Persistent Beta
The only constant is change.
Game 11: Streak breaker
Jul 11th
We’ve been riding a streak of wins all season; since losing our first game we’ve won nine straight. Tonight, we faced our strongest opponents (based on record): the Roseville Nationals. With an 8-2 record, they started the night in 5th place, right behind some guys called the “Ironpigs” who are 9-1. :)
The Nationals were also +71 in run differential – we were at +56, so we knew they could hit. They showed that in the bottom of the first inning, with a couple of ringing singles to the outfield, along with some aggressive baserunning, scoring early. We fought back and forth all game, both teams putting the ball in play and creating runs.
It came down to the top of the 7th; the Nationals had scored a run in the bottom of the 6th to put them up 7-3. We got our first two runners aboard, and Jack came through again with a double to score two runs. 7-5.
We got a runner on a hit batsman, and another hit to score one more, making it 7-6, and Tyler came to the plate needing a single to tie the game, with Jake leading off third. Tyler fouled off several pitches and worked the count full, but the pitcher got one past him for the strikeout to end the game.
It was a fun game and a well-played one; losing is never fun but the guys had their spirits up. There’s no shame in playing hard and losing to a team that’s on top of their game. Another day we’d have come out on top, and maybe we’ll get a chance to get one back in the playoffs.
Final score: 7-6 Nationals.
Season record: 9-2.
Speaking of playoffs, this was the last game that counted for playoff seeding; we have two more games left in the season, but seeds need to be set tonight to provide schedules for games starting next Monday. We were in 4th place starting the night, facing the 5th place team, but with the loss, our positions are reversed – we have the same record, but whether the tiebreaker is run differential or head-to-head record, we lose either way.
Game 10: Sometimes, pitching and defense win games.
Jul 10th
For our 10th game of the season, we faced the Maplewood Hooks. They came in with a 6-3-1 record, making them a solid contender, in the top half of the league. They have some big guys, too – a couple of 7th graders who were as tall as the coaches.
We’ve been in a bit of a batting slump these last couple of weeks – our best hitters haven’t been making good contact. Fortunately, our middle-of-the-lineup guys have been coming through with hits, which is awesome. It reminds you that baseball is a team sport. Jack was the hero of this game, with a huge 2-out, 2-RBI double that gave us our first runs and the lead. He also made some great plays at second, and caught for two innings, doing a great job of blocking the ball behind the plate and keeping the runners from advancing. We managed two more runs with some aggressive stealing and baserunning.
Alex pitched three scoreless innings to start, facing just 10 batters (1 BB, 1 double). In the third, after giving up the double, he picked off the runner trying to steal 3rd.
Patrick pitched two innings and gave up just one run, and Luke P pitched two scoreless innings to close it out.
There is something electric about double plays at this level. They’re great at any level, but they’re rare things for us – we have not had many this season. This game, we had two:
- 4-6-3 (second baseman fielded the grounder, threw to shortstop covering second for one out, throw to first to get the batter)
- 4-6 (second baseman caught a pop fly for the first out, then threw to shortstop for the force, since the runner had taken off early).
Final score: Ironpigs 4, Hooks 1
Season record: 9-1
Crossposted from Goodreads
Jul 10th
Trying out a crosspost from Goodreads, because I really like the observation I made in it. Sometimes I look back at things I have written and really like them.
The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown
Reminding me very strongly of the reading I did in college for Sociology and Anthropology classes, with a focus on enterprise use cases.
I find it strange to read, in 2010, a book written in 2000 about the effect of the Internet on human behavior with information. I can see places where the authors were quite prescient, and areas where they got it wrong – in particular, their prediction that newspapers will continue to be relevant and successful. I think in that case it’s a matter of incomplete understanding of the business model of newspapers; craigslist and ebay have largely destroyed classified advertising, and that’s a big revenue loss.
View all my reviews
Game 9: Back in the groove
Jul 6th
After a long break (what Coach Craig calls the All-Star Break, over the long 4th of July weekend, when we have no weekend practice and missed a Monday game because it was the 4th), we returned to action facing the Roseville Marlins. Sporting a 4-4-1 record, the Marlins bring a pretty good team to the field. They’ve faced some tough teams, and kept the scores close in most of their games. Their run differential is -13, meaning they’ve given up 13 more runs than they’ve scored. For comparison, ours is +55 at this point in the season. The first-place team, the North St. Paul Red Wings, possessors of an 11-0 record, is +138. Yow.
We were the home team, so we took the field first, with Lucas Bergstrom pitching. He managed three strong innings, giving up just two runs. We scratched out three runs of our own to take a 3-2 lead. Lukas Pasiuk came in to pitch the 4th and 5th, and our defense faltered a bit. We gave up a run to tie it in the 4th, and then two more in the top of the 5th to fall behind 5-3.
In the bottom of the 5th, our bats came alive and we got some runners on base. The guys run like madmen, stealing bases with wild abandon, and we managed to score three runs on passed balls to take a 6-5 lead.
Alex came in to close, pitching a scoreless 6th, and we scored four more runs in the bottom of the 6th to make it 9-5. Alex threw just 7 pitches in the bottom of the 7th – strikeout, runner thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, and a popup.
Ironpigs win.
Final score: 9-5
Season record: 8-1
Game 8: Eight is enough
Jun 28th
After our Summerfest adventures, we returned to regular-season action on Monday night against the North St. Paul Scrappers. Like us, they’ve had a couple of games postponed due to rain. Unlike us, they haven’t been able to put together both hitting and defense in a game, resulting in an 0-5 record.
The Scrappers lived up to their name, though, keeping the game scoreless for the first two innings. We finally pushed a run across the plate, scoring from third on a passed ball, and that broke the logjam. We battled back and forth, but took a 5-3 lead to the bottom of the 7th inning, due in part to a really strong 5th inning from Marco – he took just 10 pitches to get three outs, without allowing a single baserunner.
We sent Alex to the mound to close out the game in the 7th, and it did not go well. The day had started out warm, but a cold, gusty breeze had come up about the 5th inning – the forecast called for rain starting about 8 or 9, so we were watching the skies. Alex didn’t have much of a chance to warm up, and he was leaving pitches up in the strike zone. Alex lives on hard fastballs at the bottom of the strike zone – when he’s on, he’s a machine, throwing unhittable strike after unhittable strike, with opposing batters swinging and missing or just standing there frozen.
That was not his 7th inning. He gave up two solid hits and a walk, and the Scrappers ran the bases well, scoring two runs to tie the game. In our league, ties are acceptable, but at the umpire’s discretion, if the time limit has not been reached, play may continue to resolve the tie.
When we got the 3rd out, it was 8:05. Time limit is 8:15 – no new inning may be started after that time.
“Blue! Are we going to play another inning?” I asked. On the field, all umpires are named Blue, just as all coaches are named Coach. It’s a baseball thing.
Blue (whose name off the field is Michael, I am given to understand) said yes.
We scored two runs, and Alex came out to pitch the 8th. This time he was warmed up; he threw nothing but strikes, striking out three batters in a row. So in his first save opportunity of the year, he racked up a blown save and a win. That’s starters for you. :)
Final score: Ironpigs 7, Scrappers 5.
Season record: 7-1
Summerfest game 3: All good things must come to an end.
Jun 25th
Game 3 was against the Oakdale Red Sox at 10am on a Saturday morning. The Red Sox lost to the Maplewood Muckdogs in the first round, putting them in the consolation bracket (like us), but on Friday night, they beat the Oakdale Phillies 26-2 while we were beating the Oakdale Cardinals by a more reasonable score.
The guys were tired after three days in a row of baseball, and they didn’t bring their best effort today. Alex started and pitched well, holding the Red Sox scoreless in the bottom of the first, but they got through for three runs in the second. We held them scoreless again in the third, but we couldn’t get runs. The Sox scored two more in the fourth to make it 5-0. We finally broke through and put a run on the board in the fifth, but the Sox came back with 5 more in the sixth, and it was pretty much over.
We’ll get ‘em next time.
Final score: 15-3 Red Sox
Tournament record: 1-2, eliminated in the third round.
Summerfest game 2: Stayin’ Alive
Jun 24th
The Summerfest tourney is double-elimination, meaning that if we lose twice we’re done. Since we lost our first game, we came into game 2 needing a win to stay alive.
Our opponents were the Oakdale Cardinals, possessors of a 3-2 record and 10th overall in the leage (we’re in 5th place). We should have played them already, but got rained out – we’ll make up the game at the end of the season. They came to the field with 8 guys tonight, due to some untimely vacations. They played hard, though, and kept us honest.
We lost the coin toss, so we were the visitors. We started off with two quick runs, they responded with one in the bottom of the first, then added another in the bottom of the second. We made it 5-2 in the top of the third, then 7-runned them in the fourth to make it 12-2. They got one back in the fifth, and then somewhere in there I lost count.
We had some great plays in the field, excellent pitching, timely hitting and heads-up baserunning. The guys played a great game tonight, and they won. I’m very proud of them, and we’re headed into tomorrow morning’s game ready to play.
Final score: I’m not sure, something like 15-7
Tournament record: 1-1
Summerfest Tournament Game 1: These guys are good!
Jun 23rd
We’re playing in the Oakdale Summerfest tournament, despite not being an Oakdale team. These games don’t count for our league standings, so it’s a great chance to get in some extra games and practice.
In our first game under the lights in three years, we faced the Oakdale Royals, the first-place team in our league. They’re very, very good. Alex started and held them scoreless in the first, and we scored two quick runs in the bottom of the inning to take a 2-0 lead. They came back and scored one in the top of the second, and then added three more in the fourth (I think, things get hazy and I keep forgetting to take a picture of the scorebook so I have the facts). Meanwhile, we were striking out a lot – their pitchers were throwing strikes and getting good movement on the ball. Our best hitters were swinging and missing, and I don’t think it was the lights.
We missed some plays in the field, and they took advantage of the extra outs to score some runs, piling up a 10-2 lead. We managed to get a runner aboard in the bottom of the 7th, when Alex walked to start the inning, but couldn’t get him home.
It was a really good game, and we played hard. The first-place team in our league took us very seriously and played the best baseball we’ve seen all season. We didn’t manage to pull out a win, but we can be proud of the way we played. We’re still in the tournament; best we can do is 3rd place,but that’s what we’re shooting for.
Final score: Loss, 10-2
Tournament record: 0-1
Game 7: 57 and rainy – just another summer day in Minnesota
Jun 22nd
Our adventures with rain continue. It rained from Monday night (after our game, fortunately) through Wednesday morning pretty much non-stop. The Oakdale fields were closed for Wednesday’s games because the rain had rendered them unplayable. Fortunately, we were scheduled for Afton, our home park, which has pretty good drainage and a fair amount of sand mixed with its native clay soil.
We faced the North St Paul River Cats tonight. Like the Raptors, they’re having a tough season – they won their first game, but haven’t been able to put together both hitting and defense in a game since then. They can hit, though – two of their guys hit fly balls that nearly hit the fence, and they hit a few solid singles through our infield.
When the game started, it was about 65 degrees, with a wet breeze. Over the course of the game, though, the skies lowered and the temperature dropped. We have to get in 4-1/2 innings for a game to be official, and as we took the field to start the 4th inning, a light but steady rain was falling. We needed to get six outs, and we also had to bat in the bottom of the 4th. We got three outs fairly quickly, giving up a run in the process, and came to bat with puddles forming near the bases and in the dugouts. In some ways, what we should have done, since we were already leading by something like 10-3, is simply swung through nine pitches and taken the field, hoping to get the game in before the rain stopped play.
The guys, however, are incapable of playing to lose. We can hold them back on the basepaths to prevent running up the score, but they won’t just make outs at the plate on purpose. So we scored seven runs, hitting the limit for an inning, as the rain fell and the temperature dropped even further.
The guys took the field for the top of 5, and the rain let up a bit. We gave up a couple of runs but got three outs, with Marco pitching strong to finish out the game.
Final score: 17-5
Season record: 6-1
Game 6: Which should have been game 8…
Jun 20th
Last Monday’s weather was beautiful, but due to field availability, we were scheduled to play Tuesday.
Tuesday it rained hard, so no game.
Wednesday the league called off games due to field conditions from Tuesday’s rain.
Sigh.
So we got to play tonight, finally. Our opponents were the North St. Paul Raptors. Before the game, we learned that they’d had an equipment mixup and were playing with a set of catcher’s leg guards for a tee-ball league. Since two of their catchers were really big guys, they were playing without leg guards. This is not okay, so we had them use our guards; this meant a delay between innings (since their catcher couldn’t get ready while ours was wearing the guards, and vice versa) and meant that pitchers didn’t get as many warmup throws. It was the best we could do.
The Raptors have been having a tough season – they came into the game 0-6 – and tonight wasn’t much better for them. We have a 7-run-per-inning limit in our league, and we hit it twice, in the first and third inning. Their pitchers were having a hard time throwing strikes, and they made a couple of mistakes in the field that gave us extra outs. They also had some good plays, and showed some pop at the plate, but had a hard time stringing together hits.
Coach Craig had us hold the runners back starting in the third inning; we came into it leading 12-1 and were pretty sure of the outcome of the game, so we stopped stealing. This is a good thing to do from a sportsmanship perspective – running up the score when you are already ahead and the kid pitching can’t find the strike zone is a dick move – but is a bit hard for the guys to understand. They want to keep playing hard, and we want them to keep up the intensity level. You don’t want to build bad habits that can cost you in a close game. Holding back is the right thing to do, and I’m glad we did it (and we’ll do it again), but it’s hard to find the balance.
Alex started and pitched three innings, giving up one run and his second walk of the season. He left with a 19-1 lead.
Final score: 23-8 in 5 innings, and once again it wasn’t that close. We gave them an extra out in the 5th, and we throttled back our running game.
Season record: 5-1
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