A break in the weather

The Navigator's and Baysox surely appreciated a little break from all the rain we have been getting recently. You couldn't tell that anyone was acting any different, but all the players were happy to see the sun. The conditions were perfect for us to set our feet beneath us once again. Our lead off hitter had a great night at the plate, which proved to help tremendously tonight. Not only did we hit the ball well, we used almost every part of the game tonight. We stole bases, sacrificed runners into scoring position, and had a solid pitching performance.

A great moment in tonight's game: Our lead off hitter (Tre Dennis) hit a single and proceeded to steal 2nd base. At this point all we needed was a sacrifice bunt to move him from 2nd base to third and then a semi deep fly ball to score him. Our second hitter in the line up couldn't get the bunt down and then popped up (1 out). Tre, taking advantage of lazy defense up the middle got a solid lead/jump and stole third, therefor "picking up" our second batter, and making it a little easier on our third hitter. Since the game was close pretty much the whole game the Baysox brought the infield in. Our 3rd batter proceeded to strike out, however with two outs our number 4 hitter kept his composure and smacked a double, keeping the inning alive. Now that's good baseball.

"Picking each other up" on the field and in the dugout is how teams bond, and gain trust in one another. If one person doesn't get a hit one at bat, then the next teammate will. If an infielder makes an error on a ball that's hit off their pitcher, they know they are going to make the next play. That's the mentality that teams need to have in order to have success. Like I have said before, it is tough to play a game that has so much failure involved, but that is why you have teammates.

Not enough hits in a row

It's tough sometimes to look at the box score and see a team winning even though they only had 1 more hit. Sometimes the winning team has less hits, this happends when a team does a number of things (draw more base on balls (Walk), steal more bases, sacrificed more runners into scoring position/home etc...). It is really hard to win a baseball game however when you don't score any runs at all. We had enough hits to put up a couple of runs, they just happened to come when there were no runners on base. It is also tough to continue pitching without the lead for the whole game. Your job is to try not to make the come back any harder for the offense, yet tonight the offense didn't produce anything. With the weather being the way it has been for the past few days no one is out of any game at any time. Your mentality going into a game has to be the same whether it is 90 degrees and sunny or 60 degrees and raining. This isn't always easy, sometimes you field a ground ball that is soaking wet, or you slip on the dirt when you are rounding a base! Yet you can't complain because both teams have to play on the same field.