Games 9 (Rangers) and 10 (Tigers)

Coach had a busy week and is catching up by posting two entries at once on Games 9 and 10. I've included comparative stats at the end of this entry that show how our team is stacking up statistically against the competition.

Both games had similar characteristics. Game 9 versus the Rangers felt very one-sided in favor of the Rangers, largely due to their excellent hitting, particularly in the first inning. Caio did a terrific job of putting the ball over the plate and the Rangers did an equally good job hitting the ball through the middle of the infield. Sometimes you need to tip your cap to a good performance. Our defense did show up in this game making three put-outs in the field including a nice 4-3 put-out with Ian and Joe and a pop-fly catch by Joe at shortstop. Looking beyond the score of the game and comparing stats for both teams gives you some better insight into why the game did not go our way. The glaring statistic is the number of at-bats, which showed the Rangers batting 27 times versus our 14 at-bats. Simple explanation, we don't hit the ball.

Game 10 saw some excellent pitching from Roberto and some better hitting from the team, although still not enough to make a difference in the outcome of the game. William had a nice 2 for 2 performance and Joe came through with a nice RBI early in the game. We struggled in the field (no defensive put-outs) this game. Our boys need to make more aggressive moves to the baseball in order to have a chance to make a defensive play on the ball.

Work on hitting whenever possible. The main limitation we have is not stringing together multiple hits to score runs. We have two games this week, Tuesday vs. the A's and Thursday vs. the Angels. See you then.