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.