The weekend is over and spring has arrived, we have played nine non-conference games, and now it is time to prepare for a 28 game conference schedule.
As for the weekend, it was bittersweet. After beating the nation's top ranked Heidelberg College team in a 2-1, ten inning game yesterday, Heidelberg turned the tables on us today and won another ten inning game by the same 2-1 score. One could say that the weekend was a success, but it didn't necessarily feel that way when the last out was made in today's tenth inning.
When a team comes so close to knocking off the top ranked team in two consecutive games, only to lose the second one, it might be natural to feel a little deflated. The way I generally try to look at things is that it is now time to prepare for the next game. A team is only as good as its next game. Our last game is over and has been entered into the history books, but if we indeed achieve one of our often stated goals of trying to improve every day, we have to take a look at these two games, evaluate our performance, and look for ways to improve.
We did some things very well this weekend. As in our last two games (two weeks ago in Florida against Marietta College), we pitched well and played great defense. In two games (20 innings) against Heidelberg we gave up a total of three runs, one of which was earned. As for that earned run, it was scored when a fly ball to deep left-center was caught by left fielder Kyle Strawn and the runner on second base advanced to third and home. It was a very good defensive play by Strawn and an outstanding hustle play by the Heidelberg runner to score all the way from second base (an extremely rare occurrence) .
So we can say that we did a pretty good job pitching, but it was a little more difficult to pitch all those shutout innings than it was against Marietta two weeks ago. Against Marietta we retired the leadoff batter in 15 of the 17 innings we played. Anytime you get the first batter out, there is a lot less pressure on the pitcher and defense. We walked more Heidelberg batters (this weekend we walked 14 batters in 20 innings) than we did Marietta batters (4 walks in 17 innings) and thus had to make more stressful pitches this weekend.
What we did a very good job of, partly due to allowing more freebies, was maintaining damage control. It is an important part of pitching that the pitchers and I often talk about. One of the reasons we were able to prevent Heidelberg from scoring when they had runners on base so often was that we did a great job of getting strikeouts and pop outs with runners on base. Runners don't advance on strikeouts and pop outs; thus we successfully pitched and played great defense in crucial situations and kept the Student Princes from scoring.....in other words, our damage control was pretty good.
What can we do better? As a pitching staff, we need to do a better job of allowing the hitters to get themselves out and thus make it easier on us. By allowing freebies and pitching so often with runners on base, we are forced to throw more pitches than we would like to throw. Therefore, efficiency is probably the most important thing our pitching staff has to improve on as we prepare for our first conference games.
We all know that we also need to score more runs, and I am confident that will come with time as our hitters face game pitching more consistently (remember, we had gone two weeks without playing a game). We do have to tip our caps to the pitchers Heidelberg threw at us this weekend, just as we had to give Marietta's pitchers credit for keeping the games low scoring. As we play our MIAA conference games, I'm sure our batting averages and situational hitting will gradually improve, and soon we will put up some good offensive numbers.....it happens every year!!
And now that spring is here, we hope to have warmer weather on a more consistent basis. That is another thing that can help any team score more runs!
MIAA conference games begin for us Friday when we play two home games against Calvin College. Saturday we will travel to Calvin for two more games. In the last two seasons, we have won 48 conference games and lost only eight in earning the MIAA Championship both years. Our goal is to win every conference game that we play, but just one at a time. The regular season MIAA Champion earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Regionals, which is the first step in earning a trip to the DIII World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin.
The path to the World Series is like eating an elephant, which one can only do one bite at a time. We have taken a few small bites already; now it is time to put on the bib and get to work on the main part of that elephant. Personally, I am proud of our entire Adrian College team; they have played well enough to know for sure that they are one of the country's best DIII baseball teams!!
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