batters but the end results were fine.
Extra base hits: Jim, Jesse, and Everett all hit legitimate extra base hits. I thought Everett had a legitimate shot at our first team homer, but he had to settle for a standup triple. Extra base hits have been something which have mostly eluded us and is a big reason we haven’t ever scored more then 3 runs in an inning.
The Bad
Brendan’s catching: He caught Percy and clearly struggled catching a pitcher with more velocity. With Percy emerging as a viable catching candidate I think Brandan will see limited duty behind the plate in the playoffs and be strictly limited to catching Avi and possibly Bobby if we ever use him for a full scheduled inning.
Trey’s hitting: Trey is 2 for his last 11 over the last 4 games.
Avi’s fielding: He looked absolutely lost at 3rd base. He was out of position. He wasn’t concentrating on the game. I talked to him after the game, and as always it is a balancing act with him. He was ready to despair as I talked about things he needed to do better, until I explained that I was telling him since he was going to play 3rd base again and so that tonight was a learning experience. He clearly felt much better then.
The Ugly
Percy’s pitching: Now in fairness the ump wasn’t being so consistent with his strike zone. We also had used him as a catcher before pitching him, a no-no. I wonder at this point how we did catching last year since I know our two primary catchers last year were also two of our primary pitchers and so clearly they had to have done some catching before pitching. Dunno. Anyway we had to pull Percy when he started off by walking three, settled down, and then walked a fourth player 3 or 4 batters later. With the league agreeing to remove pitching limits for the playoffs we called Trey in to finish it up. I told him, with a smile, he had 4 pitches to get the 3rd out. He took 6.
Jim’s pitching: We threw him in the first. He was terrible. He got his chances and so I don’t feel bad.
The 3rd inning: We load the bases with no outs for the top of our order and get exactly 1 run. Very frustrating.
Today
We announced, as a sign of confidence, that Percy would be our starting pitcher. I think we’re ready for the playoffs and am excited to win tonight.
The Good
Percy’s Catching: Evidently he had asked to catch a couple of times. Did Steve or I ever really hear that? Not so much. Quite honestly he is a better catcher then Brendan. I feel upset with myself for not having found this out earlier. It is also things like this which make me want to be able to keep all my 5th graders next year. Percy is now very likely to see some real duty behind the plate in the playoffs.
Ethan’s Flyball Catching: Ethan caught not just one or two but THREE flyballs in the outfield. He did drop the first one hit to him, but after that he was flawless. It was good stuff. I just wished Dad hadn’t been such a complete ass in helping him there.
Bobby’s Pitching: I worked with him before the game and had him throw about 20 pitches. We worked out a couple of kinks in his mechanics and he also toned down his velocity. These things together worked well as in the game he was able to get through an inning. Granted he threw a lot of pitches, in doing it, but as an emergency option in the playoffs he would be just fine.
Avi’s pitching: Pitching 1 and a third innings he did quite well. He was able to settle himself down after a few bad pitches. He saw a lot of batters but the end results were fine.
Extra base hits: Jim, Jesse, and Everett all hit legitimate extra base hits. I thought Everett had a legitimate shot at our first team homer, but he had to settle for a standup triple. Extra base hits have been something which have mostly eluded us and is a big reason we haven’t ever scored more then 3 runs in an inning.
The Bad
Brendan’s catching: He caught Percy and clearly struggled catching a pitcher with more velocity. With Percy emerging as a viable catching candidate I think Brandan will see limited duty behind the plate in the playoffs and be strictly limited to catching Avi and possibly Bobby if we ever use him for a full scheduled inning.
Trey’s hitting: Trey is 2 for his last 11 over the last 4 games.
Avi’s fielding: He looked absolutely lost at 3rd base. He was out of position. He wasn’t concentrating on the game. I talked to him after the game, and as always it is a balancing act with him. He was ready to despair as I talked about things he needed to do better, until I explained that I was telling him since he was going to play 3rd base again and so that tonight was a learning experience. He clearly felt much better then.
The Ugly
Percy’s pitching: Now in fairness the ump wasn’t being so consistent with his strike zone. We also had used him as a catcher before pitching him, a no-no. I wonder at this point how we did catching last year since I know our two primary catchers last year were also two of our primary pitchers and so clearly they had to have done some catching before pitching. Dunno. Anyway we had to pull Percy when he started off by walking three, settled down, and then walked a fourth player 3 or 4 batters later. With the league agreeing to remove pitching limits for the playoffs we called Trey in to finish it up. I told him, with a smile, he had 4 pitches to get the 3rd out. He took 6.
Jim’s pitching: We threw him in the first. He was terrible. He got his chances and so I don’t feel bad.
The 3rd inning: We load the bases with no outs for the top of our order and get exactly 1 run. Very frustrating.
Today
We announced, as a sign of confidence, that Percy would be our starting pitcher. I think we’re ready for the playoffs and am excited to win tonight.
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.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Game 2
Score
So we got shellacked. Final score was 16-3 including 6 runs in the last inning. Glad they got those insurance runs cause we were a real threat considering you can’t score more then 7 in an inning. It’s frankly not worth doing an inning by inning breakdown so you’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Jodi is the real deal. She hit the only ball into the outfield, though it was just barely in the outfield, which not so coincidentally was also our only hit. She was also consistently where she needed to be no matter which position she was at, has pretty good speed, and handled, flawlessly, a nasty one hop ground ball while at second base.
Despite getting pounded from the first inning on, we basically played the same level all game long; it was a level we’d never win a ballgame with, but it was the same level. At no point were fielders moping or not paying attention.
Jesse did an excellent job of countering the ridiculous efforts when catching. Basically every time they got a runner to 3rd base, which was often thanks to all of the wild pitches, he held them on.
Bobby is very coachable. When Steve or I explained something to him about fielding, he would remember to do it the next time. I also worked with him on pitching for about 10 minutes before the game and he later threw during a time when he was not scheduled to be in the field to supposedly good results.
Kelvin might be able to play 1st base. This was unexpected really, since he can’t really field ground balls, and is only so-so with flyballs, but looked very solid at his inning there.
The Bad
Steve is an inconsistent base coach. I had forgotten this from last season, but he doesn’t remind his runners to consistently do what they’re supposed to do. So we had a situation where a ball was hit with 2 outs and Ethan just stood by Steve at 1st base rather then running on contact.
Brendan cannot play 1st base. On the nicely fielded play that Jodi made he botched an easy throw and then stood around rather then getting the ball, allowing runners to advance. I wouldn’t judge him on one play too harshly, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t catch either. His catching really belongs in The Ugly. While he is very good at many important catcher skills, like getting the mask off quickly, or throwing it to a base, he’s not so good at the most important of catching skills: catching and blocking the ball. And by not so good I mean terrible. If your catcher isn’t catching the ball you’re not going to get strikes you would get otherwise. Not to mention the havoc it caused on the base paths. Steve and I agree that he needs lots of work at catcher before he gets more chances. And we’re going to work with him, but our seeming surplus of catchers have turned out not to be so.
This means we are left with-out a #2 catcher. What this means for us is that Trey and Everett are going to have to step up, or rather behind, the plate. Everett has already expressed interest, and caught a pretty good inning in our first game, but Trey might need a little coaxing. In fact, I am thinking we might not so much ask him about it, as assign it to him at the next game. Steve and I will have to talk this over.
Everett just doesn’t have the arm strength right now to pitch 2 innings. Hopefully he’ll build this up, but when we essentially had to call on him to do this in the game he really struggled during that second inning, even against easier batters.
Our hitting. I mentioned earlier that we didn’t hit it out of the infield except for Jofi. The good news is that we are hitting the ball, as opposed to striking out. The bad news is that we’re going to need a lot of work on our hitting, and I am not sure I have the chops to be a good hitting coach. I will be doing my best, however, as we work on hitting it past the pitcher.
The Ugly
Our pitching. Percy was a huge disappointment walking 4 of his first 5 batters, meaning he had to be yanked. Trey came in and did a good job that inning and a terrific job the next giving us a 1, 2, 3 inning, our first I believe of the season. Ethan was our next pitcher as it was going to be the “bottom” of their lineup (I put it in quotes as it was actually the top of the lineup except because of our continuous batting order it was the worse players). He then proceeds to walk the first four batters he faced and so we had to yank him. It was as bad as I was expecting. At this point I call Everett in for relief and he gets us out of the inning. However, the wheels fall off in the 4th and he has a couple of bad luck fielding and gets hammered at bat with the other team batting around all 11 players before we can retire the side. I had to really juggle the pitching order here especially with Percy being unable to make it out of his inning. The only person who consistently was throwing strikes was Trey, with Everett doing it during the 3rd, but not 4th inning. I just don’t know where we’re going to get six innings each game. Avi will get another chance to pitch on Saturday I would expect, but I don’t think he can throw 2 innings. So we will use Trey for 2, Everett for 1, Avi for 1 and then what? Likely Jim for 1 and then we’re looking at either Percy or Bobby. Thank goodness we don’t have that extra game each week is all I can say at this point.
Little Mistakes. The other team just ran us ragged. Every little thing they were taking an extra base. The catcher would catch the ball and they would take off stealing. People weren’t where they needed to be. Now the good thing is that we got better as the game went on. We had more people running the ball in rather then throwing at the end which is good. Granted they were getting on base but it seemed like every walk was turning into a run because of how they were running. Our fundamentals just plain sucked and I frankly think that was on me and Steve. We will be working on it at practice, that’s for sure.
The other team’s sportsmanship. They needless ran up the score. They taunted us from the basepaths and from the bench. When it became clear that we were in the 4th and last inning the coach continued to run up the score. I talked to him about it and he gave me some lame excuse about how is team was destroyed on Saturday and went home with their heads down, yadda yadda yadda. I made my point to him which is all that could really be done in the situation.
Where we go from here
Our plan for practice is two fold.
1. We want to teach bunting. This has been a priority with us for a while and it’s time we hunker down and do it.
2. Work on fielding. Boy do we need the work.
I will go into greater depth about what we do after tonight’s practice. Clearly we also need to work on hitting, which Steve is going to do while I’m doing small group bunting instruction, but I would like not to be embarrassed at our game and so fielding will be the priority at the practice.
So we got shellacked. Final score was 16-3 including 6 runs in the last inning. Glad they got those insurance runs cause we were a real threat considering you can’t score more then 7 in an inning. It’s frankly not worth doing an inning by inning breakdown so you’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Jodi is the real deal. She hit the only ball into the outfield, though it was just barely in the outfield, which not so coincidentally was also our only hit. She was also consistently where she needed to be no matter which position she was at, has pretty good speed, and handled, flawlessly, a nasty one hop ground ball while at second base.
Despite getting pounded from the first inning on, we basically played the same level all game long; it was a level we’d never win a ballgame with, but it was the same level. At no point were fielders moping or not paying attention.
Jesse did an excellent job of countering the ridiculous efforts when catching. Basically every time they got a runner to 3rd base, which was often thanks to all of the wild pitches, he held them on.
Bobby is very coachable. When Steve or I explained something to him about fielding, he would remember to do it the next time. I also worked with him on pitching for about 10 minutes before the game and he later threw during a time when he was not scheduled to be in the field to supposedly good results.
Kelvin might be able to play 1st base. This was unexpected really, since he can’t really field ground balls, and is only so-so with flyballs, but looked very solid at his inning there.
The Bad
Steve is an inconsistent base coach. I had forgotten this from last season, but he doesn’t remind his runners to consistently do what they’re supposed to do. So we had a situation where a ball was hit with 2 outs and Ethan just stood by Steve at 1st base rather then running on contact.
Brendan cannot play 1st base. On the nicely fielded play that Jodi made he botched an easy throw and then stood around rather then getting the ball, allowing runners to advance. I wouldn’t judge him on one play too harshly, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t catch either. His catching really belongs in The Ugly. While he is very good at many important catcher skills, like getting the mask off quickly, or throwing it to a base, he’s not so good at the most important of catching skills: catching and blocking the ball. And by not so good I mean terrible. If your catcher isn’t catching the ball you’re not going to get strikes you would get otherwise. Not to mention the havoc it caused on the base paths. Steve and I agree that he needs lots of work at catcher before he gets more chances. And we’re going to work with him, but our seeming surplus of catchers have turned out not to be so.
This means we are left with-out a #2 catcher. What this means for us is that Trey and Everett are going to have to step up, or rather behind, the plate. Everett has already expressed interest, and caught a pretty good inning in our first game, but Trey might need a little coaxing. In fact, I am thinking we might not so much ask him about it, as assign it to him at the next game. Steve and I will have to talk this over.
Everett just doesn’t have the arm strength right now to pitch 2 innings. Hopefully he’ll build this up, but when we essentially had to call on him to do this in the game he really struggled during that second inning, even against easier batters.
Our hitting. I mentioned earlier that we didn’t hit it out of the infield except for Jofi. The good news is that we are hitting the ball, as opposed to striking out. The bad news is that we’re going to need a lot of work on our hitting, and I am not sure I have the chops to be a good hitting coach. I will be doing my best, however, as we work on hitting it past the pitcher.
The Ugly
Our pitching. Percy was a huge disappointment walking 4 of his first 5 batters, meaning he had to be yanked. Trey came in and did a good job that inning and a terrific job the next giving us a 1, 2, 3 inning, our first I believe of the season. Ethan was our next pitcher as it was going to be the “bottom” of their lineup (I put it in quotes as it was actually the top of the lineup except because of our continuous batting order it was the worse players). He then proceeds to walk the first four batters he faced and so we had to yank him. It was as bad as I was expecting. At this point I call Everett in for relief and he gets us out of the inning. However, the wheels fall off in the 4th and he has a couple of bad luck fielding and gets hammered at bat with the other team batting around all 11 players before we can retire the side. I had to really juggle the pitching order here especially with Percy being unable to make it out of his inning. The only person who consistently was throwing strikes was Trey, with Everett doing it during the 3rd, but not 4th inning. I just don’t know where we’re going to get six innings each game. Avi will get another chance to pitch on Saturday I would expect, but I don’t think he can throw 2 innings. So we will use Trey for 2, Everett for 1, Avi for 1 and then what? Likely Jim for 1 and then we’re looking at either Percy or Bobby. Thank goodness we don’t have that extra game each week is all I can say at this point.
Little Mistakes. The other team just ran us ragged. Every little thing they were taking an extra base. The catcher would catch the ball and they would take off stealing. People weren’t where they needed to be. Now the good thing is that we got better as the game went on. We had more people running the ball in rather then throwing at the end which is good. Granted they were getting on base but it seemed like every walk was turning into a run because of how they were running. Our fundamentals just plain sucked and I frankly think that was on me and Steve. We will be working on it at practice, that’s for sure.
The other team’s sportsmanship. They needless ran up the score. They taunted us from the basepaths and from the bench. When it became clear that we were in the 4th and last inning the coach continued to run up the score. I talked to him about it and he gave me some lame excuse about how is team was destroyed on Saturday and went home with their heads down, yadda yadda yadda. I made my point to him which is all that could really be done in the situation.
Where we go from here
Our plan for practice is two fold.
1. We want to teach bunting. This has been a priority with us for a while and it’s time we hunker down and do it.
2. Work on fielding. Boy do we need the work.
I will go into greater depth about what we do after tonight’s practice. Clearly we also need to work on hitting, which Steve is going to do while I’m doing small group bunting instruction, but I would like not to be embarrassed at our game and so fielding will be the priority at the practice.
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