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May 6, 2008 - 5:30 PM - It ’s a joy to win games because we get to award one of our players with the winning game ball. In today’s win we broke the normal tradition and awarded two balls instead of just one.

GAME BALL 1 - Our first game ball went to Shaun who pitched two great innings and hit a huge deep ball to right center that brought him sliding safely into third and then onto home after an overthrow. When I say it was huge, it was the type of hit from Shaun that the rest of us have seen regularly at practice, but we had yet to see at the 3 prior games. The ball was a solid line drive that sailed out within 20 feet of the deep right center fence, while the infielders were playing half depth. Our dugout exploded with delight and cheers and everybody rushed out to give him high fives. Click on the photo above and look at the joy on Drew, Coach Petersen, and Adam’s faces... Did I mention that it was a huge hit?

GAME BALL 2 - Our second game ball was awarded to Aaron. Aaron also hit a huge triple down the third base line to start off the third inning. This opened the inning where our team scored 5 runs and he led the way to put us on top 9 to 2. Aaron pitched two great opening innings and then came back into the game to tie the bow on the present in the last inning by retaking the mound to close out the game. Aaron threw a total of 50 pitches and walked only the first batter that he faced. Aaron struck out five batters and his team backed him up very well on the field. The first inning was a strong perfoemance as he allowed a walk, a single, and a double, but he struck one out and then got the final two hitters to graound the ball back to him and he threw over to Drew for the final two outs of the inning. The second inning Aaron gave up a single that resulted in the runner being thrown out while stealing second, and then Aaron struck out the next two batters. In the 6th inning Aaron sent the first and last batters down swinging, gave up a couple of hits, and Matt made the play from third to throw to Brian at third base for another infield put out. This was an all around great performance by Aaron on the mound and at the plate.

I must say that it was a lot nicer getting together with the boys after the game in the peaceful calm of a 75 degree clear evening with just a light breeze than it was in the frigid artic freeze of the last game. It was also great to see every one of our players swing their bats and make some sort of contact. We saw batters protecting the plate by fouling off balls. We saw huge hits and some dribble contact, but the most important part is that everybodies bats were ready to swing.

We faced two Cubs pitchers today. The first was slower in his delivery, with a great curve ball. With Kohler on the mound we were able to dela with the curve, hit the ball, and we gained a lot of batting confidence. Austin came in to pitch in the 4th inning and he threw much harder. He faced 6 of our batters in just two innings, striking out 4 and he got two more to ground out. And although he did a great job of throwing strikes, Drew and Aaron get “At-A-Boys” for swinging confidently and making contact on his rocket fastballs. Most of us adults would have stood there like a deer caught in the headlights if someone was throwing that hard at us. Coach Street reminded the players after the game that their personal goal is to be able to hit the second pitcher with the same confidence as we hit the first pitcher by mid-season. This will require personal trips to the batting cages, batting practice with friends, and practice with our team to accomplish this goal. I know that we can do it.

As we look at the above stats you will see lots of walks, and that is pretty typical for early season games as the pitchers have been lating off a long time. We will see progressively less walks and more hits throughout the season. Those with lower ob base percentages usually have been swinging and missing instead of taking balls and that is perfectly fine. What we see is a great mix and all of our batters are gaining confidence. We have also faced everything from 80 miles per hour pitching aces to 40 miles per hour novices. We currently do very well with the novices and marginal with the high heat aces.... And this is all to be expected in the early season.

RBI’S - Runs Batted In is also an important statistic that is difficult to follow from a scorecard, but makes all the difference in a final score. Jeremy is a perfect example as he got a second inning hit that found him being put out at first, yet he brought Brian across home on the play. Brian’s smart running combined with Jeremy’s hit got us one more on the scoreboard. It is that type of play that does not show up well on stats, yet it is so valuable to our team’s success.

FIELDING - Our three pitchers benefitted greatly today from our team’s defensive performance. We fielded with very few errors today. We had several good plays at first base with Drew, Brian, Matt and Jonas covering the bag. In the first inning Drew made two good plays. Brian had two scoop catches that most human beings would have watched sail by for an extra bases. We held their runners back and our pitchers only gave up 3 walks (one of those was Brian nailing the first batter that he faced). The lack of walks forced the Cub batters to walk to the plate knowing that they had to swing or they would be struck out. Our team did very well fielding the balls that were hit.