JUNE 28, 2007 - Thursday - Padres vs. Dodgers - City Center #1

Eli should take the mound tonight

PREVIEW - It is 8:50 in the morning, just 10 hours before our championship game and I can feel a great excitement. Adam and his teammates have worked really hard for this opportunity to play in the championship game.

The Padres have been a fun team to play this year and we are feeling really confident for several reasons.

WINNER'S BRACKET - It is Suchow huge advantage to come into this game as the winners bracket leader instead of working into it through the loser's bracket. We have been able to rest up since last Saturday, whereas the Padres had to battle it out last light for the opportunity to play tonight.

PITCHING - The key to the best one out of two games tonight will be the pitching strategy. The Padres used their ace, Colton, in last nights game and so he cannot pitch in either game tonight. He is a great pitcher and they will miss him greatly on the mound. Matt pitched out last game and so he is ineligible for the first game, but he can pitch a full 95 if we have to play a second game. For game one I anticipate that we will start with Eli and then draw upon either Brian, Aaron or Nate to clean things up as needed. They are all eligible for a full 95 pitches, but if the pitch in the first game they cannot pitch them in a second game on the same day.

ROSTERS - We will be short both Jeremy and Josh for tonight's game. Jeremy is at the Thunder Ridge BSA camp in southern Utah. Josh is braving the rapids on a remote river. We did get Zach back from camp last week and he will round out our game roster of 10 strong players.

The Padres, however, only have 7 players from their original roster to play tonight. 3 of their players left this morning for their stake youth conference to participate in the Mormon Pioneer Trek. The fourth player is competing in a golf tournament. This leaves them at the mercy of the league to provide a list of 12 year old player upon which they can draw from to fill out a roster of 9. From what I have been told this list will not include any super leaguers, as that would create an unfair advantage for them.

One side of me says, "Hey, that's great!" While the other side says, "I would prefer to play their original team!" It is a mixed feeling and what I really want is for the roster issue to not be a distraction tonight during the game. I want our players to play hard and get a well earned victory and division championship.

PRIDE - I am so proud of our players. They have all improved so much this season. Each player is a valuable asset and is a threat to the other teams in their own way. We started the season with all caliber of players from all-stars with lots of experience to brand new ballplayers who have never before played organized baseball.

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER - Nathaniel gets my most improved player award. It takes guts to walk into a league of experienced players at age 13 or 14 and decide to give it a try. He came to every practice, concentrated on everything we tried to teach, and he worked hard in every way. He is now a threat at the plate and consistently gets his bat on the ball. In the outfield he gets to the balls quickly and catches most of them. And if he does initially miss it he always hustles and chases it down quickly with good throws back to the infield. He has continued to keep a smile on his face and play hard on each and every pitch.

SIDE NOTE: This past Tuesday we had an 8 AM practice at the City Center ballfield. Nathaniel arrived promptly at 8 and he was playing out in right field and a high fly ball was hit down the first base line. Nathaniel took off like a gazelle in that direction when all of the sudden he ran into a lake of excess sprinkler water. At full speed he fell on his bum across the lake, and then popped to his feet on the other end and continued to chase down the ball. Imagine the splash from a 4x4 hitting a pond at 50 miles per hour. This is the same splash we saw as Nathaniel hit the pond. It was incredible the way that he recovered... What a great play!

MOST IMPROVED HITTER - Dylan has definitely been our most improved hitter. He can drive the ball down the third base line harder than any other Dodger. His improvement was not by accident. He has spent lots of time in the batting cage working on his swing. He bats at the tail end of the lineup, but that is done on purpose. Nate is our early line-up clean-up hitter and Dylan is our late line-up clean-up hitter.

BATTING ORDER - Most of the parents are probably unaware of how our batting lineup differs from most other teams in the league. We have worked hard to make it so that there is never a huge lull in the lineup. The traditional method used by other teams is to take their four best hitters and place them 1 to 4 followed by a steadily diminishing ability to the end. This means that by the time you get to the 7th player there becomes a huge lull in the batting order. It also creates the situation that your lesser hitters never become better because they are never at bat with runners on, and they are always starting their at bat with all focus on them.

Let me explain this a bit. When nobody is on base and a weaker batter is at the plate, the pitcher concentrates only on them. When they hit a weak hit the infield is only struggling to get them out. This added pressure makes it where they commonly strike out or get out by the infielders. Their confidence never waxes strong, they rarely get on base, they never learn to be aggressive on the bases, and by the end of the season they are wondering why they even signed up for this stupid sport anyway.

Now take the same batter and surround him with players who can hit and run. Now when they come to the plate there is usually a runner or two on base. While those runners lead off they distract the pitcher. This makes the pitcher throw poorer quality pitches to the plate. When the weaker ball is hit the infield is going after other runners and not the batter. Errors get made, more running takes place as the player who would have been out in a traditional lineup now is on base and a threat to score. Confidence then comes at the plate. Confidence then is built as they run the bases. The player feels like a vital part of the team.... Because he is a vital part of the team.

The pressure on a young man to perform is great. Strikeouts can be devastating. One, two, three innings are also devastating to both the batter and their team. Avoiding that pressure by staggering the great with the improving diminishes the effect of a strikeout. It also allows the batter to shake off a bad performance in one inning and come back strong the next time around. This is all about building confidence and spreading out the pressure.

You may not have noticed, but we have divided our team of 12 into 2 strong lineups of 6. This includes a great leadoff batter that can get on base without anybody in his way. Then we have a couple of great base hit batters that can get hits to move runners around. Then we use power hitters that can hit deep and hard to get the needed rbi's. Even if their fly balls get caught, it doesn't matter because we have runners on to tag up and score. Then we start the process all over again.

Let's look at the lineup that will probably grace the field later today since we only have 10 players...

1. ELI
2. AARON
3. ADAM
4. NATE
5. JULIAN
6. ZACH
7. MATT
8. BRIAN
9. DYLAN
10. NATHANIEL

ELI - Batting left handed, Eli is a power hitter. It took us four games to realize that he was not our best #4 clean up hitter. In those first games he would come to bat with runners on base and they just got in his way. We switched him to lead off and he almost always starts off our games by getting on base, stealing second, stealing third, and then scoring on the hits of either Aaron or Adam. In some cases he steals home, but that is a liability to steal home with no outs because then the infield and pitcher concentrate once again only on the batters.

AARON - Aaron is our fast and quiet power hitter. He has a naturally powerful swing that usually results in either a deep hit ball or a line drive. He can also stay in the box all day fouling off third strike pitches. Once on base, he is both fast and smart. Aaron was bumped down from the lead-off batter because he seems to perform better with a runner on base.

ADAM - I have been very proud of Adam's batting this season. In the third position he benefits from the other runners being on base. Adam usually hits ground balls and short line drives that drop into the shallow outfield. Having Eli and Aaron ahead of him never leaves him in the position to hit into double plays because they are never on first base very long. Adam has also benefitted from the infielders going after the runners ahead of him instead of making the easier throw to first base. He advances the runners well and then gets on base to create havoc with his lead offs and steals. Adam is a smart and fast base runner with a great percentage of success scoring in this lineup.

NATE - Nate is our feast or famine hitter. Standing tall he is an impressive site at the plate. The other teams know that he has put two over the fence this season and so they pay him deep. He has two main options at the plate. The first is to go for the fence and get that ball as deep as possible. The other is to go down swinging trying to go for the fence. It seems that there is no middle ground. He has had a good percentage this year and even when his deep hit balls are caught, we usually have two runners cross the plate after tagging up.

JULIAN - In the early season we had Julian at #2 with Aaron leading off. We found that he hits incredibly well further down the lineup with runners on base. In the last few games he has been our superstar coming up with key hits to score these runners. Once on base he is a real threat to steal and score.

ZACH - Zach has become a consistent hitter and also benefits from having runners on ahead of him. He has come up with key hits and line drives that have played important parts of scoring innings. Zach also brings a lot of upbeat humor to our dugout. When others get down he is right there to crack a joke and lift them up. At the plate he is deceptively fast. Any ball that is hit is a close play at first. Once on base he is also a threat to lead off and score.

MATT - Matt has a powerful bat and his is consistently hitting deep. While not fleet of foot, he is most valuable scoring our runners ahead of him. Once on base he has consistently been on in the middle of powerful innings where there are hits and runs. I know that he has dreamed of going over the fence this year and maybe tonight is the night.

BRIAN - Batting left handed like Eli, when Brian comes to the plate the other team is already fatigued and wondering when the weak part of the line up is ever going to arrive. Brian has a powerful line drive swing that is very productive. He is also a fast runner and he can beat out the choppy infield bouncers that would put most players to the bench. Brian is also a smart base runner and he is often on third smiling for my camera.

DYLAN - As our most improved hitter Dylan will play the role of a second cleanup hitter. Tonight I look for him to be batting with tone to two runners on base ahead of him. One powerful swing of his bat will result in the rbi's that we need. While at third base coaching I always have to pay attention as he swings because he has nearly taken my head off a couple of times this season. Dylan has also become a good base runner with a great lead off. He won't ever say it, but I think that he loves diving back to the base on the pick-off plays.

NATHANIEL - The Dylan Nathaniel combo has worked out to be quite effective. Batting last in our lineup is a fortunate position because we never have had a let up in intensity to that point. Dylan often hits hard before him and Eli is on deck behind him. The other team is usually frazzled by that point and this benefits Nathaniel. The pitcher has never been allowed to gain any confidence and the infield is also frazzled by that point. Nathaniel has developed the ability to get his bat on the ball with quite a few shots going to the outfield and others being good hit ground balls. He also benefits from batters being on ahead of him as he is always moving runners down their base paths. While on base he obviously loves to steal and slide as evidenced by the huge smiles and bursts of enthusiasm when he is called safe. Seeing his joy makes this process of coaching worthwhile.

NOT IN TODAY'S LINEUP JOSH - Josh is another power hitter that plays great in the lineup. He is best suited with runners on base and his bat will be greatly missed tonight. Josh has been looking for the fences as well and he has had several deep hit balls this season. He has a good aggressive style on the plate and he loves to run the bases.

JEREMY - The deep line drive in our last game was a perfect example of Jeremy's strong bat. He knew that this was going to be his last game this season and he was thrilled to get that great hit. He is one more of our great power hitters and one more player who wanted the coveted number 4 spot in the lineup. But since we don't have the traditional lineup we have number four hitters scattered all the way through our roster of 12. It was great to see his dedication this year as he overcame many challenges. Seeing his bat come to life and his pitching arm wake up was a great blessing for our team and a key component in our late season surge.

NUMBER FOUR BATTERS - Think about how lucky we are to have such power in our batting order. To have Nate, Matt, Jeremy, Josh and Dylan is incredible as deep power hitters. Add to that Eli, Brian, and Aaron for powerful line drives is also incredible (PLEASE NOTE: These three have also hit some of the hardest and longest shots all season long). Add to that Adam, Julian Nathaniel and Zach for effective base hitters and this finishes off a great hitting team.