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.

Marlins vs Yankees and Marlins vs. Red Sox

Tuesday
The forecast for the day is gloomy, but Tuesday morning as I sit at my desk at a library things are looking gorgeous outside. Monday night I had sent Steve the email I posted here. Steve agreed with the revised lineup and pitchers. However, after some more thinking I had thought perhaps we should throw our unreliable pitcher, being Bobby or Jim, in the first in the hope we would then still have time to recover if they got shelled. This causes a flurry of emails back and forth between me and Steve. We end up actually doing four lineups, one with Bobby and Jim throwing in the first and one with them throwing in the fourth. It should be noted that with Brendan catching we can actually do a pretty terrific infield. We decide we’ll throw them both a little beforehand and see who looks sharper and that’s the way we’ll go. I keep pushing for Steve to try and get his younger brother to come as he’s the high school pitcher, but that’s a definite unknown.

As I leave school at just after 3 I listen to a voice mail from Steve. Bobby has called him and he was home sick during the day. So at least that solves our dilemma of who to pitch between Bobby and Jim. As I am driving to the youth center the clouds are quite ominous. In fact when I arrive around 3:30 it is thundering and lightening but only rains for a minute. I expect the game to be called. When I call at 3:45 the game is still on. Same thing at 4:00. And 4:30. And 5:30, when I leave it is sunny once again. So it looks like we’ll play some baseball. Unfortunately, it will be a game without Steve. He calls me at about 4 saying he has some stomach bug. It’s definitely going to be weird coaching a game without him. I also worry that there isn’t really a stomach bug and he simply doesn’t want to drive down for a game that could very easily be canceled. As I have said once or twice before Steve doesn’t seem as committed as last season.

And so I head out to the field, after a stop at home to change, extra early hoping to catch an early game. Which I do. Only problem is that I then realize I’m at the WRONG field. So I drive to the correct field. Jesse is already there and Ethan arrives at about the same time I do. As we walk over to the field, the field is clearly unplayable. Where there should be a batter’s box there is instead a HUGE puddle. A phone call has been made to get somebody to bring some dirt over. Just as I arrive, at 7:15 for our game, there is a flash of lightening. Which means we’ll have to wait 30 minutes to play our game, anyway. The players slowly trickle in. I have Jim and Jesse throw behind the dugout a little. Jesse comes over and tells me how great Jim looks. I swear that no pitcher has ever looked poor throwing to Jesse when there is no coach looking if you were to ask Jesse. I take a look at Jim and he looks OK. He looks like he’s going to get the ball TO the plate, though it won’t necessarily be a strike. But even that is an improvement. Our 7:45 game time rolls around and nothing. The Park District guy shows up right at 7:45. Eventually the ump and the other manager, at my suggestion, agree to start the game on the other field and to move back, as the field with the puddle has the lights. We end up starting at about 7:55, so only 10 minutes late. With no Bobby, Kelvin is our first batter. He draws a walk. Jesse strikes out, but Kelvin has stolen second and third. With Kelvin on third Trey is up at bat. And that’s when the Park District guy comes over and says there was lightening. The other coach asks if I really want to wait the 30 minutes, as we are now playing at a field without lights and the other field might, or might not, be ready to play on. I say that I absolutely want to play. So we start to wait. After about 5 minutes of waiting it is decided that conditions simply won’t let us play and so everyone is sent home.

I remind everyone at this time that we don’t have practice on Wednesday, but are going to do a light practice on Saturday before the game. Steve and I both feared that the Tuesday game would get canceled and we’d miss the game on Wednesday when we’d be at our brother’s graduation. Fortunately, by the time the other team’s coach suggests this the players from our team have mostly left and so it’s agreed we won’t make up the game. Unfortunately, after I reminded people about our game on Saturday Trey goes up to his dad and says “Did you realize we had a game on Saturday?” Trey’s dad asks me several times if that game was on the schedule or was a makeup and I tell him it was on the schedule. Trey’s dad tells me that Trey won’t be there. I do apply a bit of a guilt trip as Steve and I had planned on really going all out against the Red Sox, considering they were our first round opponent. As I leave the field I call Steve to tell him that we will be without Trey for our game on Saturday.

Friday I work am at work at the Youth Center and Joey, who has hit several home runs and is on the Red Sox, is in again. And he keeps trash talking our team, continuing off of something he already started on Tuesday. He keeps trying to get me to admit my team is bad. Keeps bragging about how good his team is. Frankly the whole thing gets annoying, but I never waver in saying that I think we have a good team and that it’ll be a good game.

Saturday Before the Game
Steve and I make plans to get together, have breakfast and then to head over to the field. We put together a lineup without Trey. He is the only one we remember won’t be there, however I later remember that Kelvin had told me he wouldn’t be at the game. While doing the lineup we bemoan the lack of Trey.

We then go out and have a nice breakfast, in my case, or lunch, in Steve’s case, at a deli. As we are finishing up our meal and getting ready to head over to the field Steve gets a phone call. He goes “Uh-oh”. He quickly establishes that it’s Trey on the phone. I think to myself “How can anything with Trey be MORE of an uh-oh”. And then Steve says “Well that’s great. How about the practice beforehand?” And that’s when I practically leap out of the booth. A moment later Steve hangs up. We are going to have Trey for both the practice, which we didn’t really care about, and the game. The whole thing with him missing was so mysterious I am dying to know what it was. A court date? A urologist’s exam? What? Steve and I decide that this warrants redoing the lineup.

In the car ride back from the deli we debate how much we want to use Trey. 2 innings? 1? With the playoffs coming up we don’t want to wear out his arm before the “real” games even start. In the end we decide that we will pitch, Everett, Percy, and Trey with the “split” innings approach to try and limit their pitches. We are now expecting all 12 players to be there.

We get to the field nice and early and basically lay in the grass watching one of the games and sunning before our players get there. When our players do arrive we go through a very light practice that consists of Steve hitting them ground balls while I hit them flyballs, using a tennis racket and tennis balls, and then switching. We then pitch them some soft toss, and they all look good. We end with “footbaseball”. During practice Brendan’s family calls and says he won’t be there. Also absent from the practice are Ethan and Kelvin.

Game time approaches and we are at exactly 9 players. Which means I will be figuring out positions as the game begins. I bring the team over beforehand and give them a speech which goes like this. “We are playing the team we play in the first round of the playoffs. And they aren’t giving you any respect. They really think we’re a bad team and that they can just roll right over us. And I know they’re wrong. We had a nice light practice before hand, but it’s game time now and we have to go out and play 100%. So we’re going to go out there and play hard and prove that that we’re the better team by winning today.” The team checks to make sure I was being serious about them trash talking us, and not just making it up, and I assure them that I am being serious. Both of the kids I know on the team, Joey and Garett, have both said something or made faces so while it was a slight exaggeration to say the team was doing it, it was certainly not an outright lie. The team is pretty motivated as we get ready for our first at bats.

The Game
So the game gets underway. With Trey being there after all he is our leadoff batter. And our star player starts things off by flying out to center-right. The play was a routine play and it was fielded routinely which will be something typical throughout the game. Fuller then hits a rocket, unfortunately it is right at their nearly 6 foot tall second basemen, Joey, who makes a leaping catch. It was a very well hit ball, but perhaps an even better defensive play. Jim walks, but Avi grounds out to the pitcher to end the inning. 0-0

Everett takes the mound against a favorite player of ours from last year, Garrett. We tell Jesse, who is behind the plate, to give a high strike zone and sure enough on the second pitch, after a first pitch strike, Garrett bites and grounds it back to the mound. Next batter rockets it on the ground to shortstop, but Bobby fields it like a pro and we get the next out. Everett then hits the next batter. The following batter gets a single. Up comes Joey, their star slugger. We tell Jesse to setup inside and on the first pitch Joey hits a pitch that would have been a ball right at Jodi in left. She gets her glove on it, but the ball is hit so hard that it pops right out, which wasn’t really her fault. She gets the ball back in quickly, but unfortunately they score a run. Everett then gets the next batter to ground back out to him and so we end the first down 1-0.

Percy leads off our next inning with a walk. Everett follows this up with a single which gets Percy to third. First pitch Everett steals second base so now we have runners at second and third. Jodi draws a walk. Bobby singles into right field only because they had their right fielder playing ridiculously shallow. If he had been playing at a normal depth it’s likely an easy out as the ball went over his head and died. Anyhow Bobby drives in Percy. Jesse strikes out. Trey then hits a single driving in Everett. Fuller steps up and hits a ball to the first baseman who throws it home to get Jodi out at the plate. What is of note is that they are already contesting the run by bringing the infield in, something I think is a strategic mistake in this league, though we never do take advantage of the fact during the game. With two outs Jim is up. He hits a ball to the second baseman which he loses track of. Bobby scores easily. By the time Trey gets to me, and he is sprinting I will add, the second baseman still doesn’t have the ball. With 2 outs and Avi about to be up I decide to send Trey. I figure three things can go right for us: 1. He beats the throw 2. He wouldn’t have beaten the throw but it will go wild or 3. He doesn’t beat the throw but they can’t get the tag on him. Well just after I send Trey the second basemen finally locates the ball and gets it and throws it home, on a perfect throw. The catcher has plenty of time to get setup. TG slides in, pretty clearly under the throw, but is called out anyway. He thought he was safe. I thought he was safe. The parents sitting in the stands thought he was safe. Oh well. Good guys go up 3-1.

Everett is on the mound for another inning. The first two batters pop out, first to Jodi at second and then to Trey at short. Next batter lines a double. He steals third, but we get Garrett to ground out, again, to our pitcher to end the inning. This is the first time where Everett’s good pitching was rewarded in that he allowed only 1 run in two very solid innings of pitching, with only 25 total pitches thrown. Anyhow still 3-1 Marlins. Avi starts of the inning by hitting it hard at the first basemen who makes an error. Unfortunately, Avi did not hurry out of the box and so the right fielder throws him out by a step. If he hadn’t thought he was out when he hit the ball he’d have been safe. This is reinforced when Percy hits almost the exact same ball and is safe by a couple of steps. Percy steals second and third. However, he’s stranded there when Everett hits one back to the pitcher and they look him back. Jodi comes up with two outs and draws a walk. I send her on the second pitch. But it’s all for naught as Bovvy strikes out.
Percy is our new pitcher and does not start off so well, walking the first player. Everett is now catching for us and they decide to run on him with that player stealing second on the first batter, who strikes out. The next batter also strikes out however the runner steals third after Everett makes a bad throw. Normally our left fielder would have been right there to backup, but as the batter was a lefty he was shifted way over. So anyhow they score a run without having hit the ball. The second batter strikes out. Which is just as well that the bases are empty because up steps JR, their slugger. We are playing at the only field with a fence and we have our outfield practically playing on the fence, which proves to be the correct play when he hits a ball that nearly goes over but instead is a very long single. Now this guy is not a fast guy but they STILL managed to have him steal second and third before Percy strikes out the next batter. 3-2 Marlins after 3.

Now it should be said that this game is moving. We are about half way through the game and we are half way through the time limit. This means our plan to only play for 5 innings isn’t going to fly. Our pitching schedule has Trey throwing next inning and Avi closing out the game with the last two. Alternatively, we could have Percy throw 2 and have Avi and Trey each throw one. We decide to see how long this next half inning takes before making a decision. Jesse leads off with a walk. Trey hits a ball to second base which gets Jesse out on a fielders choice. Trey manages to steal second and third. Fuller pops up to second base. I give Trey the green light to try and steal home, as I have more faith in Jim leading off an inning then driving in a run. And sure enough Jim hits the ball to second base. Something has happened to Jesse which diverts Steve’s attention and so I have to make a split second decision on what to do and decide to put Avi up there as we’re still doing well on time. Unfortunately, I don’t have positions for this which proves to be a problem as I have Everett catch again, not really thinking about how Trey should have caught this inning as Trey clearly cannot catch for himself and we didn’t really want to catch Everett for three innings. I realize my mistake too late to change it.

Anyhow Avi takes the mound. Avi starts off with 4 balls, though the batter swings at one in the dirt so it’s 3 and 1. We tell him to take a moment and concentrate, which makes a big difference for him. He takes his time and induces a grounder back to the pitcher for the first out. He then asks if it was a good pitch, which Steve and I assure him it was. Next play is a ball to Trey who is at third base. Trey who when I told him he was playing third rolled his eyes. Anyway TG comes up with it and fires it over to first to Jesse who completely misplays it. So now we have a runner on. Who then proceeds to steal second. He advances to third when the next batter hits a single. We give up the steal and now have runners at second and third. I tell Trey to hold the runner at third on and sure enough we catch him walking back to the bag. Everett makes the throw and we have a run down. A rundown which we execute perfectly, though the runner from second does advance to third. Two outs. Garrett comes up and knocks in a single to score the run. He then proceeds to steal second and third, on consecutive pitches though the call at third could have gone either way. Next batter hits a single to score Garrett. Avi then strikes out the batter to end the inning. 4-3 BoSox.

Avi starts us off with a single. He steals second. Percy then walks. Everett then hits a ground rule double, under the fence, which is a shame as Percy would have scored easily. Jodi strikes out. Bobby then pops it up and the first basemen makes the play though Percy is able to score on a tag up and Everett advances to third. Jesse then knocks Everett home. Jesse is able to steal second before Trey strikes out. We do get three runs though putting us up 6-4.

Trey comes up to pitch. As he’s doing so, JM is very upset about something which Steve is handling. I later learn that Joey made a threatening comment to him. This appears to be in retaliation for a play made where Jesse missed a throw by Everett and so Joey ended up getting hit in the head. We are not sure, as the inning starts, if it is Joey or a different tall kid who made the comment. Trey does not start off well walking the first batter on four pitches. They are able to once again take advantage of Everett getting the runner to third. Joey steps up to bat. On the second or third pitch, Trey makes a bad pitch which bounces in the ground in front of Joey. Joey then takes a step out towards the mound and makes a threatening comment to Trey. The umpire warns him at that moment. Frankly, I think Joey believed all his trash talk and thought we were a bad team that they could roll over and has been surprised that we have held him to singles, not homers, and that in fact his team is losing. The next pitch is a play back to the pitcher. Trey looks at the runner, and the runner is clearly going home. So what does Trey do? Throws to first for the easy out, conceding the run. Given the situation I am OK with it, but I hope Trey realized that the point of looking at the runner is to make sure he doesn’t score, either by throwing it home or keeping him on third. Anyway we record the first out. ON the next play Trey does indeed hit the batter, who promptly steals second. After going down 3-0 on the next batter TG fights his way back and records the strikeout. The inning ends on a grounder to short. They score 1 and it’s now 6-5.

I point out to the team that if we score 7 runs, the max, then we don’t have to play the field as we win. Unfortunately, Fuller starts it off by striking out. This means 3 of our 4 kids with lowest strike out percentages, Jesse, Trey, & Fuller (with the absent Kelvin being the fourth) have struck out. Jim then gets on first after hustling out a play where it once again bloops over the right fielders head. On the second pitch he takes off and steals second. Avi then hits it back to the pitcher advancing Jim. Unfortunately, Percy strikes out to end the inning and our insurance run stranded at third.

The bottom of the inning starts with a single. Bobby almost makes an incredible play, catching the ball on a hard hit line drive, but instead it just gets knocked down and unfortunately the other kid wins the foot race to the bag. Before there can be any steals Garrett hits a ball right at Everett, who is at short. Everett should have plenty of time to pick up the ball and so I yell for him to get the out at second, as I would like to get the lead runner out. Unfortunately, Everett just can’t pick up the ball and both batters are safe. They steal third base, with Jesse throwing in plenty of time to get the runner, unfortunately the throw is just enough off the bag that we can’t get the tag in time. At this point Steve and I pull the infield in. And here’s where Trey proves why he’s a great pitcher. On 7 pitches he strikes out the next two batters. This then brings Joey up to bat. With two outs we now just need to get the out and so we set the infield and outfield deep. Trey seems to have Joey’s number as he hits a not particularly hard grounder to Everett, who muffs the ball again. This scores the tying run. At the time I was just furious with him. However, in retrospect I am not nearly as upset. The kid had pitched for two innings and caught for three. He’s going to be dead tired. If I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly we almost for sure do not put him at short there. Of course, if I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly he’d have only caught for two innings. Anyway, Everett has not made one clutch play for us, either at bat or in the field, especially in the field, which is frustrating. We try and do a trick play to get the runner on third to go with a throw to the shortstop when Joey attempts to steal second, but it’s no dice. But we needn’t have worried as Trey takes three pitches to end the game with another strikeout. And we end up with a very hard fought tie.

Looking Forward

Steve and I are VERY upbeat after the game. The team is clearly exhausted but we tell them that we played excellent baseball. Were it not for either of Everett’s errors, or for the bum call in the second on the play at the plate, we win this game.

Looking at the scorebook I worry, however, that the game on Wednesday is not going to go nearly as well. If I had to pick three kids to miss the combination of Brendan, Ethan, and Kelvin would be pretty high up there as Brendan and Ethan aren’t great hitters and Kelvin is not a very good fielder. Furthermore, not having to sit any kids was a major plus for us. I also think they were missing none of their bad kids and a couple of their good kids based on where good hitters were in their lineup in relation to others. So we’ll see. This tie, all things considered, was as good as a win for us psychologically. Once again the other team was mopey and we were upbeat at the end of the game, so that part is good.

I think the parents would be hard pressed at this point to criticize us, as we have the team peaking at the right point in the season, just like we said we would. The game was a very well played game of baseball. The good news is that they made about 1 stupid play and we made 3. So even that augers well in our favor as I am not convinced that they are fundamentally a better team then we are. We also have the advantage of knowing they are going to run hard against us, so it’ll be something we focus on Tuesday.

Speaking of Tuesday, we want to save Trey, Everett, and to a lesser extent, Percy’s arm. Jim and Bobby have both been told they’re pitching. Basically we’re going to talk about having fun with our last game. The less pitching we have our pitchers do here the more we can save them for the playoffs. Hopefully the other team will have the same philosophy.

Marlins vs Cardinals

So Steve was very late in getting me the scorebook and so I am even later in my update.

Pre-Game
So we haven’t had a game since May 10, and it’s now May 23rd, meaning it’s been almost two weeks. When we last left you we had notched our first victory of the year in a lightening shortened game. We had a practice on the 16th but we haven’t seen some kids since the 10th, or before, so Steve and I are very nervous about people showing up.

We anticipate no Fuller, due to Hebrew school, but otherwise think we’ll have a full squad. Of course I know there’s the possibility that Fuller will be there because Hebrew School might be over. So what we do is put together a full lineup for 11 players, without Fuller, and do a lineup with just pitchers, catchers, and subs for all 12 players. We also have several blank sheets so we’re ready for any eventuality.

This is a game against the Cardinals, a team considered to be in the bottom three teams in the league with us. Steve and I want to use the rainouts to get a little momentum going and so we decide to throw Trey for the first two, Avi for the third, have Avi and Percy split the fourth, with Percy pitching in the 5th and Everett closing it out. We also decide it’s time to give Brendan some time behind the plate so he will catch Avi, our slowest throwing pitcher, in the third.

We have a harried dinner and get to the field about 55 minutes before the first pitch. And who should be there awaiting us but Trey. Seems his brother had soccer practice at the same park so his mom just dropped them both off at the same time. This ruins our ability to do the “pick who gets there first” contest. Which is a shame because I am TOTALLY kicking Steve’s ass. There’s only one time I’ve had a bad pick and in that case Steve’s was even worse. Steve has only won one time we’ve done this and it’s a shame we didn’t put any kind of wager down on it. Anyhow we throw and talk with Trey for a bit. It’s time well spent.

Jim is one of the first players to show up. Later on I hear him make a disparaging comment about the team. I pull him away from the other player he was near and talk about how if you expect bad things to happen it’s more likely to happen. He tells me about his bad day. So I say, “Let’s put that behind us. What’s something good that’s going to happen on the field today?” I expect him to say something like “We’re going to win” but instead he says “I’m going to leadoff with a bunt and they’re going to make an error so I’m going to be at second base”. This catches me off guard but I say, “OK then I want to see you go up there and do it.”

By the time their coach arrives we have 6 players and we have 9 players before they have 4. He asks if he can use one of our players as an outfielder, and I of course agree. Turns out he also called up the younger sibling of one of his players. And this kid is SHORT. I mean even Jim is taller then this kid.

The complete lack of arrival of his team lets us sneak onto the field so I grab Bobby and we do some pitching from the mound. And he looks just HORRENDOUS. Can’t get ANYTHING over. The umpire is there and we BOTH try giving him some tips. And progress is made. Instead of throwing the ball extremely high or extremely low and off the plate he just throws it extremely high over the plate. Frankly, I’m at my wits end as to what I can do to help him. I’m hoping Steve’s brother, Scott, will be able to make it either tomorrow or Saturday to work with Bobby and perhaps catch something I’m missing.

So as I am working with Bobby I see that the whole team has shown up. It’s amazing. Terrific. And all that. And so I grab the right lineup master and go to work. I am SO glad we had this possibility covered as the lineups pretty much fill themselves in. Also helpful? Having Brendan catching. Hopefully it’ll work out, I think.

The Game
We’re the home team. Trey goes up, strikes out the first player, walks the second player, who gets to third on steals eventually, but then strikes out players 3 and 4 and we’re out of the first inning.

Jim attempts to do the bunt he told me about. He does so and lays down the most perfect bunt. Right down the line. The pitcher is absolutely caught off guard and there isn’t even a play at the base. So far, so good. Trey falls into his typical trap and gets too excited against a bad pitcher and hits ends up hitting a ball back to the pitcher, advancing the runner. Everett then pops up to the shortstop who makes the play look routine. Brendan, not surprisingly, strikes out to retire the side. 0-0

Trey strikes out the first batter. The second batter gets hit by a pitch. Trey walks the next batter. This is followed up by Jesse bare handing a wild pitch and nailing a guy attempting to steal third by about 40 miles, with Fuller once again making the play perfectly. It was a well executed fielding play, especially by Jesse. And it’s a good thing as that batter rips a double scoring a run. Trey then strikes out a player to end the inning. 1-0 Cards.

And in the bottom of the inning, we jump all over the bad pitcher. Percy hits a singe and steals second. Jesse walks. Percy steals third and is driven home by Bobby on a single. Fuller walks. Avi hits a single scoring Jesse. I tell Bobby that he is to try and steal home, if at all possible. He does an excellent job of trying to draw a throw from the catcher, as the third basemen is completely not holding him, but despite a valiant effort, scores only when Kelvin walks, after Ethan strikes out (including having fouled off a ball extremely hard which just barely goes foul). After Kelvin walks they pull the pitcher. I tell Fuller that if he gets a chance to score he should take it. On the second pitch the new pitcher fails to cover home plate for the second time and Fuller takes advantage of it. Unfortunately we can’t get anything else going as this new pitcher is a great pitcher and easily strikes out Jodi and Jim. All together it’s a great 4 run inning. 4-1 Marlins.

Avi starts off promisingly enough by striking out a very good hitter, which I’m not quite sure how he did, as he was not throwing strikes and got the hitter to swing on a strike three that was in the dirt. Avi continues to look poor and after a 6 pitch at bat, gets doubled off of. I don’t quite remember how the inning went down, but Avi just looks horrible. He’s not getting anything across the plate and when he does they’re ripping it. Steve and I debate pulling him but decide it would be more damaging to his psyche to do that then to let him get hammered so we leave him up there. This is the inning where Ethan is playing second base and not doing it the way his father likes. At one point he fails to go out for a relay throw, which would have been terrible had Percy not been aware and gone over from Center to do it. In the end we get lucky as Percy makes a great play in short center and then runs in to step on second for a double play to limit the damage to three runs, when Avi would have had no chance of otherwise escaping the inning without at least 1 or 2 more runs scoring. 4-4

Trey leads off the inning with a single and steals second but a good pitcher strikes out Everett, Brendan and Percy and makes it look easy.

As we enter the top of the 4th it’s clear this will be our last inning. Percy is pitching. First batter hits a hard hit ball to Avi who cleanly fields it to get the out. Next batter hits it right back to Percy who records the out easily. The top of their lineup comes and the guy who hit the double now hits a single. Percy walks the next guy. And the guy after that, to load the bases. The good news is that through all of this terrible pitching Brendan is looking not just OK, but good. It’s clear this kid has been practicing his butt off since the progress he’s made is substantial. Brendan clearly is ready for some more innings, which does the great service of allowing us the opportunity to field Everett, Trey, or Jesse more in the field. The next batter, their callup, hits a ball to Everetty. With the bases loaded, and Everett near second base he can either step on the bag or flip it to Kelvin who comes over. Everett does neither of these and then instead throws it wild to first. Trey makes a great play to keep the ball from being an overthrow but instead of being out of the inning a run scores. Percy refocuses and strikes out the next batter on 4 pitches. 5-4 going into the last inning.

They have the same pitcher as before. I am worried as this guy basically struck out our side and made it look easy. Their coach tells me that he’s never thrown him two innings before. It gives me a little hope, but not much. Jesse starts off with a hit and steals second. Bobby then walks. Fuller hits a play to short that is misfielded putting Jesse at third. Avi strikes out. Ethan, in another solid at bat, walks. This brings Kelvin up. Basically I decide that I trust Bobby to steal home more then I trust KS to get him home, which I realize isn’t what the stats, considering Kelvin’s .533 OBP, would tell me what to do, but there you have it. This looks prescient when Kelvin hits a dribbler to the first basemen. He cleanly picks it up, and despite the loud protestations of his coaches, jogs over to first base for the easy force out allowing BS1 to score on the fielder’s choice. MARLINS WIN!

Post Game and Looking Forward

As we run to lineup to shake their hands, jubilant at our come from behind victory, the other team is absolutely defeated. Just totally down on themselves. Despite the fact that it is 9 o’clock at night Bobby managed to talk to me about going for ice cream if we won. Steve is actually going out with a friend after the game so he can’t make it, and in the end only about half the team shows up, but everyone who does has a good time.

You already know about Wednesday and the Ethan incident. Steve moved into a new apartment over the weekend and tomorrow the cable guy comes so he won’t be in town until shortly before the game starts. We talked a little bit today and following that I sent him the following email:

Ok some straight stats, which change a fair amount each game because we’ve had so few games. So if some guy, for instance Percy, goes 2-2 tomorrow he’ll go from .333 to .400 in BA. Anyway, here it is from top to bottom in BA:

Jesse .500
Kelvin .455
Trey .429
Bobby .412
Fuller .400
Everett .350
Percy .333
Ethan .300
Jim .286
Avi .273
Brendan .154
Jodi .100

And for OBP it is:
Jesse .583
Trey .579
Kelvin .571
Bobby .565
Avi .556
Fuller .550
Jim .524
Ethan .500
Percy .478
Brendan .421
Everett .409
Jodi .182

So using those as a starting point, and putting JM in the #3 spot and building around him, we get the following:

Bobby
Kelvin
Jesse
Trey
Avi
Fuller
Jim
Ethan
Percy
Everett
Brendan
Jodi

Which I think is a very interesting lineup, frankly and would be my recommendation for what we do for tomorrow. As I said stats are likely to change considerably in our last 3 games, but I think that’s an interesting grouping to go off of. Percy and Everett are pretty good hitters, I continue to feel, but their objective numbers have been poor so they don’t merit a high placing, but putting the two of them next to each other could produce good results. If you have a different idea, by all means I would love to hear it.

As for pitchers and catchers I’m thinking along the following:

Percy pitching to Brendan
Percy/Everett pitching to Jesse
Everett pitching to Jesse
Bobby or Jim pitching to Brendan
Trey pitching to Jesse
Trey pitching to Everett

We need two more pitchers for the playoffs besides Everett, Percy, Avi, and Trey. There is simply no getting around that. Do I want to beat the Yankees? Hell yeah but we need another pitcher, with two being ideal. So with that in mind perhaps we take our medicine in the first? I feel like we need to get Everett at least one inning, Percy needs continued chances which doesn’t leave a whole lot for Trey. I mean if you want we could really go broke and pitch Bobby AND Jim, but that almost seems like throwing our hands up in defeat, so I don’t know. Frankly, neither pitcher is “ready” in the sense that neither of them can locate the plate with any consistency. Perhaps have them both warm up and who ever looks better gets the nod? Dunno.

So let me know your thoughts on the batting order and pitchers.

And that’s where we’re at going into tomorrow’s game against the Yankees.

Unexpected update

An unexpected update from my work last night at the library. Every year one of the schools holds a writers workshop where they invite local bigwigs, local writers, etc into the school to discuss a piece of writing of the student's choice for each 4th and 5th grader. The school invites one of our librarians in to conduct a group and she often has me read the pieces she's assigned, between 5 and 8 depending on the year. Well anyhow, this year one of the people she was assigned was Jim, who, not incidentially, was described as "the most egocentric kid I have ever taught" by his classroom teacher in a note attached to his writing.

Anyway he wrote a pretty nice piece of survival/baseball fiction which was clearly wish fulfillment. Already in the story we meet Michael, a tall 10 year old, who has had to rescue his parents after they are hurt in a tornado. Upon taking him to the hospital he learns they must have $100,000 in surgery, but never fear, the reason they were in the car was to drive to a baseball tournament with a $100,000 prize. Below is the writeup of the baseball scenes

The day of the games begins. Michael is very nervous; he has to win for his parents. In the first inning when he came up to bat, he let the first pitch go by to see how fast the pitcher was throwing. Michael hit a double off of the second pitch. There were two outs and Michael was on third. Ben came up to bat and hit a single to right field, which drove in Michael to home. The next half inning, Michael pitched a 1,2,3 inning. In the fourth inning, Michael came up to bat and hit a homerun. The game was now 3-1 in favor of the Helena Turtles. The Turtles went on to win the game, 5-4. Michael hit a triple, a double and a homerun. In the second game of that day, they played the New York Jets. The Turtles won, 6-2. Two games, two to win. Micahel really wanted to win the tournament to save his parents. The TUrtles won 11-5 in the Saturday game. SUnday came and it was the championship game. The Turles were playing the Seattle Blue jays.

In the first inning, Micahel hit let off and hit a single. He evntually scored that run. He pitched two innings of 1,2,3. In the bottom of the 6th, Michael was up to bat with two outs. They were losing by three runs. The first pitch was a ball. The second pitch Micahel fouled off. The third and fourth pitches were balls. The fifth pitch was a strike. Then it was the sixth pitch. The pitcher went into the windup, and threw the ball. Michael swung. In that moment, all Michael was think about was saving his parents. The ball made contact with the bat and Michael closed his eyes. Smack!!!! Michael had just hit the championship winning grand slam!! The crowd was going wild as Michael ran home. The turtles had just won $100,000 and the coach and the team decided to give all of the money to Michael so he could pay for the operations his parents needed

A little after I read this piece, Ethan comes on in. He tells me that he and his dad were out practicing squaring up to the ball and long throws. We joke for a minute or two and then he goes off to use the internet. Maybe 10-15 minutes later dad comes strolling in. He calls Ethan over and I mention how I heard they were practicing.

At this point Dad just goes OFF on Ethan. "I told him after Tuesday night that if I ever saw him play like that again I would just quietly pull him from the game. He was so unfocused. Throwing dirt around and not paying attention." Later on in the rant "His fielding was just terrible. I'll tell you one thing Coaches don't do in this league. I'll tell you that Coaches don't teach the kids to square up to the ball." Talked about how Ethan was just "lazy". How "coaches don't teach the kids that baseball is a running game" and they need to run. Later on he said again that if Ethan was not going to "contribute" to the team he would just quietly pull him from the game. When he took a breath, after ranting for a good couple of minutes (and it always seems longer when you're listening) I finally was able to get a word in edgewise. Considering my two choices of who to defend, myself or Ethan, I decided to go with Ethan and said "Steve and I both feel Ethan is a contributor to the team". This seemed to take some of the wind out of his sails, but he did go on for maybe 30 seconds more. The whole time his father is doing this rant, Ethan is just standing there uncomfortable with this painful smiling grimace on his face.

After Ethan and his father leave, with Ethan saying, in a very upbeat manner "I'll see you Tuesday" the librarian I was working with just went off on his dad. She talked about how he's missing the whole point of playing. How the kid is 12 years old so of course his mind is going to wonder. How it's supposed to be about fun and the kid is never going to be a major league player so he should just lighten up.

As for me? Well it made me mad. After the incident with Jim's dad I was upset, but not really at him, but at Libby. This made me mad. The way he went off on his son, right in front of him and another adult is completely unacceptable. Threatening to pull him from the game is completely unacceptable. Implying that Steve and I are not teaching these kids who to square around to a ball? Completely unacceptable. But the worse part of it was is that Steve and I PREACH the need to run to the ball. To get there quickly so you have time to setup. And if this asshole would attend more then an inning or two of our games he'd hear that. Even typing this now my blood is rising, I am still upset about the whole thing. I haven't talked to Steve about this yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convey how completely unacceptable what his father was saying was with Ethan standing right there.

The funny thing about all of this? Ethan was throwing dirt, but he was more aware of the game then he normally was. Steve and I both commented on it. I think that perhaps we'll put together a "curriculum" of what we've done with these kids. I've written cirriculums before so I can make them fancy and impressive and so perhaps that's the way to go. I'm not sure really what I think the next step is here, beyond saying something, though what I don't know, to Ethan on Tuesday.

Practice Report

Wednesday May 24

We had practice yesterday. Steve has the scorebook and such so I don’t have the reminder of exactly how things went down to do Tuesday’s game. So look for that this weekend when he’ll be back in the ‘burbs and I can pick it up from him.

It was just a beautiful day. It really stormed for about 20 minutes around 10 AM but by the time our practice started at 5:45 it was just beautiful baseball weather. Anyhow, even before the game started yesterday Steve and I agreed we’d like to do an extended scrimmage with the Cardinals. Based on the way the game ended, we felt this to still be a very good idea.

The good news is that our team is getting much better about being punctual. Yesterday only a couple of people were “late” (arriving closer then 15 minutes to the game) and today only Percy and Jesse were late, with Jodi, Jim, and Avi not being there. This was noticeable as we had 6 players there before they had 2 players there.

Anyhow, I went and talked to the other coach and we figured out how we would do the scrimmage. Basically we agreed to do 3 outs (rather then everyone bats) cap an inning at 5 runs, or everybody batting, and do coach’s pitching. This guy is sort of your typical sports dad. He was nothing but nice to me, the players on his team, and the players on our team even but towards his own son? Bit of a jerk. Which makes it not so surprising that the son was a bit of a jerk.

Anyhow so after we debriefed quickly from yesterday’s game, we went out and scrimmaged. Overall the scrimmage went well. The players had fun, except for Jesse who was in an exceedingly bad mood. Everett and Trey both rocketed the ball which was good for them since they’ve been in a slump. Ethan had 2 great at bats that I saw. The first was a beautiful bunt and the second was a screamer down the left field line, that if he hadn’t watched it as it went would have been a triple, but instead was “only” a double. Not a whole lot that was notable otherwise. Percy seems to be quite frustrated with himself at bat and didn’t really get good contact on any of his pitches.

That was basically, it from a fun, light practice. With the playoffs just around the corner things will get more serious again, soon. After our long email to Libby about communication does she get back to us? Nope. Furthermore, the playoff schedule is out and do Steve and I have a copy? Not exactly. So we’re going to email Libby about that today and simultaneously get ready to go to her boss about the issues we’ve been having.

Looking forward

We have 3 games left and so it’s time to use our 1 reorder to adjust the batting order. We will be doing this prior to our next game. I really am torn about several things. For instance do we keep Jim at the top of the order? He can set the table OK, but would it be better to move up Bobby who has better speed and makes more contact? Of course Bobby makes better contact so maybe we save him until later in the order? Jesse should clearly be moved up to 3rd or 4th. What to do with a slumping Everett and Trey? Where to bat Kelvin who gets on base consistently but can’t hit the ball to save his life? The questions go on and on. Fortunately, while we use this reorder to get ready for the playoffs, in the playoffs the continuous batting order is dropped and we can change the order for each game, so if Ethan, for instance, finally puts it together and starts hitting the ball fair and hard, we can move him up in the order, especially with his speed.

Hitting is our one remaining Achilles heel. The Cardinal’s coach told me after the game that we fielded as well as any team he’s seen this season, and I agree we fielded the game extremely well. As well we should since that’s been such a heavy focus for us. That leaves hitting as our last hurdle. I think we’ll pretty much be concentrating on this from now until the end of the season and if we can hit it even just a BIT better could really take teams by surprise in the playoffs.

No game on Saturday due to Memorial day weekend, but look for an update with a recap of Tuesday’s game.

Practice Report and Update

Before Tuesday’s Practice
On Monday morning and Sunday night I sent Steve a couple of emails about what we should do at practice. He doesn’t respond to either. This is out of the norm and tells me he’s going into one of his depressed phases. This has never happened with baseball before, but since baseball is an outlet for both of us, hopefully it won’t effect him there too much.

Anyway, I pick him up Tuesday at the train station. The email I sent him had some pretty big holes in it that we needed to fill time wise. We also had no “focus” for the practice. In each of our last two practices we had a focus and I think that’s what helped make them such terrific practices. In the car I try to see if he has any thoughts about a focus, and he does not. I know that this practice, therefore, is going to be heavy on the improvising, which I’m pretty sure means it’ll be a serviceable, though not great, practice.

In our little “Guess who get’s there first” competition I’m up by four points. I go further up when I take Ethan, who arrives in the first carload of people, but we count as 3rd as he was the last of the three to get out of the car, and Steve takes Percy, who gets there fifth. The coach of the team we’re practicing with, and will then play, asks us if we want to scrimmage. We decline considering they’re only the best team in the league and it would be nice not to get our butts kicked two days in a row by them.

Before practice begins I work with Bobby on his pitching some. Unlike before, there isn’t anything hugely wrong with his mechanics right now, he’s just not throwing strikes. One problem that I do see is that he is often trying to overthrow the pitches, but even after I remind him to take something off, he doesn’t always through strikes.

Practice
This is the first time we’ve had a chance to talk since our victory. Steve and I cover all the positives. He also says how a couple of mistakes could be forgiven since we won “and that’s the most important thing” undercutting our line we’ve been giving them through all the loses that it’s about progress.

We then divide our 8 players, with Trey surprisingly missing, Fuller, Avi, and Jodi missing as expected, into two groups to practice run downs. They look much sharper today with it, which is a good thing.

Following this we pull them away from everybody and teach them the sign system that we’ve come up with. The system relies on using letters to remind them so “hat – hit” “belt – bunt” and so forth. This takes about 15 minutes and we’re then able to get the field.

We do our modified batting practice. Avi shows up part of the way through it. We have Brendan catch during this and he looks pretty good. He’s at least getting the ball back to the mound consistently. There are still quite a few balls which get by him, but he’s blocking more of the balls, so I think it’s time we give him another inning of catching to see how it goes.

We end the practice with our 2-1 scenario, with Jim pitching. He does not do well with it, though his pitching does look better then it did last time he pitched in a game so that’s a positive.

We end the practice and send them on their way. As I expected the practice was fine, though hardly great.

After Practice
Before practice Steve tells me that Jim might not be at the game on Wednesday as he is going to the Cubs game. Seeing his father after practice I go up and ask when we’ll know for sure about his going to game and his father informs me that it’s almost definite that he won’t be at the game. He then starts off by saying “I know Libby (remembering that Libby is the name of the Park District supervisor) talked to you, about this, but it seems like some of the other teams are going all out for the win and you guys are going for skill development.” I immediately correct him that Libby has NOT talked to us about this. We then get into about a five minute conversation about this. Seems like he feels we should be playing our 3-4 best players more. He talks about how they’re 10 and 11 and know what they’re record is. Understands what the league philosophy is, but if other teams are trying so hard to win, then perhaps we should be as well. Talks about how really we’re not an untalented team. That pretty much sums up the points he makes.

The untalented team part is interesting. I would agree we’re not untalented, and we are stronger with our weakest players, but our best players aren’t as good, which makes things more difficult. My favorite part of the conversation is the part about how we should be doing more with our 3-4 best players. To which I think “Oh so you don’t want your son to pitch any more? Or play SS as much?” Perhaps he wasn’t including his son in that group, I don’t know. But it was interesting. During the conversation I stood firm. I said our philosophy when we get to the playoffs is different, but that we’re going to follow the way the league is meant to be until then. And that frankly in order to have a winning playoff team you have to develop the players and that’s done by playing them in a game giving them chances to improve.

The whole thing was very cordial, which was good. But Steve and I were upset by two things. First that he talked to Libby without talking to us first. Second that Libby never talked to us and appears not to have backed us up during their conversation. To address Jim’s dad we’re going to print out the email Libby sent to the coaches about cheating, as further reason why we do what we do. I mean I guess technically she did talk to us about winning, but it sort of had the opposite message that Jim’s dad wanted it to have. I mean when you’re team is 1-7 you can’t be too surprised that there would be grumbles, so I’m not upset at all about having had the conversation.

After much debate we decided that Libby’s lack of communication was part of a larger problem. Here’s the text of what we sent her:

Libby,

We had a conversation today with one of our parent's, Mr. , about the team and our methods of building player skills versus going all out for the win. It's a conversation we're not surprised to have had when our team is 1-7.

Anyway, what did surprise us was that he had mentioned he had talked to you about these concerns. We were surprised not to have gotten an email or phone call after the conversation, especially as he hadn't talked to us first, as an FYI, without even necessarily naming the parent. We were hoping you could meet with us for a couple minutes, either before or after tomorrow or next Tuesday's game, just so we can make sure we're all on the same page. You know how seriously we take our commitment to this league and we appreciate all that you do to make it run well.

We look forward to hearing from you,
Steve and Lane

Wednesday/Thursday
The day starts off with my calling Jesse’s house. Besides Jim being at the Cubs game, Brendan has a doctor’s appointment, and Avi has to go to his siblings “sing”. Steve and I figure that it’s likely we’ll get another unexpected no show and so it would be good to have Jonah, Jesse’s brother, there again if he was available and willing.

The day starts off beautiful but then at about 1:30 it starts to rain. It lightly rains, at least where I am about 8 miles to the south, for about 35 minutes. Then the sun comes out again. I expect to have the baseball game, though I’m unsure. So I go home from school and get there around 4:15. The website is supposed to be updated at 4 o’clock if there is going to be a rainout. I check the website and it’s not been updated so I think we’re good to go. I have a message from Brendan’s dad explaining that Brendan pleaded for them to change his appointment so they did and he would be at the game, if there was a game. I call and let them know it appears that there will be a game. About 20 minutes later I get a call from Brendan’s dad saying that they got one of the automated messages telling them that the game had been canceled. I recheck the website and sure enough it has been canceled. He’s upset about having had to change the appointment, which I understand. Shortly there after it starts thundering and lightening. It rains for about 40 minutes and then the sun comes out again. So it was a good decision, just later then it should have been.

As of this morning, we still have not heard from Libby despite the fact that she’s supposed to respond with-in 24 hours (according to her auto-email). I am actually quite pleased that our games on Saturday and Wednesday were canceled as I think they were against two teams we’d have struggled to beat. Now our next game is on Tuesday, no game Saturday due to parking problems with the Park District’s ice show, and it’s against the team whose coach bitched the other week about how bad his team was. So I feel good about our chances of getting 2 wins in a row, which would be terrific for us and give us that momentum as we start to head into the playoff stretch.

Midseason Overview

Team Overview
We clearly are at a turning point. For the first 5 games, despite losing everyone, and some of them pretty decisively, we maintained a great team spirit. However, games 6 and 7 were not played well or with much enthusiasm. Now we have our first win under our belt. The team last night looked like the team from the first few games. We had chants going on, a first for us, and particularly fun was the “two out rally” (clap clap clap-clap) chant in the 5th. It was spirited. It was positive. And at the same time it was demoralizing for the other team.

The problem is that our next two games are against teams identified as cream of the crop. It looks highly likely that our game Saturday will be rained out. The following game has us play a team with 3 players on sixth grade travel. Now granted some travel players are overrated, but that is still one stacked team. The good news is that our pitching and fielding are at pretty good places. Now this was helped by the fact that 2 of our worse fielders weren’t present at the game meaning we could do things like play Everett at 2nd, a luxury we’ve never had before. But still we’ve grown a lot and hopefully the win drives that home for the team. A second win in one of our next two games would give Steve and I a lot of freedom then in giving opportunities for players to develop, as our team would have more of a feeling that they’re not losers.

This is partly because our pitching is at a pretty good place. Avi has either been very lucky, or else is very good, at getting outs. Everett and Trey are 2 legitimately good pitchers. I have a feeling Percy should be quality as well. If we used these four pitchers exclusively we would never be in danger of getting blown-out. However, we still need to develop two more pitchers for the play-offs. Jim and Bobby are our most likely candidates. What this means is that we need to get them innings, innings which have the potential to be disastrous.

Where are the players at?
With our season just over half way done, now seems like a good time to take a look at each player. (Quick notes about stats: Steve and I do not record errors for the most part as they are par for the course in the league. This does mean that a player’s OBP and BA are inflated over what they would be if kept by a major league score keeper)

Jodi – The problem with JF is that she’s simply not been around. She hasn’t been at practices, has been sick or otherwise had commitments which have prevented her from coming to games. Despite 4 at-bats yesterday she still only has 10 plate appearances for the season, far below the average (especially the average taken without her). She has the skills, no doubt, but the lack of experience has meant that she has reached a plateau, or even slightly regressed, since the start of the season. I think she’s a better fielder then Steve does, though the empirical numbers (in terms of errors) back Steve up. She has been my biggest disappointment, and it’s frustrating because I’m not sure we will have the ability to turn this around into a positive before the season ends.
GOAL: Get her timing down so she’s making contact with the ball which will be further helped by reducing the number of balls she’s swinging at.

Trey – Clearly our standout pitcher. He averages 1.9 strikeouts per inning while only 0.3 walks, by far the best ratio on our team. In fact, statistically, he is better then our star pitcher last season, while not having nearly the same heat, speaking to his ability to change speeds and consistently find the strike zone. His catching has been exactly what we needed, good though not all star. Speaking of all star he hasn’t tried to make any “all star” plays lately either, which is good. He has a .417 batting average and a .588 OBP, but has been in a bit of a slump lately. It doesn’t look like he’s doing anything different and I’m working hard to try and make sure he doesn’t pressure himself too much when at the plate. His catching has brought out some leadership qualities, though this is still an area where he could see improvement. He’s somewhat unusual in this regard as normally talented athletes, which he is, are the natural leaders since they’ve had the most practice at this age. Basically we can plug him into any position and know that we’re going to see good things defensively, which is a great thing to be able to say.
GOAL: More leadership. Make sure any continuation of his hitting slump doesn’t effect other parts of his game.

Ethan – I don’t think we’ve seen his best yet. He has a lot going for him, including his speed and good mannered nature. I would peg him as the most likely to have a second half breakout. Especially good is his ability to bunt. Just as it is with Jim, his showing of bunt (not to mention ability to actually lay them down well) will lead to base hits when he’s swinging. In the field he continues to have huge concentration problems. This could easily be effecting him at the plate as well. His fielding mechanics are fairly sound, though he does struggle with ground balls sometimes, but he has a pretty weak arm. This combines to his seeing 65% of his innings either at 2B or RF. I really think he could turn from being a 2B because we have to play him in the infield to a good 2B, if we can get him to field grounders with more consistency. I worked with him a little on his pitching at practice the other day and he still looks horrible, so I don’t think he’ll be seeing any more mound time this year.
GOAL: Help him find his groove at the plate.

Avi– Statistically he’s our second best pitcher in ERA after Trey with an ERA of 4.8 (which is indeed a good ERA in this league). In fact this ranks him in the top 3 players comparing players from last season and this. As I alluded to above, I’m not sure how much of this is skill, and how much has been luck. He clearly can get the ball over the plate, averaging only 1.4 walks per inning, but his 0.6 strikeouts per inning, the lowest among pitchers with at least 2 innings, shows he hardly has overwhelming stuff. In terms of hitting he’s hitting .222 (team average is .322) but his OBP is above average at .563 (team average is .488). I haven’t seen him really hit the ball yet so it’s just as well that he’s got a fairly good eye. His attitude has improved fairly significantly, through the season which is good and I no longer think there is as much concern of him being a drain on our chemistry, though he’s still not quite as filled with team spirit as most. He listens to Steve and I without complaint now and hopefully continued pitching success will earn him more leeway with the team. He has expressed interest in catching, though we still haven’t really seen him do this yet, so his skills are unknown, though I am skeptical about his ability to do it. However, his play at 3B on steals has been solid, in terms of catching the throw and tagging the runner. He can make a long throw with pretty good accuracy as well so he’s a very nice option there for us.
GOAL: Develop him into a reliable 2 inning pitcher. See if he has any skill as a catcher.

Jesse – Our team leader. He has been more positive in his leadership lately which is good. A rock behind the plate. He has caught 21 of the 37 innings we’ve played. And he’s deserved every inning he’s played there, though I am hopeful that Brendan will, someday, be able to assume more of the load, as I would love to have Jesse play at 1B more often. He has hit the ball consistently and hard, with the most extra base hits on the team. He has very few strikeouts, with only 9% of his at bats being a strike out (2nd lowest on the team and versus an average of 22%) but a lot of that is because he’s a good junkball hitter. Then again it’s hard to knock a kid at the plate who has a team best batting average of .474. His position in the batting order is, I feel, a reason why we’ve had several two out rallies as he gives us another spark after we leave the top of the order.
GOAL: Work on developing his sense of the strike as a batter

Fuller – He has come through with some big hits, but then at other times has looked lost at the plate. This combines to make him a nearly perfectly average hitter, in terms of BA, OBP, and strikeout percentage. He is our “starting” 3B as has the most innings of anyone on the team at that base. I wish I could say that it was this skill or that which has made him the 3B of choice but it’s really not any one thing and just a lot of the things he’s done. I think we’ve not given him nearly the attention we should to develop his catching. Which is a shame because we need more catchers (more on this subject when we get to Brendan).
GOAL: See if he can be our catcher. Work on his consistency at the plate.

Jim – Something which hasn’t been mentioned is that Jim has missed our last two practices without notifying one of us. He made some excuses about thinking that Tuesday’s practice was canceled despite there being no official confirmation, from the park district or one of us, about it. Anyhow, I really had high hopes about him at the start of the season in terms of what he could do for us as a pitcher. These hopes haven’t panned out. But pan out they must. The kid is tiny and so perhaps we’ve simply reached a point where the mound is just too far away from home plate for him to get it in consistently. We need to find him innings, despite the fact that I have a hard time finding an upside with him at the moment. Batting wise, he’s getting some good in-game practice at games with bunting, though I would still love to see him get some practice at practice with it. Twice now his showing of bunt has drawn the infield in enough to get him a base hit. Base hits are good because he only has a .250 average, though his OBP jumps by 300 points speaking to how hard it is to pitch to him. In the field he’s a jack of all trades, master of none. He’s seen playing time at every position except catcher and first, and we’d have given him time at first were it not for the height. While I never feel like we’re in trouble with him at a position, neither am I ever excited about having him in the field. The temper that we’ve seen come out a few times is clearly lurking beneath the surface, but when things are going well he’s a positive addition to team morale.
GOAL: Make him into a somewhat reliable pitcher.

Everett – His numbers as a pitcher, are great. Second fewest walks per inning and 3rd best strikeouts per inning. Of course his ERA is not great. I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about luck and variance, and how the long-run can be a long time, but hopefully last game is indicative of the other team’s luck running out. He seems to get hit hardest when the count is 0-2 or 1-2 which I frankly don’t know if it’s luck or if he’s doing something different that I haven’t identified. His catching has come a long way in a short time and he’s been great as our second catcher, but long term I would love for him to be our third catcher, as his efficiency as a pitcher goes way down after he’s caught. This has meant he’s seen a lot of first inning appearances. His hitting isn’t up to what I would expect, as he’s got a below average .450 OBP. I’m willing to take some blame for that, as his early unsuccessful bunts put him behind the eight ball pitch count wise. I still think he has the best eye on the team which makes his strikeouts all the more frustrating, but also I think more of a blip then anything else. His fielding, with the exception of the last game, has been nearly flawless, which again is a reason I’d love to not have him behind the plate as much.
GOAL: Have his in game hitting match his hitting potential.

Bobby – He has the best first step of any player on the team. Whether it’s in the field, out of the batter’s box or on the bases, he’s “quicker” then his speed because his reaction time is incredible. He also can track and catch fly balls as well as anybody on the team. This has netted him quite a bit of time at SS, and next to Trey, who plays it on travel, he is definitely our best player there. Our high regard for his fielding abilities is reflected in the fact that he has the most infield innings not counting pitcher or catcher, and the second most not counting catcher. He has now consented to playing first base where, after the big 3 of Trey, Everett, and Jesse, he should be competitive with Percy as a great 4th choice. His inability to pitch consistently is something I am hoping will be cured with time. His gross deficiencies in his mechanics are fixed, though some finer requirement is still required. I had hoped he’d turned a corner but obviously he’s not there yet. He’s got nice, though not great, velocity, which we can hopefully use to our advantage once he gets regular strikes. I will be excited when we can count on him to be our fifth pitcher. Though his BA and OBP are just slightly above average, he is a close third in fewest strikeouts, and his ability to put the ball into play can make good things happen in this league. Bobby, as a character, is far more complex. He has this interesting combination of leadership qualities, he’s often the ONLY one talking to the pitcher and will be the one who starts a cheer on the bench, while also being the class clown type. I suppose these two aren’t mutually exclusive from a kid perspective, but from a coaching perspective they are rather annoying. Steve and I have both had our fill of interrupting us to make a remark. After our talk Saturday, he has been better about not coaching the other players though, which is good.
GOAL: Two words: consistent pitching.

Brendan – He needs to get his skills to where his desire is. If he could start to take 2 innings of catching a game it frees us up in innumerable ways. It means that Trey and Everett do not have to pitch early in a game for fear they will tire their arms catching. This flexibility alone is vital as I think it’s beneficial to have the worse pitcher pitch the first as there’s still time to recover. Further, it means that not only do we have flexibility with pitching but it also means that we get to see more of them, and to a lesser extent Jesse, in the field. While I don’t mind Jim at shortstop I LIKE having Trey or Everett there. But before he can catch he needs to: A) catch balls in the dirt. He’s gotten pretty good about the high ones, but he’s afraid to block the balls with his body. B) get the ball back to the pitcher every time. His throws to the pitcher can be wildly inaccurate. That I just have no tolerance for. It was a good thing he wasn’t at the last game as despite all the practice Steve and I had made the tough decision not to play him as a catcher. Honestly, I don’t really think we can ever get Brendan up to two innings a game, but the potential payoff is so great, and he’s closer to being there then Fuller, that we’ve got to see it. He also has plenty of things to improve at the plate. After Jodi, he’s got the highest strikeout percentage on the team. Despite what Steve and I tell him to do, and what he claims to be doing, he seems like he’s got a homerun swing when he’s batting. Screw the homerun and give us a single. Especially as he often takes the first pitch or two putting him behind in the count and then does a swinging strikeout, sort of the inverse of Jodi. Having him catch also solves the fact that he doesn’t present a particularly cutting figure at 2B or 3B in the infield. With several players doing well at third, he’s seen more time at second, but just as in his catching he can’t really get the low grounders.
GOAL: Block low balls. Throw the ball back to the pitcher. Swing earlier in the count.

Kelvin – Let’s review what I said about KS back in the beginning of the season

Seems like a really good kid, but he couldn’t hit a moving ball to save his life

Poor kid has no hand eye coordination I think as his mechanics have improved a lot already and he still can’t hit anything thrown to him. It’s a shame we didn’t get to bunting.

So remember all that? I do. And frankly before I put the stats together I would have still said that was an accurate reflection of where he’s at. So what do the stats say? .455 BA, second best on the team, .538 OBP, third best on the team, and 7.7% strike out, the best on the team. The thing is I cannot remember him putting a single ball into the outfield, and neither can he (I asked him after one of his infield singles yesterday). In both of our last two games he’s had a “swinging bunt”, where he swings all the way through, but the ball goes about 4 feet. And both times he’s been safe. He is, to me, the poster child for the virtue of putting the ball into play as his speed has really helped him reach bases on times he’s had no business reaching. As for his fielding, he’s seen quite a bit of time at first base. Quite an accomplishment for a kid who can’t consistently catch a throw. Steve and I thought that perhaps he had a bad mitt. Nope. Just can’t catch the ball. However, he’s the second tallest player on the team, after Trey, and he’s excellent at keeping the ball in front of him when he doesn’t catch it. Similarly, when he’s fielding he’s normally right there with the play, except if he were one more foot to the right, so his whole body were in front of the ball rather then just his glove, he’d do a lot better. He can really only play first or second base as his throwing mechanics are just horrendous. I’ve done some work with him, but he throws in a way that can best be described as (and I use this only because you can’t see him and it will get the message across) “like a girl”. This no doubt comes from having started playing baseball later on in life. Anyway I keep hoping it’ll finally click for him on how to field a ground ball, in which case I think he could be our “starting” second baseman. This is especially true as with Bobby’s willingness to play first, something he used to be afraid of doing, Kelvin will likely not get as many opportunities there unless, miracles of miracles, he learns how to catch a ball (and you better believe this is something I’ve been working with him on).
Goal: Catch a thrown ball.

Percy – His pitching is almost there. It’s there enough that I will elevate him into the same consideration as Trey, Everett, and Abi, and even above Abi because of his superior velocity. He has a pretty nice change up too. I have no doubt that when they put our team together he was thought of being a kid who could regularly pitch for us. Furthermore, he’s a great kid. I don’t think a negative word has escaped his mouth once all year. He has seen a lot of different positions in the infield as he’s a step above Jim but his “true” position is clearly centerfield, which does us no good. I was surprised to see that his batting is below average, despite having a below average amount of strikeouts. As has been mentioned he started the season with absolutely a rotten amount of luck with his hitting. He seemed to have turned the corner, however he’s hitless in our last two games again, so maybe the pitchers are starting to outclass him.
Goal: Keep the pitching momentum

So there you have it. Over 3,000 words on our players. If we’re going to turn the corner and become a playoff contender we should hopefully know it by a week from today, otherwise it’s going to be a disappointing season. I can only hope it’s the former and not the latter.