May 2 - Baron's at Mustangs (PVOTB)

We (The Mustangs) have lost our 2 through 4 hitters this winter to various life events (having a baby, running for mayor (!?), etc.) and we were already short on players last season so now we're really short. Today we only have 8 players so we have to borrow a player from the Barons for defense and take an automatic out in our batting order on offense. Our infield is pretty solid but our centerfielder is usually an infielder and our borrowed right fielder clearly looks like he hasn't played in a while (maybe 30 years). Both of them are playing very deep which is typical for inexperienced outfielders - they'd rather come in on the ball than have it hit over their heads. The problem with this is that a lot of routine or poorly hit fly balls end up dropping in. Not exactly a prescription for a good start. I always like to have my outfield play on the shallow side. If the occasional ball is hit over their heads that's my fault but they can get to all the other balls hit and there are generally a lot more of them.

We are home team and start off with a quick top of the first turning a nice double play to end the inning. Our second baseman is left handed so he make a full turn on the pivot to first. It really shows why lefties shouldn't play second but he turns it never the less.

We go quietly in the bottom of the first and they score a couple in the second to take the early lead. We get one back on an errant throw to third (with 1 out and the automatic out on deck they'd have been out of the inning) to make it 2-1 and it stays like that for a few innings until they score 2 more. We can't get much going and that automatic out really hurts. Somewhere along the line we get another run to make it 4-2.

I don't have my curve working early (I really haven't had it working well since sometime last season) and it's clear I need to get it back so I'm only throwing curves while warming up between innings. In perhaps the 4th innning I finally regain it and this is a big help.

In about the 7th inning the outfield playing deep (along with a couple of errors in the infield) ends up costing us several runs as the Barons drop several what could be routine fly balls in front of the outfielders. We end up losing pretty badly (I don't know the final score) and it's not too encouraging. We really need to pick up a few more players at least so we don't have that automatic out in our lineup.

On the bright side I did get my curve working again for the first time in quite a while and I felt quite strong pitching all 9 innings with a bunch of "K"s. 0 for 4 at the plate wasn't much of a help though.