May 26th Knights vs Mustangs

We have a skelton crew tonight - just 9 players - with Hammer playing second since Richie Bryan has an injury and has to play first.

The Knights lead off batter is Matt "Matches" Avery. He's always hit me well. I can remember several bombs to left center. I tell Big O, who's playing 3rd, not to worry about the bunt. I'm sure Matches won't be bunting - he likes to hit the ball hard. The count works to something like 2-1 and I throw an inside fastball and Matches hits a pretty hard grounder to 3rd... that gets by a diving Big O who's playing in on the grass a couple of steps for the bunt. If he'd been playing back he would have had a chance for it. I said to him "I told you he wouldn't be bunting" and he said "Hammer told me to play in for the bunt. " I guess I should have check his positioning.

That was pretty much the story of the night. The outfield was playing way too deep which is pretty standard for outfielders who are not confident in their ability. They don't feel comfortable going back on the ball so they play deep enough that they will never have to go back. All night long balls were being hit in front of the outfielders. I miss Tony Barber (who just had his first child May 7th) in centerfield. He would play as shallow as I wanted him to and was still able to get back on the occasional ball hit behind him.

Tonight the game was pretty much over in the first inning. They scored 4 runs on several hits and a couple of errors. Darrel Sinclair & Matches shut us down for 7 innings (aided by a couple more base running errors on our part). We lost 9-0. Not very encouraging. (The Knights have won their last 3 games by shut out: 9-0, 5-0, 9-0).

I felt pretty good pitching and worked on throwing more forkballs. I held Matches and Supe to 1 for 4 each. Supe broke his bat on a fastball down the pipe that he should have hit over the trees. After his hit in the first Matches hit too VERY high infield pop ups and struck out looking on a forkball that cut over the inside corner.

We play the Rebels Saturday and the Pioneers (with Jim Bouton) are at Simsbury, CT Sunday. It should be a fun weekend.