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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

April 26th Loss

The Warriors lost last night 9 – 2 to Hobgood. Corey led off the bottom of the first with a double, and Will knocked him in with a line drive single to center. Will stole second with a headfirst slide, reached third on a fielder’s choice, and scored on David’s hit. The Warriors didn’t score after that, though runners did reach base in every inning.

Other offensive highlights included…
…Curtis reached base in the first on a grounder to short.
…Nick hit the ball both times, but right at people.
…Michael walked both times, and was called out for runner’s interference going to third. Gotta keep those elbows in.
…Russell hit it hard into rightfield for a clean single, and later slid into second with a stolen base.
…With two runners on base Thomas hit a grounder the shortstop couldn’t handle.
…Josiah walked in the sixth inning.
…hard-luck Christian lined a pitch batch into centerfield and was robbed of a hit by a nice running catch by the centerfielder.
…John Fulton walked in the third.
…Jake reached on a fielder’s choice. He hit a grounder near second base. The shortstop stepped on the bag and fired to first, thinking he had a sure double play. But Jake turned on the jets and beat it out. Then he quickly stole second base. Coach Sharp is going to have to give Jake some sliding lessons.
…Will led off the fourth, and with the leftfielder playing over in the gap toward the centerfield gap, Will pulled a couple of hard hit line drives foul. He eventually worked the count full and walked, then stole second.

Hard-throwing lefty Nick pitched a scoreless first, striking out two and allowing a lone single. But after walking the first three batters in the second Nick’s arm was hurting, so I brought Will in to pitch out of the bases-loaded nobody out jam. A pitch got away from catcher Corey, and the runner on third dashed home. Corey chased in down and tossed a backhand throw to Will, who barely tagged the runner with a swipe. The ninth hitter in the order poked a high pitch just over second-baseman John Fulton’s head, knocking in two of the batters Nick had walked. Then Will settled in and retired the next two batters, including a strikeout to end the inning.

Will only needed 13 pitches to retire the top three hitters in the order in the third inning. On a full count he struck out the number two hitter looking, then the next batter grounded one right back to Will.

Michael pitched for the first time ever, according to his dad. He faced nine batters and walked none, throwing 17 strikes and only seven balls. The first batter hit a hard grounder that few travel-team third-basemen would be able to handle, but Curtis reacted beautifully and caught the ball cleanly. Curtis played just one inning at third base back on March 8. He had all day to throw him out, but hurried his throw, and it was just out of Russell’s reach. The next batter hit a grounder up the middle. David hustled and got in front of the ball just steps from second base. I’m sure he was thinking “I’ll catch the ball, step on second, and fire to first for the double play.” But the grounder was bobbled, and everyone was safe. So all the runs that Michael gave up were unearned.

Curtis pitched for the first time in a while and also did well...he retired the first two batters he faced. Two of the three runs he allowed in his two innings were also unearned.

Other good defensive plays included…
…playing shortstop, Will also threw out two batters at first on grounders. He also caught the first inning.
…Josiah had a two putouts at first base.
…Russell caught a line drive in left field (and a compliment from Coach Bartlett) and had two putouts at first base.
…John Fulton caught a pop and threw out a batter at first while playing second base in the fourth.
…Thomas made that good catch of the hard hit ball for an out in rightfield. He also fielded another ball in right, and just missed nabbing a line drive over his head at second base.
…Nick didn’t have many balls hit to him, but while he was playing left field I noticed him moving to back up possible overthrows from the catcher to third, without anyone telling him. That was great…I think everyone should be on the move on every pitch, backing up and covering bases.
…Corey caught two innings, and playing centerfield quickly ran down a ball hit to the wall to hold the batter to double. Later he got a quick jump on a ball and was almost in position for a diving catch, but it was just too far away. In the first he ran down a single in the gap in right-center, and thought about throwing to first again. Great aggressive plays.
…Christian gobbled up a ball hit to him at third, and correctly set himself and threw out the batter at first…without being distracted by the runner on the move from second.
…Clay had an unassisted double play, catching a popup and tagging out the runner. Clay also caught an inning.

After it rained most of the day, the weather was great for the game, with a little breeze and clouds rolling through pretty quick. It was great that Clay and Coach Frank were able to make the game, which started even earlier than the stated 6:15 start time.

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