Game vs Cardinals

Yesterday’s game was another disappointment. We had 3 hits in four innings of play. Now granted we had several more walks and did score some runs, and we had a double play on a flyball to the outfield with the bases loaded that ended the inning. However, we simply did not produce the kind of offense we needed to. Matt S did not look well in his pitching and had to be pulled in favor of Noff who did look good. Nick struggled yet again in his second inning though he pulled through in the end. Jeremy Me caught an inning for us and looked good. So a loss, and one where we didn’t have any energy, but hardly catastrophe. We go at them again tonight

It seems like today would be a good time to do an overview of the team, going by our original batting order.

Jeremy Ma – Our best pitcher and likely our second best catcher. He has the second biggest difference between his OBP and his batting average with the biggest difference going to the kid with the worst BA. This suggests to me that while he has a very discerning eye, he should perhaps be putting the ball into play a bit more. Of course I’d rather have him walk than strike out, so I’m not sure if this merits a conversation with him. Thoughts would be welcome.

Cameron – Unexpectedly did not show up for our game yesterday. Hopefully he’ll be at today’s game as we’re only expecting exactly 9. I’d call to confirm except our contact sheet is missing his phone number for some reason. Anyhow, Cameron is our best hitter with a stratospheric 1.67 OPS. Of course since OBP is so much higher in Little League than in the majors it’s hard to say just how great this is, but either way it’s pretty terrific. I feel like we’ve done a bit of a disservice to him as we haven’t worked much with him on his pitching as he could likely be good with some work. However, with the wealth of pitching we have this year our time, oh so limited, has been spent elsewhere.

Justin – Hard to say too much about him since he was out for so long. He does play very smart baseball. Hopefully he’ll be a reliable pitcher for us, and I think we’re going to really push this to the extreme today possibly pitching him two innings. He has a beautiful swing so I would expect his rather pedestrian batting average to rise as he gets some more at bats.

Nick – Nick might be our best all around player at the moment. His pitching has been nearly as good as Jeremy Ma despite having nowhere near as much experience. He has an extremely respectable 1.47 OPS. He runs well, loves baseball, is eager to learn. Not a whole lot you can say which isn’t positive. We saw a bit of mental weakness yesterday. His being a dominant pitcher, as he has been for us, was more of a metamorphosis than an evolution and so the mental part is something he doesn’t have a lot of practice with. Additionally, his pitching of two innings is still a hit or miss prospect. He’s lights out for an inning nearly every time but the second inning is something he needs to master a little bit better. But I think he’ll get there.

Jared – Much to my surprise you could make an argument for his being the third best pitcher on the team after Nick and Jeremy Ma. He’s definitely our best catcher. Hopefully he’ll continue to grow in these areas. His hitting is alright though nowhere nearly as good as I’d thought at the start of the season.

Matt S – He’s perhaps the nicest kid on our team. He’s so big it is easy to forget that he’s only in 5th grade. He’s very rough around a lot of edges part of it is likely because his body hasn’t caught up to his size yet so the coordination isn’t all there. However, if that happens he could be a real good player. His hitting isn’t what I would like especially as he has a tendency to strike out. But I think that’s clearly because of his coordination difficulties. We need to find him a couple more chances at catcher before the season ends.

Austin – He’s pretty good at making contact with the ball. However, the ball doesn’t tend to go anywhere when he does make contact. He hasn’t grown nearly as much as I would have liked. We did some work with him on his pitching but that just didn’t turn out. I think the lack of practices hurt him more than any other player.

Alec – He has quite a bit of potential at catcher though I’m not sure we’re going to be able to realize it all this season. He’s also shown some ability at pitcher which I’m not sure we’re going to fully realize either. However, he’s come a long way in a short time and should be proud of what he’s accomplished this year.

Noff – Quiet kid. He seems like he’s an OKish pitcher. Steve and I have had to work hard to make sure he doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, especially as he’s our worst hitter. Hopefully he’ll continue to find success in the other things he does for us. I just wish he wasn’t so afraid to bunt, a fear I don’t quite understand, as I thin he’d be really good.

Sean – He started off the season hitting so well. And then he dropped off. I think some of this is because he went up there scared after getting hit a couple of times. I don’t really know the cure for that. He’s also wildly inconsistent in terms of his attention. He’s a passable catcher, though I am glad that Jeremy Me seems to be panning out more since it means that we really won’t have to play him come playoff crunch time. I hope we can turn his hitting back around in the time we have left.

Jeremy F – He’s been a pleasant surprise. I actually think if the guy wasn’t afraid of his shadow he’d be a good ball player. He really struggles against top notch pitching but otherwise is great about making contact and getting on base, having the smallest differential between his BA and OBP, which is ok as he gets a “hit” (remembering we count almost all error assisted hits as hits rather than outs for purposes of computing BA and OBP) 55% of the time.

Jeremy Me – We haven’t gotten him an inning lately though part of that is because we haven’t played a whole lot lately. I really wish I could figure out why he can’t start an inning for us without falling apart as when he’s on he’s great. His turning out to be a serviceable catcher is a great bonus. We just have to figure out a way to get him back on the mound.

That segues into one of our biggest problems right now. We have more pitchers who deserve time than innings. I don’t really like to just concede games so we’ll continue to use Nick and Jeremy Ma. After the innings they’ve gotten we have a fairly dense groupings of innings pitched. It’s a nice dilemma to have, but still a balancing act to get everyone some quality time on the mound.

Tonight will be interesting as we’re only going to have 9 players, including having Noff’s little brother. This is due to a band concert, so perhaps the other team will be in the same position as us, however I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew that Cameron was going to be there for sure.