Six games left

With six games remaining our record is 3-11-1.

A .500 season is out of our reach, but we are in the position to play "spoiler" and beat the teams vying for first place. To this end:

• Tomorrow's make-up game will have no pitcher for us get more than two innings of work. This will maximize our pitching options Wednesday.
• For the remainder of the season I'll do my best to put players in any/all defensive position I think they have a reasonable chance at succeeding at.
  
• There are five guys who have shown potential to succeed on the mound, and they will get the innings and work in practice.
  
• There are four guys that have catching experience or interest. I will do my best to see they all get a fair opportunity behind the plate.

I would like to emphasize how important I think every position in the field is. There is truly nowhere to hide any player, the ball can find 'em all. I think some of our players feel that playing the outfield to akin to being relegated to Siberia. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we improve our outfield play, we can compete in every remaining game.

Practice Dust-up

An incident happened in practice that I wish had not occurred.

I felt obligated to send one player off the practice field for throwing a bat and helmet after striking out in scrimmage. We have that rule for practice, this is the first time I've had to enforce it.

In the immediate aftermath things were said and it was an uncomfortable few minutes for all involved.

As per league rules I've reported the incident to the player agent, an officer of the league.

The league by-laws say:

"Managers will be allowed to discipline players for (1) one game for the following:

1. Missing practice consistantly without excuse.
2. Disrespect of teammates, managers or coaches.

It is not my intention to suspend the player for what happened yesterday. As far as I'm concerned the incident is over with.

A little more snug

After Friday's games, the standings got a little more snug.

The Astros beat the Braves, and we beat the Red Sox. What this does is moves the Astros to second at 6-5, and us a little closer to the pack at 3-8. We're now 4 1/2 games out of first, and 2 1/2 games out of third.

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I know many of our fans were miffed that I was not more aggressive with our runner in the third inning, not sending him while that ball was loose in the short OF. Please allow me.

They did gave us a courtesy runner when the first batter of the inning was HBP. They didn't have to, but they did. In all fairness to that batter, he's not a fast runner, and I didn't think sportsmanship would be served by taking advantage of their charity. I had the runner take one extra base on the play, coming from to third from second. But I knew I would not have sent the original runner home on that play had he been forced to run the bases. Thus I told the courtesy runner to stop at third.

I also remember that they let the kid that got subbed for take a couple easy steals without throws last time we played. They didn't need to do that, and I think turn about is fair play.

Beating the Red Sox

Friday night's win over the Red Sox was great.

We had a very tough week last week, and in practice our guys looked a little spotty. Take into account that we were rained out on Wednesday, and had one of our most lackluster practices on Thursday, and I'd have to say I wasn't sure of what to expect in Friday's game.

But our players put together one of our best games of the season. We were aggressive at the plate and our pitching, though wild in episodes, was good when it had to be.

The game-saving play was outstanding. The a high fly was hit to RC, where it landed. Our RC picked it up and made a strong throw into second, like he's been told (many times) in practice. Our SS caught the throw and made an accurate relay to home. Our C caught the relay and made the tag on a runner trying to score, holding on to the ball to assure the out. That play essentially ended the game.

Plays like that make all the work and practice worth it.

I've heard some players complain that they don't want to play the OF. They may feel they are being banished there. That is surely not my intention. In practice when we catch fly balls, I watch to see who's catching them, and who's looking solid when they catch them. Those guys are my nominees for CF and RC. I'm also looking for guys that are paying attention to what's going on. Those are my top nominees for LF and RF, where that attentiveness means that the player will be backing up a throw or a hot box.

There is no place to hide on a baseball field. Every position is important. Our win on Friday proves it.

Tough weekend

After playing the Braves twice I'm convinced that right now they are the top team in our division. Not by much, and certainly not necessarily for the season, but right now they are the top team.

They have three solid pitchers they can put on the mound. They have batters 1-10 that can put the ball in play consistently. They run the bases aggressively and field the ball well. Most importantly, their infielders throw the ball well.

We're not that far behind them. We have one very dependable pitcher and 2-3 more who are developing. We have batters 1-8 that can hit the ball. While we run the bases agressively, we lack knowledge in how to be effective and aggressive at the same time. And we are still, as a group, deficient in throwing the ball on the infield.

The base-running and infield defense deficiencies are about to be addressed in practice.

In all truth, I'm used to much higher levels of ball. Be it adult softball, or baseball at high school and beyond, there are differences in the base-running at these levels. Stuff happens here that would never happen at those levels. The free steal of second with a runner on third for one. That never happens at higher levels of play because it never results in a free steal. The SS cuts the ball off and fires it home to get the runner coming from third. We need to devise a way to stop this problem.

Another thing we can do is look for free outs by throwing for trailing runners. On one play yesterday runners were rounding third and second with the ball loose behind third base. Our LF picked up the ball and threw it toward home, a throw he really doesn't have the arm to make. Had he noticed the runner coming to 3rd he could have made that short (easily-made) throw and we would have gotten the trail runner. Every out helps.

To do this requires that we know where to throw the ball, and that we do it accurately. We'll drill this in practice, starting Monday.

All of this is not to say we didn't make some alert plays in the field. We ended their half of the second by tagging a their runner who lest his base headed towards the dugout thinking there were three outs. We also doubled off one of their runners at third who had not tagged up on a caught fly ball to end the fourth.

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Monday after practice we'll also start working specifically with pitchers and catchers. Up to this time we've worked with the entire team on the three basic skills of throwing, catching and fielding. I think every player on our team does each of these better, in some cases much better, than they did at the start of the season. Now it's time to take the next step.

For the Ps that stay, we'll work first on mechanics of their motion. A guy that spent some time playing pro ball, and got all the way to AAA, watched our game Saturday and made a good point about our pitchers' motions, and offered advice that can help. We'll work with our guys on this Monday.