Baseball Journal

[ajupsman]

Lost to Gorham last night 3-2. Their 3 runs all came in 1 inning and they shouldn't have even scored. 1 out error by my shortstop put 1 guy on. 2 outs man at 2nd and their 3 hitter hits a line drive right at my centerfielder. Should be the 3rd out but he misjudged it and it went over his head for a triple. Their cleanup hitter comes up next and hits a 2 run homer. That's all the runs they scored. Halfway through our season and we're 3-5. I was really hoping to be above .500 at this point but what can you do. We've got 8 games in the next 3 weeks and then playoffs. I have a young team with only 2 seniors so I knew there would be growing pains. If we can cleanup the mistakes I think we can win more than we lose and be a tough out in the playoffs.

 

[cotty16]

We are trying to peak at the right time. The kids are playing better and are competing. That's all I can ask in a season that has been a rough one. Little things here and there have been killing us, but we have won 2 of 3 and have shown signs of life all of a sudden. We host Bellaire today, travel to St. Clairsville Friday, and play Cambridge on Saturday in the first round of sectional play. We beat Cambridge on Tuesday 8-6 and lost to them earlier in the season 10-2.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Mason had his first scrimmage last night. He did well, which is amazing because we haven't been putting in any extra work. We need to get on that, just been busy with turks and work. He batted twice, a fly out and one over the fence. He pitched and played first base. Instead of just going by 3 out innings, the coaches decided to bat through their orders each turn. Mason struck 9 of 11 out...hit two batter. Ha. In fairness, they were late in the line up and I suspect he was getting tired. Both boys hit had been on our team the last couple of years and he felt pretty bad about it.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Good to hear Mike. We are also getting hot after wins against Portsmouth and Alexander this week. We have Vinton County on Saturday for the play-in game. If we win, we get another shot at Jackson on Monday.

 

[cotty16]

On the home front, Klay (Bronco Division) has been on fire at the plate. The other day he ripped two doubles over the CF head and one hit the fence. He is also doing really well pitching.
Kody (Pony Division) is putting the ball in play pretty solid, but is hitting at-em balls. At least he's not striking out! I keep telling him the hits will come. He's also catching and playing 2B and doing a solid job at both.

Unfortunately, I've only seen each kid play one game so far because of my HS season. That's the shitty part about what I do. My reports come from my dad who never misses a game. I'll be seeing their games soon enough though as our HS season is winding down quickly.

 

[ajupsman]

Well I went ballistic on my team today at practice, mostly directed at this lazy senior. He strolls in to practice 5 minutes late and then only warms up for 5 minutes before sitting on the bench. When I told him to get back out there and throw he said he has a sore arm. I said from what? You play left field and don't have a hit all year. He just gave me a dumb ass look and I lost it. Fungo bat went flying, I kicked over a bucket of balls and went off on a long speech about lack of commitment laced with a few swears in there. Not sure it got through to the senior but the rest of the team paid attention for the rest of practice. I hate doing that or at least I feel bad about it later but some times it's necessary. It worked when I was a player. I know this generation is different but these aren't little league kids. They are varsity baseball players so they should be able to handle getting yelled at.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Well I went ballistic on my team today at practice, mostly directed at this lazy senior. He strolls in to practice 5 minutes late and then only warms up for 5 minutes before sitting on the bench. When I told him to get back out there and throw he said he has a sore arm. I said from what? You play left field and don't have a hit all year. He just gave me a dumb ass look and I lost it. Fungo bat went flying, I kicked over a bucket of balls and went off on a long speech about lack of commitment laced with a few swears in there. Not sure it got through to the senior but the rest of the team paid attention for the rest of practice. I hate doing that or at least I feel bad about it later but some times it's necessary. It worked when I was a player. I know this generation is different but these aren't little league kids. They are varsity baseball players so they should be able to handle getting yelled at.

:smiley_clap:

I operate at a level 2-3 most of the time, but I go straight to 10 when I think its called for. That's part of coaching IMO. Know when to use and don't use it too much.

 

[cotty16]

Yep, I am good for a few eruptions a year. Use them too much and they become meaningless.

Look out... we have won 3 of 4. Beat a good Bellaire team last night 11-6. The kids are finally fielding the ball! We still have too many k's at the plate, but we have also been getting some timely hitting all of a sudden.

 

[Curran]

Caleb's little league opener was last night. He kept calling it opening day. Lol... It's his first year of kid pitch so I'm preparing for a long season. The boys ended up losing 9 - 7 but they played pretty well for only having a few practices. My son pitched almost 2 innings (they played 4 then hit the time limit), and for never pitching except in the yard with me, he did pretty good. At least comparing him to the other kids pitching. I think he ended up with 6 Ks, a couple walks, and only gave up 2 runs. He kept talking about his shut out inning on the ride home. Haha...

He needs to just keep working on putting the ball in the catcher's glove, but watching Sports Center has been the worse thing in the world. Once he started getting some confidence out there he started trying to throw side arm, or switch his form up to do God knows what. Balls started going everywhere, then he's get back in pitch & catch mode and start throwing strikes again. It'll come with time I guess, but you can't tell him anything. He already knows it all. Must get that from his Mom.

 

[Buckmaster]

Our second attempt at our opener will be Saturday morning though rain is on its way, we shall see.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Caleb's little league opener was last night. He kept calling it opening day. Lol... It's his first year of kid pitch so I'm preparing for a long season. The boys ended up losing 9 - 7 but they played pretty well for only having a few practices. My son pitched almost 2 innings (they played 4 then hit the time limit), and for never pitching except in the yard with me, he did pretty good. At least comparing him to the other kids pitching. I think he ended up with 6 Ks, a couple walks, and only gave up 2 runs. He kept talking about his shut out inning on the ride home. Haha...

He needs to just keep working on putting the ball in the catcher's glove, but watching Sports Center has been the worse thing in the world. Once he started getting some confidence out there he started trying to throw side arm, or switch his form up to do God knows what. Balls started going everywhere, then he's get back in pitch & catch mode and start throwing strikes again. It'll come with time I guess, but you can't tell him anything. He already knows it all. Must get that from his Mom.

I'd say he did extremely well for his first outing. There is a kid on Mason's team that does the same thing. Overhand, he throws pretty well. His drunk uncle or someone told him to try throwing sidearm... he did, put one over the backstop.

 

[ajupsman]

:smiley_clap:

I operate at a level 2-3 most of the time, but I go straight to 10 when I think its called for. That's part of coaching IMO. Know when to use and don't use it too much.

I try not to do it more than once a year but most years it happens twice. As I tell the kids I never blow up about mistakes. It's always due to lack of effort. Not being good enough is one thing. Not trying is another.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Caleb's little league opener was last night. He kept calling it opening day. Lol... It's his first year of kid pitch so I'm preparing for a long season. The boys ended up losing 9 - 7 but they played pretty well for only having a few practices. My son pitched almost 2 innings (they played 4 then hit the time limit), and for never pitching except in the yard with me, he did pretty good. At least comparing him to the other kids pitching. I think he ended up with 6 Ks, a couple walks, and only gave up 2 runs. He kept talking about his shut out inning on the ride home. Haha...

He needs to just keep working on putting the ball in the catcher's glove, but watching Sports Center has been the worse thing in the world. Once he started getting some confidence out there he started trying to throw side arm, or switch his form up to do God knows what. Balls started going everywhere, then he's get back in pitch & catch mode and start throwing strikes again. It'll come with time I guess, but you can't tell him anything. He already knows it all. Must get that from his Mom.

I'd say he did extremely well for his first outing. There is a kid on Mason's team that does the same thing. Overhand, he throws pretty well. His drunk uncle or someone told him to try throwing sidearm... he did, put one over the backstop.

 

[Buckmaster]

We lost our first game Saturday against a 7 year old team, 19-4.

I had a bunch of parents mad at me after the game for not taking their "Little Johnny" to the Dairy Queen for celebratory ice cream cones.

Hey, we lost! When I played ball we had to run extra laps for losing ball games. I should instill that rule.

We play a good 7 & 8 year old team that's 3-0 so far. I expect them to win our league this year. Tonight won't be pretty.

 

[bowhunter1023]

We are officially in the state playoffs after winning our play in game last night 11-0 against a very bad Vinton County team. Tonight we travel to Jackson to take on a juggernaut of a ball team. I've been told they started on November 1, have an indoor hitting facility, and almost every player on the team is a baseball only athlete. We can't compete with that. Unless we pull off a miracle, I expect our season to come to an end this evening.

 

[cotty16]

We were supposed to start sectionals on Saturday, but rain has pushed us into today. We play Cambridge at 4:00 today in Steubenville. We split with them during the regular season so anything can happen.

Good luck today Jesse. Knock em off!

 

[Buckmaster]

Rained out last night so rescheduled for Sunday, along with games Friday and Monday. Busy, busy.

 

[Curran]

Hope everything went well Jesse & Mike.

 

[cotty16]

Tough one. Lost 5-4 in 8 innings. K'd too much and left too many runners on. Played great D until one miscue ended it. With two outs in bottoms of the 8th, and winning run on third, ground ball to SS and he air mailed it over first. We should've never been in that situation though if we just got one key hit in any of the previous innings. We also couldn't get two sac bunts down that may have changed the game. Tough one to take.

 

[Curran]

Damn that sucks Mike. I hate those games when you feel like you should've won but a few little hiccups end up making the difference.