Game 5 – Athletics 12, Marlins 10

My apologies for the lateness of this game recap.

The game started out well enough for us.  The story of this game was that, once again, the Marlins did not make a good showing in the field.  The defense was once again lacking especially in the fifth inning when the defense forced our pitcher to record six outs in the inning.

Recall how I explained errors in a previous entry.  Every time you make an error in the field, it is the same as giving the other team an extra out.  You force the pitcher to throw more pitches than he needs to in order to finish the inning.  If you make the easy plays when they come to you, then this does not happen.  From what I can recall, I do not remember the Marlins making a single easy play with the exception of the popups that they caught.  While I am happy that they are making the plays on popups, plays that might not have been made three seasons ago, not every play can be a popup.  I think my first pitcher had to strike out five batters for five of the six outs he needed to record in his two innings of work.  Pitchers cannot do this all by themselves, they need to be able to rely on the defense they have behind them  to record the outs.

Another disturbing trend I have noticed recently is that my batters are seeing a lot of called third strikes.  I explained to them after last week’s game that a called third strike is not the other team getting you out.  A called third strike is you getting yourself out and that does nothing to help the team.  On two strikes, you need to be looking for a pitch to hit.  Foul off the pitch and hope that the next one is better.  Make the pitcher work.

The one thing that I have noticed with my pitchers as well recently has been their struggles with putting batters away.  It is fairly common for my pitchers to quickly get strikes one and two but then have issues finding the plate for strike three.  More often than not, these batters end up becoming walks instead of outs.  The bottom of the Athletics’ batting order was not as strong as the top and had many batters that our pitchers absolutely had to get out.  These batters, however, ended up walking for most of their at bats because my pitchers could not manage to throw strike three.  Yes, the best pitch in baseball is strike one and you, as a pitcher, need to take advantage of that early hole that you are putting the batter in.  Get him thinking desperately that he needs to swing at strikes two and three.

At practice this coming Wednesday, the Marlins are running the gauntlet.  The purpose of this drill is to simply illustrate how the mistakes they make in the field adversely affect their team.  Once we start, they do not stop until they go once around the infield and outfield without making a single error.  No bad throws, no missed catches, no misplayed ground balls, and everyone being where they need to be when the ball is hit.  If anyone misses, then the entire team starts over from the beginning.  Perfect baseball is expected.  If you touch the ball, you catch the ball.  That is the rule.  If you allow an easy popup to drop in front of you, then the team starts over.  That is a play that needs to be made (and has been made by the other teams we have played this year).  I have done this exercise with them in the past and they have never been able to complete it successfully.  The Senior Leaguers managed to complete it each time I had them do it.  This may sound like I have set the expectations too high for the team, but this is the level at which they must play as they move up in rank.

I hope that the team realizes that they must improve defensively if they want to remain competitive with their peers when they move up to Major League in the Fall.  The other teams will be ready on the field.  We need to be ready as well.

Practice Report – 5/13/2015

Because of our defensive lapses during our last game, I decided to break the practice up into two sections this week.  While the team worked on defense and situations on the field, I would take one of them aside at a time to work with the glove pad.

A glove pad is simply a leather pad that a fielder can put on their glove hand that acts as a glove.  The difference is that the player cannot close the glove pad as they would a glove.  So, it is essentially a tool that the player can use to stop a ground ball or popup.  The purpose of this tool is to teach muscle memory.  While the player uses the pad to stop a ball, they must also used their throwing hand to trap the ball as it hits against the rubber pad, forcing them to use two hands to field the ball.  Therefore, they are in the habit of fielding the baseball with two hands and coming up in a position where they are ready to make a throw.  I practiced both ground balls and popups with the players and almost all of them seemed to get the idea of using two hands.  As much as I have emphasized using two hands in the past, now I think they finally have a tool where they are forced to have proper form if they wish to succeed.

Perhaps this is also why I like tools such as the batting tee so much.  It forces the players to have a level swing where they do not drop their hands if they want to hit the ball.  If they drop their hands to swing, then they go right into the tee instead of the ball.

Sunday is our coming rivalry game.  If we win no other game this season, I want to win this one.

Game 4 – Nationals 7, Marlins 6

This one was an especially tough game to lose considering how we played.  I know what the mistakes that I made as manager were and how I need to correct them as we move forward.

In this game, the Marlins did something that they had not been able to do all season: score early runs and put the other team in a hole.  We entered the fifth inning of the game leading 6-2 courtesy of some timely hitting as well as taking advantage of some of the defensive mistakes that the other team was making.  I think I have an example now of how important backing up bases is when a player is not in the immediate play.  One of the hits we had on Sunday was a double down the right field line.  Our runner slid into second base safely, but the throw to the base went into left field.  My runner got up and immediately ran towards third base as the throw was coming back into the infield and the pitcher.  Once the pitcher had the ball, he threw to third base in order to make a play on my runner.  The throw sailed over the third baseman’s head and went out of play.  Therefore, my runner was awarded home plate.

What makes this an interesting scenario is that the field we play our games on is also the field where we practice on Wednesdays (making it for all intents and purposes our “home” field in a way).  The Marlins are very familiar with the field and how it plays, especially where the out of play borders are in relation to the field.  Now, granted, the ball was not out of play by much, but there was enough power behind the throw to send it sailing out of play.  With no one backing up the base, this was helpful for us.  I hope it serves as a lesson for the Marlins, however.  Giving up a free run because you are not backing up a base hurts more and more as you rise through the ranks of Major and then Senior League.

What also happened in this game that has not happened this season is that our pitchers had the other team’s batters under control.  Two runs over the first four innings is pretty good.  We had not had that kind of dominant pitching so far this season that we had had last year.  I was glad to see and hear our pitchers striking out batters and throwing hard strikes.  One of my pitchers even told me that he threw his changeup for a strike three.  I do not remember which batter he threw it to, but I had always told him to throw changeups to the batters who are looking for a fastball and who have the batspeed to catch up with a faster pitch.  This way, the batter is out on his front foot and off balance.  Once he realizes that the pitch is heading straight down, he has already started his swing and cannot hold back.

So we hit, we pitched, but the defense is where we came up short once again.  In the fifth inning, our defense was not what it had been in previous innings.  Now, it helped that our pitchers were striking out a lot of batters (one pitcher struck out five batters of his six outs, actually), but the pitchers cannot do it all by themselves.  As I have said before, pitchers need to be able to rely on the defense that is behind them in order to be successful.  Pitching is a hard job, and a defense that is making errors only forces the pitcher to work harder.  The Nationals came around to score five runs in the fifth inning and held on on the top of the sixth to win the game.

We also experienced our first injury of the season when my third pitcher was hit by a hard line drive on the wrist.  I had to take him out of the game and remove him from the lineup due to the injury and I hope that he will be OK in time for our next game.  His bat has started to come around for us this season (he had 2 RBIs on Sunday) and he has become a contributor in the middle of the order.

Next week, we are playing another team who we have played in the past (last season actually).  That game was a close one, but we came out on top in the bottom of the sixth for our team’s only walk off win to date.  They were a good team last year, I can only assume that they are still a good team this year.

Practice Report – 5/6/2015

Because I was unsatisfied with the defense of Sunday’s game, practice consisted of nothing but me hitting balls to the team at various positions.  I put them in different scenarios, hitting the ball all over the field, combining the lessons of the last two weeks.

Practice had to be cut short due to lightning, however.  I will hopefully be able to get my full practice in on Saturday.

Game 3 – Marlins 17, Dodgers 17

Defense was at a premium in Game 3, the game ending in a tie.  Our pitchers got off to a slow start, giving up nine runs in the first two innings.  We came back over the course of the next few innings, but our defense never really tightened up to where I want it to be.  Many easy plays were not made and that is unacceptable.

Something that we did have in this game that we have not yet had in previous games was that our bats were alive early.  Our batters were very prolific this game (obviously if they scored seventeen runs).  We had two homeruns hit as well, the second of which came in the extra inning that we played.  The three and four hitters hit them, which was encouraging.  My three hitter has been slumping as of late.  My four hitter is the kind of hitter that is either going to make good contact and send the ball a long way or strike out.  He has been hitting infield singles up until now and last Sunday was the first time that he has made truly good contact.  The ball was hit a long way and was easily a homerun.  Our bats kept us in this game.  We would fall behind in the top of the inning and manage to come back in the bottom.  We could never seem to break that tie, though.  I am happy, however, that the Marlins once again did not give up and played their hardest until they could play no longer.

I was under the impression that if a game remained tied after the seventh inning was played that the game would need to be made up.  After I raised this item to the other team’s coach, he did not take the news well.  The gist of his message was that he possessed neither the time nor the desire to make the game up and that I was taking things too seriously for Rec League.  I nearly laughed in his face at his comment.  While I do take my responsibilities to my players a bit more seriously than most coaches, I felt that I had to give my team every chance I could to set them up to win the game.  They were motivated heading into extra innings and they wanted to finish the game.  I think they could have played an eighth if they were permitted to do so.  As it turns out, though, I was wrong and they do not need to make up the game.  So, the game is officially recorded as a tie.

I was playing this game without my normal number one and two hitters as well.  So, we did not have our usual table setters to get on base.  While our substitutes did well in their batting positions, we are a better team when we have these players in the lineup.

Next week, we are playing the team that may be the best team in our division.  We will simply need to prepare better for next week’s game.

Practice Report – 5/2/2015

Nothing much to report here.  The team pitched and hit, as they do each Saturday.

We did, however, have a special guest hitter show up at practice.  As I have mentioned before, one of the players who had previously played for the Marlins (who made Select) came early for his practice and was sitting around the dugout.  I put him to work and had him participate in our practice.  He came up to bat a few times and hit a very, very long fly ball that eventually went into the bushes at the other side of our field.  He has become such a tremendous hitter and his bat is sorely missed this season.