2010 RL Softball Dynasty

[primelord]

Well I think it is about time to try and resurrect this thread. This season has not been a particularly good one so far and honestly it depressed me a bit and kept me from wanting to come update this dynasty. First we have been marred with a crazy number of rain outs. Not necessarily unusual around here in the spring, but frustrating none the less.

The real problem has been the equipment switch st Fenton for our Wednesday night team. As I mentioned before they changed the balls to Worth Super Gold Dot USSSA Classic M. I am fairly certain a marshmallow is harder than these piece of crap balls. The switch to these balls has effectively neutered our league. Balls that are hit hard just hang up for OFs to casually drift under. It has been ridiculous. We have been fairly successful none the less, but no one was having any fun so I decided to make a change.

We had our first night at our new home Sun Valley tonight. They run an NSA league which means 44/400 balls just like we used to hit at Fenton. It was very much like the old days tonight. We are a completely different team with decent softballs in play.

First to wrap things up at Fenton. We managed to get through 8 games of the session. We split our last two weeks which left us at 6-2. Unfortunately Sun Valley overlaps Fenton by two weeks so we are forced to forfeit our last two weeks at Fenton. So ultimately our final record there will be 6-6 which is a shame because we almost certainly would have won the league despite the wet socks they were forcing us to hit, but that is just the way it goes. In going forward I am only going to count the 6-2 record since those are the games we actually played.

[primelord]

Session 2 Week 1 Sun Valley

The team is slightly different from when I last updated you as well. Ritz is officially not playing with us anymore. That is really unfortunate as he was amazing in his short stint with us. I don't know what it is about short stops, but it is crazy hard to get and hold on to a decent one. We picked up a new guy Tony though. He is much lighter with the stick than Ritz and is a step down defensively as well, but he is a very solid SS overall and most importantly I believe he will be there for us every week. We also added a new OF Dan, who has played with us in past years. Dan is another guy that belongs in the horses category. A relentless line drive hitter. He replaces Ritz stick quite nicely.

Game 1

Things got off to a bit of a rough start tonight though. I got a call last minute from Dan saying he wasn't going to make it tonight. That was one very good bat out of the lineup. Then as we neared game time it started to become apparent that Joe wasn't going to make it either. It turns out he went home after work and fell asleep and slept through the games. So our first night at a new ball park and we are going to have to play with just 9 guys and we are missing two crazy good bats from the lineup.

The other team found the gaps in our 3 man OF a couple times in the top of the first and we ended up giving up 2 runs. I was a little nervous at this point. I started calm down quite a bit in the bottom of the first. Tony led off and popped up, but Graham roasted a line drive into LC for a single, Tip smashed one off the fence in RC for a triple and Dennis crushed a monster HR in the next 3 batters. No one is happier to be hitting decent balls again than Dennis. We were back we put up 4 more runs in the inning (I contributed a walk and a run) and we were up 7-2.

We quickly shut the other team down in the top of the 2nd and the bats came alive again for us in the bottom half. 6 straight hits to start the inning including a 2 run HR from me . That is my first HR over a fence this season. Have I mentioned I am fucking thrilled to be hitting good balls again? All told we put up 6 more runs and had a commanding 13-2 lead.

The game was never in question after that. The other team managed to scrape one more run across, but we added another 4, with another HR from Dennis, and took the game 17-3 in 5 innings. My line for the game was 2 for 2 with a 2B, HR, 3 Rs, 3 RBIs and a BB. Who needs Joe or Dan or a 4th OF?

Game 2

You don't play the same team back to back at Sun Valley like you do at Fenton. So we didn't necessarily have another cake walk waiting for us. We got to see the team we were playing in game 2 play for a couple of innings right before our game. They looked decent, but nothing that we couldn't handle.

We were the home team again and like the first game we gave up a few runs in the top of the first, but limited the damage nicely with some very good defensive plays in our OF. Our OF was really pulling their weight tonight with only 3 guys. They made a number of nice plays. The bottom half of the first was also similar tot he first game, but on steroids. We didn't make a single out the first trip through the lineup. 8 hits and a walk the first time through, highlighted by another monster Dennis HR. We managed to hit completely through the lineup twice in the first inning and scored 12 runs to take a 12-3 lead. It looked like this was going to be a monster blow out early.

The other team brought us a bit down to earth in the top of the 2nd though. They could hit quite a bit better than our first opponents. They went yard twice in the top half and put up a total of 6 runs to pull the game to 12-9. Bill and Derek both hit absolutely screamers right at guys to start the bottom of the 2nd half. If those balls had been a couple of feet in either direction we may have had a monster 2nd inning too. As it was Matt had nice single and then, you guessed it, Dennis hit another HR. 14-9 after 2.

We weld the other team scoreless in the top of the 3rd and turned up the offense again int he bottom half. We went 8 straight batters without making an out. Matt hit a grand slam and Dennis followed it up with a solo shot for his 5th HR of the night. That put us at the HR limit though. Any more HRs hit would be an out. I came up for my 2nd at bat of the inning and got a nice fat pitch on the outer half of the plate that I decided to take into RC to make sure I didn't accidentally lose one. Of course I crushed it. I knew the 2nd I hit it that it was gone. 2nd HR of the night for me, unfortunately it didn't count. All told we put up 7 runs in the inning and again had a commanding 21-9 lead.

The top of the 4th inning is when all hell broke loose. We didn't really play that poorly defensively, although we absolutely had a couple of drops and bobbles that extended the inning far longer than it should have. The real culprit though was the other team really started to find the gaps in the OF. It was bound to happen some time tonight. They punished us quite a bit for only having 3 guys out there and put up an 11 spot to pull within one run. We were int he zone at the plate though tonight and answered with 6 more runs in the bottom half and it was 27-20 after 4. A barn burner!

Our opponents had unfortunately found their groove as well though and came right back at us with 5 more in the top of the 5th. We unfortunately responded with our only dud inning of the night at the plate as we went down 1-2-3. Because of the absurd number of runs scored we were low on time and the 6th inning was going to be the last inning.

We start of the 6th immediately booting two balls and going from what have been two outs to 2 on no one out. After a walk we were looking at bases loaded, no one out and what could be a huge inning by the other team. It took some solid defensive play, but we managed to escape from that situation only giving up 3 runs. So we headed into the bottom of the 6th down 28-27.

We frankly had the weakest part of the lineup coming up as well, although everyone was hitting pretty well on the night. Sam led off the inning with a walk, Tony followed up with a single, and Bill took a walk to load the bases with no one down. Derek lifted a lazy fly into right that Sam scored easily on and the game was tied. Matt then ripped a single through the hole at SS bringing Tony in and giving us the 29-28 win! You hate to give up 28 runs, but with 4 OFs and adding Joe and Dan tot he lineup I really think this game could have been more like 35-15 us. Never the less we will take the win.

We really are just a completely different team with a 44/400 ball. 46 runs on the night for us and we were missing two of our best offensive players. Things are looking very good for us in our new home. Like I said everyone hit pretty well for the night. Some of the highlights include:

Dennis: 8/10, 5 HRs, 1 HR0, 9 RBIs
Matt: 7/9, 1 HR, 11 RBIs

Dennis hit a HR for an out in the first game. So in 10 at bats tonight he hit 6 balls out. My own line for the night was 6/8, 4 1B, 1 2B, 1 HR, 1 HR0, 6 RBIs, 5 Runs.

I have all of our score sheets from Fenton, but honestly I have been too depressed to compile the stats from them. So for now I will give you the totals from tonight and at some point soon I will go back and add up our season to date stats.

Wednesday Night 2nd Session Record: 2-0
Wednesday Night Overall Record: 8-2
2010 Sun Valley Stats:

Player	GP	AB	R	H	1B	2B	3B	HR	HR0	BB	RBI	SAC	AVG	SLG	OBP	OPS	PA
Derek	2	7	6	4	3	0	1	0	0	2	5	1	0.571	0.857	0.600	1.457	10
Tip	2	9	5	7	3	3	1	0	0	0	3	0	0.778	1.333	0.778	2.111	9
Tony	2	8	3	4	3	1	0	0	0	2	5	0	0.500	0.625	0.600	1.225	10
Matt	2	9	6	7	3	3	0	1	0	0	11	1	0.778	1.444	0.700	2.144	10
Graham	2	10	3	6	5	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0.600	0.700	0.600	1.300	10
Dennis	2	10	7	8	3	0	0	5	1	0	9	0	0.800	2.300	0.889	3.189	9
Rick	2	8	5	6	4	1	0	1	1	1	6	0	0.750	1.250	0.778	2.028	9
Sam	2	6	6	3	3	0	0	0	0	3	2	0	0.500	0.500	0.667	1.167	9
Bill	2	8	5	4	3	1	0	0	0	2	3	0	0.500	0.625	0.600	1.225	10

[primelord]

A quick update on the other teams as well:

Monday Night Team Record: 4-4

It appears I am a permanent fixture on this team now so I might as well keep their record updated too. This team also plays at Fenton so for now I will still have to suffer with the marshmallow balls on Mondays. However there has been some talk of this team moving to another field as well which is also NSA. So that would be good news.

Despite the crappy balls I have hit very well on Monday nights lately. The team itself is not very strong though. All 4 wins have come against a very poor team. We were competitive in most of the 4 losses, but this team is probably looking at something like a 5-7 record for the session.

Tuesday Night Team Record: 4-1

This team is off to a nice start actually, although it is in large part because we have been short handed the last few weeks and I have brought several of my Wednesday night guys to fill in. In the games I have brought my boys to fill in we have won them all by at least 12.

Thursday Night Record: 2-1

After dropping the first game of the season the co-ed team has managed to get back to the old days. We have won our next two games, 32-1 and 26-11. That is kind of the nature of this co-ed league though. Some of the teams we play in this league look as if they have never played the game before. We have a very tough game tomorrow night if we don't get rained out though.

[primelord]

Monday Night Week 5

The last time we played this team they 10 runned us both games. I had been telling the guys that I didn't think they were quite as good of hitters as it seemed, but the temperature was very cool and the balls were jumping because of it. Quite the opposite on temps tonight as it was around 90 at game time. Since this team still plays at Fenton the mush balls were in play and I had a feeling it was going to equalize things quite a bit.

We started out pretty rough in the field. I personally failed to cover the bag on a play with two outs that led to 3 runs after the fact. We weer down 6-0 after a half inning. We gave up 1 more run in the 2nd inning, but that was the last run we gave up the rest of the game. This team played some pretty inspired defense tonight. By far the best I have ever seen them play defensively.

We hit nicely up and down the lineup in the first game as well. No super human efforts, but nice solid hitting that just continually kept putting up 3-4 or so runs an inning. We ended up taking the first game 17-7 in 6 innings. It was pretty nice to put a beating on these guys since they handed to us so badly the last time we played them.

I had a nice first game at the plate. I went 3 for 4 with 2 singles and a double. I also had 3 RBIs and 2 runs scored.

We kept up the fine defensive play in the second game as well. It would be 4 innings before we gave up a run. So we had an 8 inning scoreless streak there. That's a fairly impressive feat in slow pitch softball. The hitting on our side of the innings was very similar to the first game. Nice steady output with a couple of dry innings in the middle. Overall though this game was never in question. We closed them out 14-3 in 6 innings.

My 2nd game was very similar to my first. Once again I was 3 for 4, but they were all singles this time. The defense started lining up against me in an odd formation. I had two of my 3 hits in the first game as line drives into RF and RC. So they moved the RF way in on me, like 20 feet behind first base in, and then shifted everyone else over towards RF. So accordingly I roped line drives into LF in my next two at bats. I am not certain what led them to believe I couldn't pull the ball. Final line on the game for me:

6/8, 5 1B, 1 2B, 6 RBIs, 5 Runs

Monday Night Team Record: 6-4

This team is starting to play some decent ball. We are a good bit better than I thought they would be at the end of the season. We may end up winning the session if we can take both games next week. On a side note the ball flew every bit as badly as I thought it would in the heat. I am so happy I moved my Wednesday team out of here.

[primelord]

Tuesday Night Week 6

Tuesday night went very much like they all have been going lately. Casey, the team manager, called me to tell me they were short and could I bring a guy. So I brought Joe with me. I don't think our Wednesday team would ever lose a game in this league.

The team we played tonight was the team that gave us our only loss so far on the season. I remembered they could hit pretty well, but had some holes in their defense. We were certainly capable of beating this team. It seems every team I play on scores runs early. No difference here we got off to a very hot start and scored 5 runs in the first and another 5 in the second while only giving up 2.

Our opponents made a brief come back attempt in the 3rd by putting up 4, but we answered right back with 6 and had a commanding 16-6 lead. For some reason Casey decided to pull our pitcher and let someone else come in and pitch. Things went a bit off the rails at that point. We walked, well I can't even remember how many batters, but it was a lot. They combined that with a number of key hits and we almost gave all of our lead back as they got 8.

Our hitting didn't abandon us though and we put up 5 more runs before the game was called on time. So we took the game 21-14.

I actually didn't contribute a ton offensively in this one. I walked my first two at bats and was stranded on the bases. In my 3rd at bat I just missed a home run that struck right at the base of the CF fence for a 2B and an RBI. In my last at bat I hit a very deep fly to left field that I think would be a home run at Sun Valley, but this field angles into another diamond so there is no LF fence and the LF was playign me very deep so it was just a long out. So 1/2, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 1 R, 2 BBs.

Joe put on a bit of a show. He hit a line drive so hard at the 1B that he got a glove on it and it ripped the glove off of his hand. The guy didn't come back out on to the field.

Tuesday Night Team Record: 5-1

[DeToxRox]

Congrats on the solid year so far. Also thanks again for you help you gave me, I am absolutely mashing the ball right now. Hit my 4th HR of season (well total between two leagues) last night. 320 feet out to center field, just felt amazing off of the bat.

With that said, I cannot seem to pull the ball anymore. I am a lefty, so I would like to be able to set teams up my first AB or two and pull one hard down RF, but I usually go to RC if I am lucky. I have tried everything I can think of but still no consistent results. I used to be a dead pull hitter too which makes it all the more odd.

Any ideas?

[BYU 14]

As much Softball as I have played had never heard about that knuckle thing. It's too hot to have summer leagues here in Az, but I will try that in winter league after Football season. Great tip PL!

One thing that helped me transition from baseball to Softball was a more upright stance too. Now I bend slightly backwards at the waist and have also cut down on my stride, helped my generate a lot more torque and doubled my HR production.

[Poli]

I didn't realize you were playing down in my neck of the woods now. I was playing Sun Valley on Sundays last year.

I just finished up my best friend's memorial tournament down in Sterling, OK, this weekend. We went 2-2, I had a pretty good game at shortstop and at the plate.

Finished 5 of 8 with a walk. Nearly had a home run in my last at bat only to have it caught near the fence.

I'm going to be playing in Fenton this Monday. Not sure how much I'll be able to play with football coming up...but I'll give it a go. I won't be able to play on Mondays at all once September hits.

[primelord]

Originally Posted by DeToxRox

Congrats on the solid year so far. Also thanks again for you help you gave me, I am absolutely mashing the ball right now. Hit my 4th HR of season (well total between two leagues) last night. 320 feet out to center field, just felt amazing off of the bat.

With that said, I cannot seem to pull the ball anymore. I am a lefty, so I would like to be able to set teams up my first AB or two and pull one hard down RF, but I usually go to RC if I am lucky. I have tried everything I can think of but still no consistent results. I used to be a dead pull hitter too which makes it all the more odd.

Any ideas?

Sorry as usual I got busy with stuff and got behind keeping up with this thread.

My first thought would be that you should really never force a ball. If it is inside pull it, if it is outside go the other way and if it is right over the middle then really do whatever you want with it. You'll have more luck just going with the pitch than with deciding in advance that you want to pull this particular at bat etc.

With that being said your issue could be where you are standing in the box. This is another common issue with hitters. They tend to just stand in where the ruts tend to be dug in, in the middle of the box. Just because most people end up standing there doesn't mean that is the best place for you and your swing. In general the closer to the plate and the farther back in the box (towards the ump) you are the easier it is going to be to pull the ball. The closer to plate part is obvious since that will result in more inside type pitches for you. Moving farther back in the box means you will be hitting the ball farther out in front of you, which you have to do to pull the ball. The farther out in front of you that you hit the ball the easier it is to pull it. I would just experiment in BP with where you stand in the box.

Again though I would stress not worrying about it that much. Your natural swing slot may just be from RC over. There is nothing wrong with that and you are better off hitting it consistently hard with your natural swing than you are trying to force down the line and having to alter your swing to do so.

[primelord]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

As much Softball as I have played had never heard about that knuckle thing. It's too hot to have summer leagues here in Az, but I will try that in winter league after Football season. Great tip PL!

One thing that helped me transition from baseball to Softball was a more upright stance too. Now I bend slightly backwards at the waist and have also cut down on my stride, helped my generate a lot more torque and doubled my HR production.

Standing more upright is also a very good tip.

[primelord]

Originally Posted by Poli

I didn't realize you were playing down in my neck of the woods now. I was playing Sun Valley on Sundays last year.

I just finished up my best friend's memorial tournament down in Sterling, OK, this weekend. We went 2-2, I had a pretty good game at shortstop and at the plate.

Finished 5 of 8 with a walk. Nearly had a home run in my last at bat only to have it caught near the fence.

I'm going to be playing in Fenton this Monday. Not sure how much I'll be able to play with football coming up...but I'll give it a go. I won't be able to play on Mondays at all once September hits.

It was good to see you this past Monday. Obviously I hadn't seen this before I ran into you. I think we play you guys this Monday so that should be fun.

[primelord]

I am going to work on getting this thread caught up. We had a very nice session in our first session out at Sun Valley. In the mean time here is an updated pic of my bat collection. It's just proof that I have completely lost my mind at this point:

[Poli]

Originally Posted by primelord

It was good to see you this past Monday. Obviously I hadn't seen this before I ran into you. I think we play you guys this Monday so that should be fun.

It was good to see you, too! Been a long time!

[Poli]

It was a lot of fun playing and seeing the old gang last week. Not sure I'll be back next session. Football is about to ramp up and I don't want the new woman to feel like she isn't getting any attention.

I've got some thinking to do.