Baseball Journal

[cotty16]

Tied union local today 5-5 after 12 innings. Our second baseman dropped a routine pop up with guy on third and two out to give them one run. Our third baseman dropped a force out feed with bases loaded and two out after our pitcher made a helluva play on a swinging bunt to his right. Only play was at third. We can't catch the ball!
WTF?!?!?!!?

 

[at1010]

Tied union local today 5-5 after 12 innings. Our second baseman dropped a routine pop up with guy on third and two out to give them one run. Our third baseman dropped a force out feed with bases loaded and two out after our pitcher made a helluva play on a swinging bunt to his right. Only play was at third. We can't catch the ball!
WTF?!?!?!!?

make em run till the remember how! hahaha the struggles of coach young men! hahaha Hate to tie or lose when your the better team!

 

[ajupsman]

That's tough to swallow AJ. Hate to hear it. Do what I did last week. First pitch fastball strike and you look, one foul pole. 2 for backwards Ks. Swing the bat or pick splinters from your ass AFTER you run those poles.

If things don't improve tomorrow I'll be taking your advice. I hate backwards K's.

 

[ajupsman]

Got our first win Thursday. Went 11 innings and walked off with a bases loaded suicide squeeze to win it 5-4. Good way to get our first win. We're 1-2 and play 4 games in the next 5 days. Should have a good feel of where this young team is at after this week.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Love the squeeze play and its even better when it wins a ball game! Good call coach!!!

I haven't been with the varsity in almost 2 weeks outside of practice. They are 1-4 since I left, 5-8 overall. No confidence in their coach or each other at this point. Sadly I feel the train has left the station on them and there is no turning back. In the mean time I have been with our JV squad who was 6-2 when I arrived. We won a DH at Athens 3-0 and 9-2 on Saturday to improve to 13-2 on the season. It is a great group of kids, easily the most talented we have ever had. They play hard for me and the other coach, so it is a joy to coach them. In a game last week we executed 2 squeezes in one inning and were going to do a 3 before a base running blunder messed things up.

Not sure how much time I'll spend with either team, but at this point coaching JV is more fun than dealing with the nonsense surrounding the varsity.

 

[Buckmaster]

I put my 5,6, & 7 year olds in the batting cage last night. A first for most. Mainly swinging and missing but there was a couple decent hits amongst the group.
Game 1 is supposed to be next week, schedules come out tomorrow.

 

[Buckmaster]

The time has come to set my lineup and batting order. In our league everyone bats through the line up. I have 13 boys and all will bat.
Of the 13, half are decent and the other half belong back in Tball.

Mike, Jesse, and others...given we play 7 and 8 year old teams how should I set my batting order to most competitive?
My initial thought is to align my best hitters 1-6 and suck 7-13.
My other thought is place a bad hitter in between two good hitters, then when the bad hitter gets a hit we can hopefully streak 3 consecutive hits together.

Your thoughts for a first year coach pitch team playing against older kids?

Our first game is Monday.

 

[aholdren]

My line up for my 9-10 team is by their ability cause that is how were going to score runs. The bottom of the order will get on if they walk and that is over 50% of the time. Good luck Ben.

 

[bowhunter1023]

This is coach pitch right?

 

[Buckmaster]

This is coach pitch right?

Yes, coach pitch.

 

[aholdren]

My bad, I thought you was 9-10 also. Only you can decide that but I would think I would do the same as I do for my team.

 

[Buckmaster]

We are mainly 6 but playing in a 7 & 8 league. I am a test team made up of Tball All Stars. I'll have these guys for 3 years. We'll take our licks this year, be solid next year, and kick butt in year 3 as 8 year olds. I just want to put together the most solid roster possible in order to best compete. I know I will get Run Ruled throughout the year I just need to minimalize it, have fun, keep our confidence up, and take them to the Dairy Queen a few times for ice cream cones.

 

[cotty16]

I want my best hitters up as much as possible. So, I'm putting the best all together and hoping for a miracle with the bottom feeders. If you mix and match you might cost yourself a big inning.

 

[bowhunter1023]

I want my best hitters up as much as possible. So, I'm putting the best all together and hoping for a miracle with the bottom feeders. If you mix and match you might cost yourself a big inning.

What he said. Get what you can, when you can. Not much strategy to a lineup at that age outside of hitting the best first.

 

[Buckmaster]

So, I'm putting the best all together and hoping for a miracle with the bottom feeders.

Thanks for the inputs guys. After careful thought and rationale, I sprinkled my bad hitters about the order, if they get a hit, then the rally continues.
My initial though was place my power 1-6 but I will flop in innings 2 & 3 with my 7-13 hitters. We'd score a couple runs in the first, and lay eggs in second and third.
This way, we should be somewhat consistent I may avoid getting 10 run ruled by inning three.

If it doesn't work I can always change things around.

 

[lung buster]

Andrew played his 1st game in minor league tonight and had a great game. He had a 3 run homer and a triple. He pitched 2 innings giving up 2 runs and struck out 6. Overall he had a great start to the season!

 

[ajupsman]

My 4 game week last week was actually 3 due to a rainout Friday. We went 1-2 so our record overall is 2-4. If we could make routine plays we'd be 4-2. In 6 games we've given up 28 runs but 19 are unearned. My pitching has been fantastic but our defense fails us at the most crucial moments. When a team is not hitting well (we are at .172 for the season right now) than you need to play stellar defense. We play Colebrook today at home who is always tough and then @ Gorham tomorrow. I've got my sophomore stud pitching today and my junior junk baller going tomorrow. These are my only two games this week so 2-0 to get to .500 would be nice.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Sounds like how we started AJ!

We are 6-10 after last nights win over Portsmouth 7-4. Senior night is tonight at Marietta College against Alexander, but I'll be with JV in Alex. Then we play in the tourney play in game Saturday at MC against Vinton County. Our bats woke up in the second game at Jackson this week after a 14-0, no-hit loss in the first game. We still lost 15-10, but we hit the hell out of the ball and we are seeing much better approaches at the plate. Last night we gave up 4 cheap ones in the 7th behind an error and a really tired pitcher. He gets a week off and everyone threw Saturday with the exception of my sophomore, but he missed school due to pink eye.

In Ohio all you have to do is get hot at the right time. We're definitely heating up! If we win Saturday, we play Monday against Jackson for revenge. They didn't see our #1 and he'll have 7 days rest when he faces them.

 

[Buckmaster]

Game 1 rained out last night. Practice tonight, then Game 2 this Saturday.

We scrimmaged an older team this past Sunday, had we kept score it would have been a loss 50-4. Ouch!

Remember, long term project I am building here. 2016 here we come.

 

[ajupsman]

It was ugly but we pulled out a win 8-7 tonight. Too any mental mistakes today to list here but we did show some nuts by coming back. We were up 4-1 after 3 and gave up 6 in the top of the 4th. Too many walks, an error and 2 timely hits plated their runs. We came back to tie it in the bottom of the 5th by putting up a 3 spot. Should have scored 5 but 2 guys got thrown out because they didn't slide. One at home and one at 3rd. They both are safe if they slide. That crap drives me nuts. Bottom of the 6th we get back to back doubles from my 3 & 4 hitters to plate the eventual winning run. We are now 3-4 and starting to play better. Still making dumb mistakes but it is improving. We are on the road tomorrow and then off until next Monday. Really want to win tomorrow to get us to .500.