Faith in selves, teammates, and salvation

Today we have had some wind and some rain, thus our doubleheader against Hope College has been postponed until Tuesday, May 10th at Adrian College.  We are still traveling to Hope tomorrow to play two games of the four game series.  As always, when you love getting out there and competing on the baseball field, it is a bit of a disappointment to have games postponed.  And when a team has been playing as well as we have, the players and coaches just want to get back out there to get at it again.  But of course, some things are out of our control, so we had a practice and can get prepared to play two games tomorrow.

Fortunately this week we were able to play two non-conference games at home against Siena Heights University, a school and baseball program that I love.  We started two freshmen on the mound, with local right hander Rylie Robinson throwing a complete game shutout in a 2-0 first game victory.  Rylie has improved throughout the season, especially with his efficiency, as he threw first pitch strikes to 21 of the 28 batters he faced (75%).  Getting first pitch strikes and getting leadoff batters out are two of the main things we have talked about throughout the season, and in doing those two things well a pitcher can make things easier for himself and his defensive teammates.

In game two, Brent Greenwood had a rocky first inning with some bad luck, and gave up four runs, two of which were unearned.  But to Brent's credit, he pitched the next five innings without allowing a walk and giving up only one more hit. It says a lot about a pitcher when he can bounce back from sucha rough first inning and pitch like a champion for the rest of the game!!

Brent was relieved in the 7th inning by Lucas Willitzer, a converted catcher who earned his first college pitching victory by throwing a scoreless inning.  We scored two runs in the bottom of the 7th to get a walk-off win as Jake Cappellety drove Brian Bilius home with a two out single up the middle.

Bilius made a major league play at third base during the game, and for him that is just 'business as usual'.  He has been making great plays all season, saving runs for us and helping to keep pitch counts to a minimum.  With the combination of Brian's leadership, defense, and hitting, I think it would be a shame of he does not get named as the MIAA player of the year when the coaches get together to vote.

I have enjoyed reading quotes from our pitchers in the local paper this season.  On just about every occasion they mention that the defense had been great behind them.  Having faith in teammates and remember that it is always 9 against 1 when we are on the mound helps to make pitching a lot easier than it might otherwise be!!

Hopefully this dreadful spring weather (though I am grateful to be out on the field!!) will change and we can play in nice conditions tomorrow and for the rest of the season.  Our guys have final exams next week and then they can really focus on daily baseball improvements and achieving our team goals.  We can't take anything for granted, and we must continue to compete and be grateful for the opportunity to have fun on the baseball field.!!

Since today is Good Friday, I would like to end this post with a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas:  "To one who has Faith no explanation is necessary. To one without Faith no explanation is possible."

Business as Usual

A lot has happened in the almost two weeks since we played Heidelberg College, unfortunately most of what was happening had to do with Mother Nature trying to prolong winter here in the Great Lakes Region.  Our MIAA conference openers last Friday were postponed due to cold temperatures and rescheduled for May.  But when we got to practice Monday we were informed that we would play our four game series against Calvin College on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Therefore, we (and Calvin) now faced the prospect of playing four conference doubleheaders in the next five days.

As soon as Coach Rainey told me the news of the week's schedule, I genuinely painted a positive picture of the opportunity that it presented for our pitching staff.  Then I was able to meet the pitchers in the left field corner and tell them the great news.  This was going to be an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we have a very deep and talented pitching staff.  Our conference format of 28 games over seven weeks, facing one conference opponent each week (a doubleheader at our place and a doubleheader on the road), puts us in a position of using our top four pitchers in those games.  Because the games are seven innings (rather than nine innings), if our pitchers are efficient in their starts we don't need to use our bullpen very often.

As I presented the scenario to our pitching staff on Monday, it was clear that I was excited.  I have been saying for the past few years that our schedule has not prepared us as well as possible for our Regional Tournament and DIII World Series, tournaments in which we play nine inning games.  We are forced to use the bullpen more in the post-season, and thus we use some guys who haven't pitched much in legitimate pressure situations.  Sure, they have pitched some quality innings, but nothing like the kind of innings we play against great teams in the post-season.  So I told the pitchers that this week we would probably use six or eight starting pitchers and that would be a good thing for us, for the reasons already mentioned above.

What has happened so far is working out to be exactly the way I thought it would.  We have played our first six of the week's eight games, and have won all six.  On Tuesday we used our staff aces, Ryan Domschot and DavePartyka, our only two senior pitchers.  They were their usual dominant selves, as we won by scores of 3-2 and 4-2.  Again, our defense was also outstanding.  We struck out 19 batters in the 14 innings and gave up only eight hits.  As I predicted in my previous blog post, our hitters started to make strides as well, and this was only the beginning of the offense getting back to being fat (in a great way)!!

On Wednesday we went to Calvin and beat them twice again, with Jason Fryman throwing a complete game on only 67 pitches in the opener and Josh Burd, getting his first start, going the first five innings in game two.  Freshman Mike Osterman made his first varsity appearance and pitched the last two innings, allowing only one hit.  During the wins by scores of 6-2 and 9-1, the offense continued to improve and our pitchers allowed no walks in 14 innings.

Yesterday we began our four game series against Trine, playing at home.  Game one was started by sophomore Zach Robbins, who had some shoulder tenderness after our southern trip.  He was perfect through four innings, and then walked two guys and hit one in the fifth.  We decided to take him out after five, even though he had a no-hitter going.  Sean Hartman pitched the last two innings and did not allow a run as we won 6-0.  Freshman Rylie Robinson started game two, and after throwing five innings of 2-hit baseball we took him out so that Brent Greenwood and Craig Steadman could shut down the opposition in the sixth and seventh innings for a 5-0 win.  For the day we threw 14 innings and again with great defense, did not allow a run and gave up only five hits.

I had told the pitchers that if we ever threw two shutouts in one day they would be treated to some batting practice, so at today's practice they will get to take some swings.  Hopefully we can limit them to only a handful of swings each, and then we can be prepared for tomorrow's doubleheader at Trine and continue with  business as usual.

Tomorrow, Head Coach Craig Rainey will be going for his 400th victory at Adrian College.  If we play up to our expectations, he will also get victory #401 and we will be off to a good start to the 2011 MIAA season!  I'm sure he is more focused on getting one victory at a time tomorrow rather than reaching a milestone like 400, as are we, but it is always special to be able to congratulate a friend for such an accomplishment!!