The 9th inning is ours

We have gone to Florida and Alabama and back, and played a game in central Indiana.  We haven’t won as many games as we had hoped for (3 wins, 4 losses) at this point in the early season, but we have done some things pretty well.  A little adversity for a team early in the season can be a blessing, allowing us to better understand our strengths and weaknesses more clearly than if things had come a little easier.

As far as the pitching staff is concerned, we have had quality innings from our starting pitchers in our last five games, after having sub-par starts in games one and two in Florida.  In the last five games our starting pitchers have left each game with a lead, though we have only won the last two of those games.  The success of our relief appearances has also improved.  After surrendering leads in games 3, 4, and 5, we have now closed out the last two games successfully in the 9^th inning.  We need to do a better job of proving that the 9^th inning is ours!

I am always one to look at the silver lining, but I am also well aware that if we don’t do some things better we will have more difficulty winning close games.  For example, though we have made some progress in getting ahead of hitters by throwing more first pitch strikes, we still need to get better at finishing hitters off when we get ahead of them and closing out innings when we get two outs.

Closing innings out has everything to do with taking care of damage control, one of the things we talk about regularly.  Doing a great job with damage control is important to our pitching staff and the entire team.  We never want to follow a mistake (walks, hit batters, errors) with another mistake (ie., missing over the middle of the strike zone, especially  when we are ahead in the count).  After a poorly executed pitch sequence which gives our opponent baserunners, a double play ball (or other ‘easy’ outs) early in the count can do a lot to get us out of what could be a stressful inning.

One of the things we have to do to win games is to do what we do well better than our opponents do what they do well.  Recent history shows that what we have done well is pitch and play defense.  If we can continue to get better at these things that we do well, and do them better than whatever it is our opponents do well, then we are going to win a lot of games, because when we do those things well it is a huge task to overcome for anybody we play.

Thought the weather will be cold this week, we have games and practices that will give us daily opportunities to continue improving the things we do well so that we can open up the MIAA season successfully next weekend!