Game 3 - A's

Facing our third game in five days I was initially concerned that our kids would struggle to find the energy for this game and that our coaches would struggle to find available pitchers for the game. I was wrong, we found plenty of both, despite this being our second 5-inning, 2+hour game in consecutive nights. I'm always amazed at how much energy these kids bring to the field after a full day of school. The game remained close through 3 innings as our defense and pitching held up and our offense nickel and dimed our way to a few runs. Caio and Mason served as our primary table-setters. Grant Grichuin and Angelo continue to contribute in key situations, delivering key RBI singles with runners in scoring position. Roberto, Ben and Mason gave us the innings we needed on the mound and all continue to improve. Joe Fedota chipped in with two scoreless innings and a nice two-strike-out third inning. I am really impressed with how these kids are beginning to pick up the craft of pitching. I noticed how each of our guys threw much harder in this game. This is a natural progression as they gain more confidence on the mound, they will tend to throw harder and focus less on "steering" the ball.

Our hitting needs to improve. We need to reduce the number of strikeouts we have each game. Outside of the coach being able to throw better pitches (Sorry Trevor!!) I may try and take some time prior to the game to do some "soft-toss" with some kids to "turn on" their hand-eye coordination prior to the game. Our defense has improved somewhat, but still not enough to work through our batting order twice in a 5-inning game. We are getting very close, however, we had more put-outs in this game than we've had in our two previous games. We also are starting to do the little things right, like backing up throws, working on throwing out baserunners on past balls, knocking the ball down in the infield and returning the ball quickly from the outfield.

Tonight is picture night, so clean those uniforms and put on a game face. We'll see you all on Saturday at 8:30 am for our game against the Angels.