Today we are having a weather delay. Storms are blowing into the Demorest, Georgia area and Piedmont College has tarped their infield. We are planning to play at 7pm tonight and then head to Port Charlotte, Florida tomorrow for games on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
We were able to take the team over to Piedmont this morning, before the rain, for a workout. After stretching and doing some warm up activities, the position players took some batting practice indoors for about an hour while the pitchers did some running and were forced to listen to the pitching coach for a while.
Three pitchers took a run around Piedmont's hilly campus, six of them ran ten poles each, and four of them ran ten poles and ran some bows and arrows. They did different types of running based on when they pitched last and when they are scheduled to (or might) pitch again.
While the hitters were still taking their swings and the pitchers finished their running, we had some time to exchange some feedback with each other. Some of the discussion had to do with our first three games and the things we learned about ourselves as pitchers and about some of the hitters we are throwing against. Other topics of discussion dealt with our possible starting pitching rotation for the next few days, decisions about in game pitch selection and pitch location, making in game adjustments when certain pitches are moving differently than they usually do, and suggestions about making our pitching charts as thorough and easy to understand as possible.
Another thing I talked about is the fact that I have faith in each one of the pitchers we have here, in spite of the fact that not all of them have pitched in games yet. We have used seven different pitchers in our first three games. Two of those pitchers have pitched twice. Therefore, of the 13 pitchers we brought down here on our trip, there are still six who haven't pitched in a game yet. Tonight's starter will make his first outing, and chances are that a couple more guys will be making their first appearances of the season tonight as well. I think it is important to give as many pitchers as possible some legitimate game experience before we begin our conference season. I really think we can do that and win games at the same time.
We did win one game of the two we played yesterday. We scored 16 runs in an eight run victory against Millsaps College in game one, and then lost game two to Piedmont College by a score of 6-5. Some good news is that we went our first two games without allowing a walk, but we still have a lot of room for improvement as a pitching staff and as an entire team. This morning we talked about trying to do a better job of damage control, meaning that after a hit, walk, hit batter, or error we want to be in control of the inning by getting ahead of hitters and making them hit pitches on the edge of (or out of) the strike zone.
For now, as we sit in the hotel hoping for good enough weather to play under the lights tonight, some Adrian College players are napping, others are playing cards, and some may be watching television, reading, playing video games, or studying.
As the old guy, I am relaxing in our hotel room with coaches Luke Harrigan and Xander Younce and our #1 kid Logan Klotz, who is beating Xander in a video game at this moment!!
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