Operation Shutdown, a slo-pitch journey

[Travis]

First off, if there is any information/details that you'd like to see, please let me know. At this point I think this will take on more of a narrative with some stats thrown in, but I'm reserving the right to ramble on as I please for the most part

For those of you that don't know me that well, I'm a bit of a sports nut. Not in the memorize stats or player numbers way, but for the strategy/nuances/feel of the game. I do love stats more than I likely should, but I have to look most of them up rather than being able to recall them at a moments notice.

I spent my youth playing ice hockey and baseball in leagues with a lot of school yard football, volleyball and whatever else was available (racquetball, tennis, badminton, etc) sprinkled in on the side. Contrary to the norm here (being the land of hockey), from about the age of 11 on, my main sport was baseball. I played that competitively until I was 21-22 and unfortunately at that point, any local options fell off drastically, so I spent a year away from the sport before being lured into helping out a buddies slo-pitch team.

I'm now going into my 7th season in the sport and my 5th year running a team. My league team is in a one to two night a week league that has wide range of skill levels. It's a league that's been around for over 15 years and aside from a one year hiatus where we split away from our former team and played in another league, it's the only league I've played in full time.

I also run a tournament team that plays 3-4 tournaments a year (also dubbed Operation Shutdown). This is really what the core group of my team plays for and our league, rightly or wrongly, is really what we use to round ourselves into form for said tournaments. Not that we take the league lightly, but I've always loved playing in tournaments, even more so now that it's a lot rarer occurrence to participate in good ones.

That's the preamble and they get to know me part, following will be some information on the league, the tournaments we're slated to play in and a preview for the summer.

[Travis]

Slo-pitch event calendar:

May 6th: League opening night
July 11th to 12th or 18th to 19th: First tournament (Mundare)
July 31st to August 3rd: Second tournament (Edson)
August 22nd: League single day playoff/tournament
Mid September: Third tournament (Batting Against Breast Cancer)

This is our early calendar. There'll likely be other tournaments to be had, but where I'll be joining other teams rather than running the team myself. I may comment on those as we go, but for the sake of the thread, I'll try and keep it as OS specificas possible.

A bit of info on each of the above:

League (SEEMSL): A 7/3 split league (male to female ratio for players on the field). 7 inning games and you bat everybody on your team but no more than 3 male batters in a row. 6 balls to walk (to try and emphasize hitting over trying to take a walk), 7 runs per inning (other than the 7th inning when it's unlimited). Varied skill levels (described in the season preview post to follow). We ump our own games and play on school yard (re: non fenced) diamonds. One of the three diamonds we play at technically has a fence, but that's just because it's the edge of the schoolyard and there's a road right there This season we have 7 teams (we usually have 8 but one team dismantled just prior to the season) which means a bump up from our usual 18-20 games to 24 for this summer.

Mundare: A 6/4 ASA tournament. Mundare is well known for their excellent sausage and as such has the best tournament concession I've had the pleasure of enjoying This is our tune up tournament for Edson so we may end up playing 5/5 to better test out our lineup.

Edson: A 5/5 ASA tournament and the biggest slo-pitch tournament in the world. 4 days, 250+ teams and $60,000 in prizes all told. This is my favorite weekend of the year (and of course I broke my leg the weekend before this tournament last year). The party is as big as the tournament, but it's a great time to spend with the team and get away/forget about everything else. This'll be the 3rd year we've put a team in and 5th that I'll have been a part of it.

SEEMSL Playoffs/Tournament: A single day affair with essentially a double elimination playoff structure.

BABC: A 7/3 charity tournament. We've been doing this tournament for the last 4 years and all the fundraising we do over the summer goes towards the team's entry fee. Essentially the fee to play starts at $2,500 and anything you raise above that is a bonus for the charity.

[Travis]

Weapons of choice.

Because of the leagues/tournaments we play in, I've only purchased ASA approved bats. In my bag right now:

2008 Easton SCN9 Stealth

The newest bat in my collection. With the rule changes ASA approved over the winter, the 2009 line of bats will be deadened a bit compared to the older generation so I wanted to pick up as good of a bat as I could find prior to the new testing policies went into effect. There's a chance this bat may become illegal eventually, but for now it's been grandfathered in.

Haven't had a chance to use it much yet, but in the BP sessions I've used it it seems to have great feel and impressive pop. I'm curious to see what sort of distance I can get with it, especially once it's broken in.

2008 Anderson Matrix

Bought this in July of 07 just as the 08 line of bats were coming out. At the time I was a pretty big Anderson fan boy and this was their first foray into making a composite. Got it a week before Edson and due to weather/injury last year never really got a chance to see what it can do. I'll be trying to break it in this year and it'll be competing with the SCN9 to be my main bat. In the limited time I did get to use it last year I found I hit a lot of very hard liners with it (abnormal for me as I tend to be a fly ball hitter) and it seems to have pretty good spring off the barrel. Distance wasn't anything to write home about, but it's certainly not broken in yet.

2003 Anderson Rockettech

Where my Anderson fanboyish started and the first "nice" bat I ever bought. It's an aluminum and is my all weather bat. It's never really let me down and while I've tried to find other bats to upgrade, this is still the bat I take up if the weather is at all questionable, or if we're in a situation where I definitely need to get a hit. Might just be because it fits my swing well or because I've been swinging it for so long, but good things just seem to happen when I use this one. Hopefully it's a long time before it breaks.

And the bag itself, just because it's new this year and if you're a gear geek like me, it has to be seen to be appreciated:

Tanel 360 RAGE

First roller bag I've bought. Picking it up tomorrow to replace my old bag. Shoulder bags were fine until I started carrying enough gear to outfit 3 players on top of team gear. It's going to be nice to be able to just pull this sucker to the diamonds instead.

[Travis]

2009 SEEMSL Season Preview

Note: All standings listed are as of the end of the regular season.

We have 7 teams this season after the last minute dismantling of the Sandbaggers (finished 3rd last season). They join the Slave Traders (finished last) as the only teams not returning that were a part of the league last season. So we have 6 teams back from last year plus 1 new one. Here is an abbreviated run down of who the culprits are this season (alphabetically listed):

Base Pirates (7th in '08, 4-16-1, 8th in '07, 5-13-0): Mostly a family team and one in it for "fun". Their offense isn't bad, but not good enough to make up for their (lack of) defense. Assuming they haven't overhauled their roster, this is a team we'll be trying out some different position assignments with just in case we have injuries later on and need to shuffle the deck a bit.

FA (5th 9-9-1, 6th 8-10-0): The Jekyll and Hyde team of the league. One night they'll have 3-4 guys ripping line drives to the opposite field power alley and other nights you don't even really need an outfield. Their defense is as two sided as their offense. This is a team you try to pile up on early and put them away in the first three innings, if you leave them hanging around they have a habit of burning you in the later innings.

Killer Frogs (4th 12-9-1, 3rd 10-7-0): The league president's team. Always seems to be just missing one or two pieces to truly put them over the top. For as long as I've been in the league (and the one year I didn't play in this league I subbed for half a season with this team) they've been a very good offensive club, but will give up anywhere from 5 to 25 runs a game. They really rely on 4-5 of their hitters to carry the offense, but to this point it has been their spottier defensive play that usually leaves them on the outside looking in during the playoffs.

Royals (new): From what I've heard they played together last year and didn't do too poorly, but are still a relatively new team who are more on the beer league side of the equation as opposed to being ready to start signing up for the serious style tournaments.

Storm (2nd 14-5-3, 1st 16-2-0): This will be their 4th year in the league and we consider them to be our main rivals (though a friendly rivalry at that). They finished 2nd during league play last year but overcame a rash of injuries to win the championship in the one day playoff tournament. The previous season they finished first in the regular season only to come up short to the Frogs for the title. A very balanced team full of line drive hitters and a lot of speed on the bases. Their pitcher is quite unorthodox (has quite a hop at the end of his pitch) that seems to deke out a lot of my hitters, but for whatever reason I've always had a lot of success against him. They feature the reigning HR champ as well as the RBI leader from last year (two different players).

Those Guys (6th 4-15-2, 5th 8-9-0): A bit of a middling team. Their captain tends to be more serious than he should given that his roster doesn't quite fit the profile he asks of them on the field. They don't have a lot of flat out weaknesses, but neither do they have many areas of true strength. I know the guy running the team is usually looking for a high calibre player or two to bring in every season and if he's been able to do that, this team could jump considerably in my personal power rankings.

Speaking of:

Preseason Prognostication (excluding our team):

Storm
Killer Frogs
FA
Those Guys
Royals
Base Pirates

I'm not expecting a lot of change from the last few seasons. The Frogs/FA/Those Guys trio will depend on which team was able to bring in a big player or two while not losing anybody. Once we're through the circuit once and I see what new faces have been added I'll probably update this.

[Travis]

Operation Shutdown History

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been playing slo-pitch for 7+ seasons now. I started running my own team in 06 after basically running the team I had been a part of for a season or two after the captain had a hernia. We spent a season assembling a roster and finding the pieces we needed, then started full bore in 07 as Operation Shutdown was born.

This also worked well because the tournament team I had been playing on at the time was run by a guy who, every tournament out, continued to become more and more of a total dick. This culminated at Edson in the summer of 06 when he suggested we throw a game so that we could be seeded (supposedly) more advantageously heading into the money games. I picked up my gear and told him he'd have to plan around me because I'd be playing as well as I could to win no matter what spot I was at, then left for the diamond. That'd be the last day I played on a team he was a part of. Since then my sister and I have been organizing a team for tournaments as well as finding a couple of other teams to play on for various events throughout the year and I couldn't be happier about it.

2007
Regular: 12-6-0 (2nd), 366 R (1st), 266 RA (7th)
Playoffs: 2-2, finished 5th

A strong offensive season for us with more than a few defensive lapses. 6 times we allowed 20+ but managed to even that out a bit with 5 games of 9 or fewer runs against. 13 times we scored 19+ runs and while we were streaky offensive (seemed like a lot of 6 or 7 run innings followed by 0-2), it worked for the most part.

The playoffs were disappointing though as we lost our first game of the day (to a team we *really* did not like), but bounced back to win 2 of our last 3 to finish the season on a good note.

2008
Regular: 18-2-0 (1st), 313 R (3rd), 166 RA (1st)
Playoffs: 2-1, finished 3rd

A strong season that finished with a severe whimper. Last year it was really a two horse race between us and Storm (they were the only team to beat us during the regular season, both games of a double header which would turn out to be my last night of ball for the season). In late July I broke my leg playing in a tournament. Two weeks later, my replacement at 2nd (Bernie) pulled his groin pretty badly, followed by our first baseman (Sean) sustaining a pretty nasty ankle injury a week later. All 3 of us would miss the one day playoff tournament and while the other teams were playing 7/3 we were forced to play 5/5. The team rallied and played their hearts out though, getting revenge for last year's opening game loss against the same team (Slave Traders) before losing a heart breaking 18-15 game in the semi's. They were able to play through it, winning the 3/4 game by a score of 17-7 and ironically enough, our two playoff wins were against the two teams who wouldn't return for the new season (good riddance to both in my books).

Operation Shutdown Season Preview

Ladies

Twyla (3B) - My sister and longest serving female on the team. Primarily plays 3B, is very capable at first and can fill in at rover/OF if need be. Good short area quickness, +arm and so long as she doesn't get into her own head too much, one of the better female hitters I've seen. Still plays a bit too upright at times and as mentioned, if she starts over analyzing her at bats she'll regress to a wrist break swing that'll result in a lot of outs. When she's going well though she'll hit a lot of line drives that will keep the outfield honest.

Jessa (Rover) - In her second season with the team, a recent fastball convert. Excellent athleticism and speed, she's still getting used to the mechanics of the game. She was a full time catcher in fastball and her transition to the field is taking a bit of time, but she is a gamer. This season we're trying to work her into a rotation on the infield as well, but no matter where you put her, she's going to catch or knock the ball down and again, a +arm that has caught more than a few lazy base runners at first as they think they've got a hit wrapped up. Hits a lot of ground balls and uses her speed to translate those into hits but due to this needs to hit behind an extra base hitter so as to avoid double plays.

Lisa - R - C - In her third season with the team and only third season playing ball since she was about 13. Your prototypical slo-pitch catcher right now as she's readjusting to athletics, but she has enough natural power to line the ball to the outfield and she also hits off field with regularity which surprises a lot of teams. Still doing a lot of fielding/throwing work with her, but her range will likely be her great limiter. Has 1B upside but will likely only see action there in garbage time.

Kat - R - 2B/3B/OF - New player for this season recommended to me by a couple of guys from Storm after the team she was supposed to play on this season fell through. At the practice she showed good movement on grounders and seemed to track fly balls pretty well. Seems to have a very solid arm and good quickness as well. Likes to go after balls high in the zone at the plate which results in a lot of balls to the outfield, but this is just a very limited appraisal.

Jenn - ? - 2B, 1B, OF, P - Our other new girl. Hasn't been able to make the early season practices as she was a late addition. From what I've been told she's a former fastball player so I'm kind of assuming Jessa v2.0. Was mentioned that she's either interested in pitching or has done some pitching before, which, if she's any good, would be a major advantage to us (and unlike years past, gives us a lot of depth at the P position).

Guys

Joe - L - P/LF - The guy who originally got me playing slo-pitch. We played together for a couple seasons, he took a year off, then I got him back into it just before starting my own team. To say you could play a shift on him is putting it politely. Joe's batting style is the thing of near legend locally. Rarely will he swing at a ball that isn't eye level or higher, and if you expect to see him hit it more than 10 feet inside the right field foul line, well, you're going to be sorely disappointed. This has sparked a modification of the old Braves chant for his chop like swing which is only surpassed by his running style (he looks like he's sitting in an invisible wheel chair, complete with extra arm whip motion as he rounds the bases). The easiest target on the team, he's very good natured about the ribbing we give him and returns it in kind. Unfortunately this season he can only play Monday nights and will continue to pitch for us on the nights he can attend. He took that spot over from his brother 2 seasons ago and really excelled at the position. He's also very capable in left and while he doesn't have the strongest arm, he reads angles well and makes the plays he should as well as a few that will make you scratch your head trying to figure out how he came up with the ball.

Mike - R - P/SS/OF - A new player for us this year. From talking with him and watching him in practice he looks like a decent pitcher, has good footwork and seems to be able to hit the ball with some pop. He has said that he tends to be a situational hitter rather than always going for line drives or home runs, but I'm not sure how good his placement and consistency is yet. He'll pitch at games Joe can't make it to unless he starts to get lit up at which point I might use him as a bit of a utility player to keep playing time even.

Phil - R - P/OF - As his old team called him, the "Michael Jordan of slo-pitch". It's a stretch, but I found it pretty funny when I was told about it, so we haven't let him forget the esteem his former team held him in. He's a +player on the mound or in the outfield. Doesn't have a natural feel for playing the infield, but that's about the only knock on him. The equivalent of a 5 tool player in a league like this. Doesn't have a natural home run swing, but is able to lace line drives to all field and excels at hitting down the opposite field foul line. Has enough natural power that when we play at fenced diamonds that these line drives can carry the distance, and of course in our non fenced league play, he hits more than his fair share of home runs due to his speed and how deep the OF has to play him to try and keep him from hitting through the seams.

Sean - R - 1B - A diamond in the rough. He's starting his third season with us after coming out to see how he'd like it after hearing me talk about it at work. I've played a lot of ball and I don't think I've ever seen anybody quite as natural at digging throws at first as Sean is. Very rarely will a ball from the waist down get by him, and if he doesn't pick it clean, he'll knock it down (and has from the first day he came out). He has good speed but has yet to find his stroke at the plate and as such is primarily a singles hitter. If he can start hitting with a bit more power his speed alone will turn those into doubles, but he'd be on the team just for his D alone if need be.

Travis - R - 2B/SS/1B - Yours truly. I played 3B in "real" ball, transistioned to SS when I started playing slo-pitch, but with the addition of Greg, I moved over to second base to try and improve our double play percentage as well as giving us enough range at 2B/SS that we can afford to go with a 4 across outfield rather than having a traditional rover. I'm a bigger guy with decent top end speed, but when healthy (a bigger question mark the last two seasons), above average quickness. A +arm, especially for the position though I can be wild at times (usually when I have a bit too much time to think). I've definitely got a natural upper cut at the plate but have been working a lot on squaring up on the ball more and improving on my ability to hit to opposite field. I'll rarely hit a ground ball and usually hit a double, homer or fly out. As such I'm a pretty safe hitter to put in front of a girl because either way, I don't tend to leave a lot of double play chances on base after an AB.

Greg - L - SS - He's starting season 3 with us and is a pretty interesting player. At the plate he can fall into the habit of trying to steer his hits a bit too much (= pop up), but when he just picks which half of the field to hit it to he'll usually hit a solid line drive that'll push the field back. Enough speed to make players rush their throws and one of, if not the, smartest base runner we have. In the field he plays a very aggressive game at short but knows how to read hitters and gets a great first step. Easily the biggest beneficiary of Sean's D at first as he looks a lot like Eckstein throwing from SS (a fact which he *loves* us for bringing up), but while his throwing can be spotty, his glove is certainly worth having at short. We've considered flip flopping him and due to arm strength, but my inability to stay healthy the past two seasons has delayed that experiment.

Bernie - R - 2B/SS/OF - An excellent defender (also starting his third season), and similar to Twyla at the plate in the sense that, when he's not in his own head, an excellent hitter. I'd consider him a +defender at all the OF spots as well as 2B and SS. I tend to lean on him as a utility player a bit as we don't have a lot of strong infielders and during stretches where Greg or I are hurt, he'll take up our spots until we get back. At the plate, when he's hitting line drives he's a fantastic hitter, but when he starts trying to hit home runs, he starts getting a lot of air under the ball, gets frustrated and just puts himself into a cycle that progressively deteriorates his effectiveness at the plate.

Lindsay - R - LF/RF - My sister's fiancee and part of the 3 year club on the team. Still a work in progress as he has most of the tools but has never played enough to know the smaller details of the game. Reads the ball pretty well off the bat and runs much better in the field than he does on the bases. When he's not trying to rush his throws to the infield (he likes to throw off his off foot a lot to try and catch runners) he throws with a lot of velocity and accuracy. When he rushes, well, not so much. At the plate, a lot like Bernie. When he's in the groove and just goes for line drives, he'll look like Phil (just without being able to hit opposite field), but when he starts trying to muscle up, it's a lot of hang time, but just not deep enough to be dangerous. Also prone to getting into his own head and causing negative cycles which is doubly dangerous when it happens at a tournament and can spill into further games.

Dillon - R - OF - A friend of Sean's that played a lot of hardball as a kid. Probably our fastest player and turns a lot of singles into doubles (or more depending on how bad the D is). Which is a good thing because he doesn't have a lot of natural power. I've been working with him to try and get more of a line drive swing going (he's hit a lot of grounders the past two seasons) and if we can get that working, he'll be a terror. In the field he has a big arm (but questionable accuracy, we call him Junior Felix), fantastic field coverage and once he's in the zone, reads the ball off the bat really well. If he's having an off night he'll make a lot of routine plays look very interesting, but as far as our players go, he might have the highest ceiling.

Eli - L - Sub - Jessa's boyfriend who came out to practice with us. I hadn't seen him play before but his range and glove instantly caught my eye (didn't hurt that he hits lefty as well). He has a good singles stroke and hit a couple that would likely push gaps in league play. With his speed he'd be dangerous on the bases and has a great attitude that'd be welcome on any bench. He's agreed to be a primary sub for us this season, so you'll likely see him mentioned in the future.

Game Plan

After the 06 season I was really disappointed in our defensive play and set out to improve that. We cut 100 runs against off our total in the 07 season to spearhead us to the top of the regular season standings. In my mind this is currently our greatest strength, and from what I've seen, our new players this year should make us even stronger than we were last season.

With a 7/3 split in the field and the batting order rule of no more than 3 guys together at any point in the lineup, the thought process behind the lineup is different than it would be for regular ball.

I like to approach it in segments, grouping guys together based on certain skills. My main lineup concerns are:

Hitting extra base type hitters before, and if possible, after ladies to cut down on double play chances for opposing teams and to take advantage of our team speed.

Hiding our strictly single hitting guys in the middle of groups of 3 guys. Given our ratio (9 guys to 5 girls on Mondays, 8-5 on Wednesdays) we won't have a lot of 3 guy groupings this year, so it'll be stressed that the guys in the order need to be pushing as much as they can for at least doubles (re: hit line drives to the OF and force them to make a good play and throw before you hit the breaks).

Going into this season we're likely going to play a combination of 7/3 and 6/4 (as I'm starting the season hurt, of course but with people taking holidays and the such, I'd like to experiment a bit early on so I know who can play where later on in the season to cover people who are hurt/away).

As such, our opening day lineup will look something like:

P: Joe/Mike
C: Lisa
1B: Sean
2B: Mike/Kat
3B: Twyla
SS: Greg
LF: Lindsay
CF: Phil
RF: Dillon
Rover: Jenn
Subs: Jessa (2B/3B/Rover), Bernie (SS/LF/CF/RF), Travis (1B, C)

On Mondays (when we have Joe), we'll likely move Mike to 2nd and play 7/3, on Wednesdays we'll go 6/4 with Kat at that spot. I'll be sticking to playing 1B and some catcher until my knee is back to 100%, and once I'm there, then we'll see how things are going and see what tweaks should be made.

And on that note, we're on to the regular season. If there is any information you'd like included, please let me know. If I get through the first 5 games or so and feel like I'm mostly talking to myself, I'll likely just pull this. I'm not sure how much interest there is in a dynasty like this, but thought I'd take it for a twirl as much to get my mind right for the season as anything, so now that the season is underway, it'll be a lot less info to keep track of/post, so we'll see how it goes.

[RPI-Fan]

i'm reading!

[Travis]

Game One vs Royals (0-0-0)

Wednesday, May 6th

Preview

As a welcome to the new league, the new guys get the defending regular season champs to open against. On their side is the fact we're limping into the regular season as myself (knee), Dillon (hamstring) and Twyla (knee) are all dinged up already (Twyla and I from ball hockey, Dillon tweaked his at practice). Also helping them is the fact that Joe (Wednesday game), Mike (sick), Lisa (leg) and Jenn (unknown) are unable to make the game at all, so we press Eli into action earlier than originally planned to round out our opening day lineup.

That said, it gives me a good excuse to try Kat out at second and to see how some people look at secondary positions. Just looking across the diamond it looks like they've got a big roster with a couple of bombers, a few speedsters and their girls look pretty athletic. We'll see how that translates to the field, but they're not giving off a "just glad to be here" vibe at all.

Lineup

Bernie - CF
Greg - SS
Phil - P
Kat - 2B
Dillon - Sub
Sean - 1B
Travis - C
Jessa - Rover
Eli - RF
Lindsay - LF
Twyla - 3B

Recap

The Royals come out swinging, and while they don't do a lot of damage, they set the tone early, jumping out to a 2-0 lead after the top of the first. Our bats come up empty in the bottom of one, but our D comes through to retain the score going into our second set of AB's.

And with that, we go off. A maxed inning later we're up by 5. The D holds again, so we push the lead, finishing the third inning up by 9 as the score is now 11-2. At this point, our OF starts to get a bit impatient to really shut these guys down. A couple of hard liners into the OF are misplayed and instead of putting the new guys away, it's a new ball game at the midway point as they post 6 in the top of 4 to draw within 3.

Thankfully our sticks aren't going to be as spotty tonight as they've been in the past and our middle trio continues to clean up. We respond with 4 in the bottom of 4 and 3 more in the bottom of 5. The 6th inning is clean on both sides, and while they mount a bit of a charge in the open ended seventh, it's never enough to really put the game in doubt. They do end up pushing 3 more across but we don't have to take out final at bat as the game ends with the good guys on top.

Final score: 18-8 for Operation Shutdown

Boxscore

Bernie - 3/4, S, 2 HR, 3 R, 2 RBI
Greg - 2/4, S, T, RBI
Phil - 2/4, S, HR, 2 R, RBI
Kat - 2/4, 2 S, R
Dillon - 3/4, 2 S, HR, 3 R, 2 RBI
Sean - 3/4, 3 S, 3 R
Travis - 4/4, S, 2 D, HR, 4 R, 6 RBI
Jessa - 3/4, 3 S, R, 2 RBI
Eli - 4/4, 3 S, D, 1 R, 2 RBI
Lindsay - 2/4, 2 S, 2 RBI
Twyla - 0/4

Next Game Preview

We face the Frogs (league president's team) tonight in the first of two games for us this week. It'll be an early season statement game as the Frogs are usually a part of that second tier of teams who really get up for games against us and the Storm. We'll have pretty close to our full squad out (missing only Lisa and Sean that I know of, we'll see if Jenn makes her debut or not), so it'll be a really good chance to see exactly where we're at.

[johnnyshaka]

Originally Posted by Travis

Lineup

Bernie - CF
Greg - SS
Phil - P
Kat - 2B
Dillon - Sub
Sean - 1B
Travis - C
Jessa - Rover
Eli - RF
Lindsay - LF
Twyla - 3B

Gold!! C'mon, Travis, really...catcher???

Our BASEBALL team is still looking for players...ahem.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by johnnyshaka

Gold!! C'mon, Travis, really...catcher???

Our BASEBALL team is still looking for players...ahem.

Yeah yeah, laugh at the gimp

I get upgraded to 1B tonight because Sean won't be there. That said, with our regular catcher out I almost don't mind playing there. Gives me a good chance to watch how our new players look, still play, and have minimal risk of tweaking my knee. Feels weird and I got some odd looks, but we've got a really deep team this year from the looks of it, so kind of a nice luxury to hide an injury and keep the bat in the lineup

[johnnyshaka]

It's your knee now? Or did you mean your vagina?

[Travis]

Hey, sand in my vagina will never keep me out of a game!

On the bright side, the leg/ankle has healed quite nicely. Tweaked the knee about a month and a half ago playing ball hockey and it hasn't bounced back as quickly as it has in the past. I'm going to try and get in with my doc in the next week or two so I can (hopefully) get a referral to a specialist so I can get in for a MRI and see just what's going on (assuming best case I might need a custom brace, worst case I might have to go under the knife).

Either way, given how long that process will take, I'm trying to get through this summer as best I can. With a minimum of 5 ball tournaments and 2 hockey tourneys coming up I'm hoping to be as close to effective as I can be for those.

[johnnyshaka]

Something tells me "somebody" is trying to tell you that your day has passed...time to ease into middle-agedom!!

[Travis]

Game Two: Operation Shutdown (1-0-0) @ Killer Frogs (0-0-0)

Monday, May 11th

Preview

Found out during the late afternoon that Jenn wouldn't be able to make it due to work, so we're heading into the game looking at likely playing 8 guys and 3 ladies. Eli came out to watch the game so I asked him if he'd rather play or watch and as it turns out, thankfully he picked playing.

Looking over at the Frogs bench I recognized a majority of their players, but they've definitely added what looks to be one big bat as well as 2-3 women that look like they've played some competitive ball somewhere along the way.

As it's a Monday game, Joe is out to play and will pitch. We go into the game with some concerns as I'm obviously still hobbled, but Twyla will also move from third to catcher to try and protect her injury a bit. Dillon is still feeling the affects of a muscle pull he had last week and Jessa has a lovely full shin bruise from a ball she took off the leg last game. Given that it's a two game week, we're just hoping to get in and out with our two points and as many healthy bodies as possible.

Lineup

Bernie - Sub
Greg - SS
Phil - CF
Jessa - Rover
Dillon - RF
Eli - Sub
Travis - 1B
Kat - 3B
Lindsay - LF
Joe - P
Mike - 2B
Twyla - C

Recap

The good? We won.

The bad? We played about as poorly and inconsistently as I hope we play all season. 3/4 of the lineup were making outs because they were trying to hit home runs (any ball hit in the air was really hanging), and we left a lot of runners in scoring position. Our ladies hit pretty well and Kat was by far the game MVP. Defensively we seemed to adopt a bend but don't break mind set, and while we gave up a lot of runs, they never hit us for the big inning. The game did get pretty tight late as we were up by 4 with the bases loaded and 2 out in the bottom of 7 with the leadoff hitter at the plate and their most dangerous hitter on deck. We got the leadoff hitter to hit a squib shot to 2nd for the final out, but had Trevor been brought up to the plate, well, extra innings would have been a best case scenario at that point probably.

The ugly? Midway through the game, Dillon had to be taken out after hurting his leg further base running. Jessa had to move to catcher as her quad worsened as the game went on, forcing Twyla to first. Eli hurt his leg but was able to finish the game (and has already been asked to sub on Wednesday). I really never thought I'd be happy to have a bye week this early in the season, but hopefully having next week off will allow most of the team to get back to 100%, though I think we may have seen the last of Dillon for at least a month.

In the end though, we got the two points. We certainly didn't play up to our potential but I think we saw one of the better games the Frogs can play and still managed to stop them. They may have one big stick to add to their lineup in a month or so from the sounds of it, but assuming our performance tonight is more of a hiccup than a trend, we should match up well with these guys the rest of the way.

Final Score: 18-14 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Bernie - 0/4
Greg - 2/4, R, 2 RBI
Phil - 2/4, 2 S, R, RBI
Jessa - 1/4, R
Dillon - 3/3, 2 S, D, 3 R
Eli - 3/4, 2 S, D, 2 R, 2 RBI
Travis - 4/4, 2 S, 2 D, 4 R, 2 RBI
Kat - 4/4, 4 S, 3 R, 4 RBI
Lindsay - 4/4, S, 3 D, R, 4 RBI
Joe - 0/4, RBI
Mike - 3/4, 2 D, T, R, 2 RBI
Twyla - 1/3, S, R

Next Game Preview

2-0-0 Operation Shutdown @ 1-0-0 FA, Wednesday, May 13th

FA beat Storm to start their season in dramatic bottom of the 7th fashion. They faced the Base Pirates last night, a game I'm assuming they likely won, so this could be a very early season battle of unbeaten teams. Given our current injury situation and who we should have out the one big change I'm expecting is that we may look at playing our ladies at C, 2B and 3B and end up going with an all guy outfield to try and limit the gap power that FA has used in the past to be dangerous at the plate.

[Travis]

To those from the slo-pitch OT thread, I did use the SCN9 in all 4 AB's last night. Unfortunately my stat line is very misleading as I was really off at the plate and a bit over eager to see what the bat could do. All 4 of my hits were off the very end of the bat, two of them muscled over the infield and the other two more like pool shots with a ton of english that hit no mans land in the shallow outfield, then took crazy kicks to evade the nearest defender to turn it into a double.

Hopefully I'll be able to provide a bit better analysis of the bat after Wednesdays game.

[johnnyshaka]

Boy, didn't realize you were this "obsessed" about bats...and it doesn't sound like you are alone, either.

I'll be honest, in all my years playing ball (baseball or slo-pitch) I've never once bought a bat. When our league goes to wood bats next season, I'll be buying my first bat, ever. And, really, I could care less what I get...just need something around 34-inches in length that weighs around 31-ounces and I'll be happy. I'm more than happy to choke up a little, if necessary.

Do you really think the bat you're swinging really makes that much of a difference?? (I'm asking out of curiosity, not trying to be a jerk about it)

[Travis]

I'm sure a lot of it is mental, but depending on the league restrictions (as mentioned, we're ASA), you usually get what you pay for.

Basically the way I see it is that once you're buying something in a certain price bracket, the performance variance is likely minimal if it were a robot swinging the bat. At that point it comes down to how well the bat fits your swing (sweet spot size, amount of end load, etc). The three bats I have in my bag right now are 3 of the 4 bats I've ever bought (sold the other I had bought so I could get the Matrix). That said, the difference between a $100 bat and a $300 bat can be significant. We used team bats (re: Sport Chek and Canadian Tire specials) the first 3 or so years I played and it wasn't until I started playing in tournaments (and visually witnessing the difference in performance of some hitters) that I started to appreciate just how much difference the bat alone was making.

You can see the difference in exit speed/pop, distance and sweet spot size with the higher caliber bats. There are duds in every price category as well as bargains that will out perform their price bracket. Most of these bats tend to be more even loaded than end loaded (especially compared to baseball bats), but in all honesty, the reason I've got the bats I do (aside from the RT) is for tournaments. If I was only playing league I'd likely leave well enough alone, but I don't like being a step behind before even taking the field at the money tournaments.

I'd love it if they just scrapped it all and went exclusively with wood bats, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

[Travis]

And yes, mildly obsessed is certainly correct. I'm like this for gear in general though, not just bats

[johnnyshaka]

Yeah, noticed that, especially after you posted your desired baseball bag. You have a problem, my friend.

Regarding the bats, guess I just never thought of them as being much of a factor. Sure, I'm not expecting that old, scratched up, no-name special that you use to nail in the bags is going to have as much "pop" as a shiny, new bat but spending $400 on a bat that will net you a few extra feet just seems a bit extreme, for me, at least.

I guess when I'm playing, the bat is the last thing I'm looking at when a guy steps into the box. But, I guess I should start looking for that, because I'm going to start assuming that all the big, new, fancy bat swingers have warning track power and are counting on the bat for that little extra something-something to get it out.

[RPI-Fan]

I'm not "bat guy" by any stretch, but I too notice a difference. However, since I am a single and doubles hitter only, I want a bat that is not end loaded at all. Any time I use an end-loaded bat, my opposite-field stroke dips way down and I put it straight up. Using an evenly-distributed bat keeps my hands up and allows me to drive it right back up the middle or the other way (even though I don't really have any power on it). So although I don't care much about price, it makes a huge difference to me which bat I use.

[Travis]

Again, it's certainly not the be all, end all, and to be quite frank, the non doctored bats shouldn't change your game a ton.

The better quality bats will shoot the ball through the infield a bit faster, get you x number of feet further on line drives/fly balls (I've never charted my depth on deep hits, but some guys online have and usually going from your generic $100 bat to one of the upper crust ASA bats seemed to be 15-30 feet difference, combine that with getting to that distance faster and it's an advantage every time at the plate over not having them). It doesn't so much change your hitting style as it does speed up and extend what your hits normally do.

Two years ago in Edson though (supposed to be ASA only) at the HR derby, I got to see what I can only imagine was a doctored bat first hand. There was one team who had 5 guys entered in, all in the 5'10-6'0, maybe 180 pound range who were all sharing one bat (which had been scrubbed down with something so no marks on the barrel were identifiable). At that time a bat had to appear on the banned list to be excluded, and for the HR derby they don't tend to check very much (tournament games are a different story) and this thing was unreal. I was using my RT at the time and made it to the second round (can't recall off hand how far the fence was, but it was at their second biggest diamond I believe). I was putting the ball maybe 10-15 feet over the fence to the power alley in left and these guys, no word of a lie, were airing it *over* the beer gardens located just past the center field fence.

Now I'm not saying I'm some big huge, end of the line power hitter, but I can hold my own and these guys were making me look like a grade schooler. Thank goodness it was machine pitching for the derby because any of the balls they hit were through the infield twice as fast as anybody else hitting. There is no way I'd want to be playing on the infield with that stick in play during a game.

I had fun, hit my couple of shots, took my t-shirt and left, but now that bats are supposed to appear on the ASA approved list to be legal, well I hope there's none of that crap this year.

Oh, and I got that bag last weekend. It's awesome. So nice having a roller bag now. Still trying to remember what gear I put in what pockets though, oye.

[Travis]

Game Three: Operation Shutdown (2-0-0) @ FA (1-0-0)

Wednesday, May 13th

Preview

Oh where to begin. Woke up to a balmy -2˚C (~28˚F), checked the forecast and saw the projected high for the day was +10.

During the day I touch base with most of my team to see how we're looking and find out that we're down Kat (strep throat), Jessa (leg), Eli (leg), Joe (Wednesday game), Lisa (knee) and Dillon (leg). I touch base with Phil, find out that Jenn is able to make it and find a sub that we've used the last couple of seasons (Shannon) to round out our minimum roster lineup for the night. I'm still hoping we might call the games for the night due to the weather, but no call comes down from the league president, so we head to the field with it now being a tropical +7˚C (~45˚F)

Lineup

Greg - SS
Phil - CF
Shannon - Rover
Bernie - RF
Sean - 1B
Mike - P
Jenn - C
Lindsay - LF
Travis - 2B
Twyla - 3B

Recap

Tonight I get my first look at our last new player for this season, Jenn. She looks athletic, seems to be in her early 20's, quite tall (already thinking of maybe trying to work her some at first base for tournament play), but a bit shy. I go and have a chat with her, find out that she prefers pitcher (bonus) and second but isn't against playing wherever she's needed. I get Phil to go through a warmup with her (throwing, then pitching, then some hitting) so I can get an idea of where to start her out, and well, the surprises begin. She seems a bit scared of the ball, maybe hit the plate 3-5 times out of 20-30 warmup pitches and while her swing looks pretty good technically, she's missing a lot because she's not following the ball well. I'm hoping this is a case of rust, but her shying away from the ball puts a big red flag in my mind towards her playing anything other than catcher or rover right now.

As for our opponents, the league site hasn't been updated, so the only result I have for them heading in is their game one win over the Storm. They have a couple new faces (including a new female pitcher), with all of their line drive/speed guys back from last year.

Things start out pretty well as we nickle and dime them in the top of the first, but even though we put a lot of action on the bases and almost hit around our abbreviated order, we only end up putting 3 on the board while leaving a pair on base. We give 2 back in the bottom half of the inning and while I don't get the feeling that FA is "on" their game tonight, I know we're obviously not at our best.

Phil makes a fantastic full out diving catch in the third and our offense continues to chip away, scoring 2-4 runs almost every inning. Almost everybody gets in on the offensive side of things and Mike really settles in on the mound. Our defense is pretty solid aside from missing a couple of higher difficulty plays though we do end up tacking up a couple of outfield assists on plays at second when their hitters try and spark something by getting a bit greedy on well struck hits. They do put up a big shot in the 5th with a blast to straight away center that Phil can't catch up with, but we're in the lead by double digits at that point, so a 2 run shot doesn't hurt all that much.

Kind of a boring game that was never really all that close after the first inning, but one I'll take as nobody seemed to get hurt and we got the W. I think we likely benefited from the colder weather as we tend to rely more on D than offense which really did the trick for us in this one.

Final Score: 21-7 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Greg - 4/5, 2 S, D, HR, 4 R, 2 RBI
Phil - 3/5, 3 S, 2 R, RBI
Shannon - 2/4, 2 S, BB, 2 R
Bernie - 4/5, 2 S, D, HR, 4 R, 7 RBI
Sean - 5/5, 5 S, 2 R, 3 RBI
Mike - 4/5, S, 3 D, 2 R, 1 RBI
Jenn - 0/4, BB
Lindsay - 4/5, 4 S, 2 R, 3 RBI
Travis - 4/5, 2 S, D, HR, 2 R, 4 RBI
Twyla - 1/5, S, R

Next Game Preview

3-0-0 Operation Shutdown vs 0-1-0 Storm, Monday, May 25th

Site isn't updated yet, so I'm not sure how Storm did last night (they had a bye this past Monday). Either way, we can use the break to get healthier and while our teams are on friendly terms (I'm going to play a tournament with them this weekend), both sides always get pretty up for these games.

If both teams are on their games, this one could end with single digit scoring on both sides. If either team is having an off night, well, it'll get ugly fast. This will be our first game of the season at the diamond with the pseudo fence in left field (not a fence for the diamond, but instead the park it's located in that separates the field from the road) and I'm hoping to put one or two over. From what I've heard their captain and regular pitcher likely won't make this game which bodes well for most of my team (he has an unorthodox delivery which seems to throw more than few of them off), but there's a lot of time until the game so we'll see what happens.

[johnnyshaka]

Unorthodox delivery in slo-pitch? You don't say...

[Travis]

Game Four: Storm (1-2-0) @ Operation Shutdown (3-0-0)

Monday, May 25th

Preview

We head into this one with a pretty full roster. Twyla (3B) is out of the lineup more for precautionary reasons (knee) due to us having a full lineup, but could have played if necessary.

Storm come in missing one key ingredient, their captain. He's their main pitcher and one of their top 3 bats, so that's a big blow for them. More so at the plate than in the field as their backup pitcher is pretty solid and is probably better suited for pitcher (their captain is a very good outfielder and the difference there is bigger than the difference between the two on the mound). They're obviously looking to snap out of the funk they've been in to start the season, we're looking to put an early one past them to extend our lead on them a bit as we still view them as our main competition in this league.

Lineup

Joe - Rotator
Bernie - Rotator
Phil - LCF
Kat - 3B
Greg - SS
Mike - P
Jessa - 2B
Dillon - RF
Sean - 1B
Lindsay - LF
Jenn - C
Eli - RCF
Travis - Rotator
Lisa - Rotator

Recap

As usual when these two teams meet, it's low scoring, fast paced and full of very good defense. Storm have two new guys in their lineup that are very strong additions and each hurt us a bit early. Each side pick up a couple runs in the first two innings as Phil makes 3 diving catches in left center before a fourth goes off the thumb of his glove and instead of getting out of the inning unscathed, Storm put up the first big number of the night, totaling 4 in the inning to take a 6-2 lead. Can't blame Phil for the miss as it'd have been another highlight reel catch, but just at the spot in their order where it happened, they strung together 3 more hits to add the runs when the catch would have ended the inning.

We continue to pick away though, putting up 1-2 runs every inning, finally pulling back into a tie at 8 during the bottom half of the 5th. After a quick 1-2-3 top of the 6th we start to threaten in the bottom half with 3 straight singles when a fielding gaff puts us ahead. Their LF tries to turn a single into a force out at third (two on, two out when the single was hit), but misses the target with the ball ending up going out of play, so every runner gets a free base. Now with two in scoring position, first base open and two gone we have a chance for a stranglehold, but a pop up keeps it a 9-8 game for the good guys heading into the 7th.

We pick up two quick outs before their leadoff hitter picks up a single. It doesn't end up mattering though as a sharp one hopper to short turns into the final out of the game, and while we don't end up using our last bats of the night, I can't help but feel like we just picked up a bit of a cheap win between them missing one of their best players and the winning run coming in on one of the few errors of the night. We'll face them up to three more times this season though so I don't really feel all that bad.

Final Score: 9-8 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Joe - 1/3, S
Bernie - 0/3
Phil - 2/3, 2 D, R, RBI
Kat - 2/3, 2 S, R, RBI
Greg - 2/3, 2 D, R
Mike - 1/3, S
Jessa - 1/3, S, R
Dillon - 3/3, 2 S, D, 2 R, RBI
Sean - 2/3, 2 S, R, RBI
Lindsay - 2/2, 2 D, R, 2 RBI
Jenn - 0/2, RBI
Eli - 1/2, S, RBI
Travis - 2/2, S, D, R, RBI
Lisa - 0/2

Next Game Preview

1-0-1 Those Guys @ 4-0-0 Operation Shutdown, Wednesday, May 27th

Ongoing issues with the league website mean they're way behind on updates so I have no idea what sort of record Those Guys are sporting at this point. Either way, hopefully we shook the rust off against Storm and will be clicking a bit more at the plate for this game.

[johnnyshaka]

Win is a win...don't feel bad about that one 'cause I'm sure it'll come around at some point.

[Travis]

Game Five: Those Guys (1-0-1) @ Operation Shutdown (4-0-0)

Wednesday, May 27th

Preview

This is a team I've never really been able to put my finger on. They're usually middle of the pack, but their captain is a guy who at one moment seems really friendly, the next I get the sense he'd like an axe to relieve a few issues with. Either way we've never had any really bad problems with them, but I'm always on guard when we play these guys.

To add to the fun, I get a message from Mike (our pitcher) that he hurt his hand at hockey Tuesday night and with it being a Wednesday game, our backup Joe, is unavailable. So I let Phil (a quality pitcher himself) know that instead of roaming the outfield, we'll need his services on the mound tonight. We're also down Kat and Jenn (so we're running with just the minimum 3 ladies) but get Eli (who is contemplating playing full time at this point) to make up for the loss of Mike to our numbers.

On a positive note, I finally hear that our jerseys are in, so I leave work at 5 (south side of town), cruise down town to pick up the hats and jerseys, then rip back to the south side and get to the diamonds 5 minutes before the scheduled start time. The jerseys look great as do the hats, so I'm in a pretty good mood heading into the game.

Lineup

Bernie - LCF
Greg - SS
Phil - P
Jessa - 2B
Dillon - RF
Sean - 1B
Lindsay - LF
Lisa - C
Eli - RCF
Travis - Sub
Twyla - 3B

Recap

Oh where to start? With the fact that the opposing pitcher had a perfect game going through 3 innings? That after 5 innings we had still only managed 5 hits? Maybe that we only had 2 hits all game that drove in runs? The multitude of over throws and missed cuts that handed them extra bases on numerous occasions? Or concentrate more on the sideline issues? Bernie getting so mad he throws his bat and nearly hits two players with it after it caroms off the ground? Phil telling me that he refuses to pitch anymore this season?

After feeling like we stole one Monday, well, we more than even our juju with this one. We were an absolute mess on the field and off and nothing I tried seemed to swing the tide, be it trying to keep some positive chatter and instruction going, pulling a couple of people to the side to try and calm them down or breaking up the perfect game with a solo shot to start the bottom of the 4th (we were only down 5 at that point so the game was not out of reach). Seemed like a lot of people were bound and determined to implode during this one, and well, mission accomplished. To top it all off we hand them a big top of the 7th to really ice it (they score 9 times in total) then go out with a whimper.

As far as positives? Well, few and far between. Good news is that, as mentioned earlier, Eli is considering playing full time. This is good news for two reason. First he seems like a very natural athlete (hasn't played ball since he was young, but has yet to drop one in the OF and is one of our more consistent hitters right now), secondly, I've yet to see even a frown on his face. He's constantly positive, and with how things went during this game, that's something we'll need.

Another positive is that Lindsay continues to swing a hot stick. He's another who has been prone to angry stretches in the past but so far he's eliminated that side of things this season, stayed positive and continues to hit well.

Dillon hit the other run scoring hit tonight, his second homer of the young season (surpassing his total of one from last season). This is good to see as he is easily the fastest player on the team, and he's zoning in and trying to hit more line drives this year (hit a lot of bloop shots last year) to try and bring his legs in to play more. So far so good.

Past that, one note I will make is that we were a bit snake bitten at the plate tonight. No less than 4 of our players hit the ball on the nose tonight but were robbed by stellar defensive plays. There were certainly a lot more pop ups than I'd like to see and I know things tend to even out in the long run, but if one or two of those line drives find gaps instead of defensive players, this game has a very different complextion and I can only hope we'd have finished up a bit stronger than we ended up doing.

Like I said, not a lot of positives to take from this one.

Final Score: 16-3 for Those Guys.

Boxscore

Bernie - 0/3
Greg - 1/3, D
Phil - 1/3, S, R
Jessa - 0/3
Dillon - 2/3, S, HR, R, 2 RBI
Sean - 0/3
Lindsay - 1/3, S
Lisa - 1/2, S
Eli - 1/2, S
Travis - 2/2, D, HR, R, RBI
Twyla - 0/2

Next Game Preview

4-1-0 Operation Shutdown @ 2-1-0 Killer Frogs, Monday, June 1st

Website still isn't running smoothly so I think we're missing two results for the Frogs. It's our first repeat meeting of the season and while we took the first meeting, it was far from convincing and we're obviously coming off an early season low. In the past we've bounced back in games like this and hopefully that trend continues. I'm going to shake up the batting order a bit, but a lot is going to depend on the attitudes people bring to the diamond and how much of a team this group of players wants to be. If there is early game negativity, this could get ugly fast.

[johnnyshaka]

Aren't complete meltdowns fun??

[Travis]

Originally Posted by johnnyshaka

Aren't complete meltdowns fun??

Heh, wasn't ignoring you so much as the thread in general. I just wanted to step away from ball altogether after the Wednesday debacle. Helped that we had a ball hockey tournament this weekend.

It was "fun" though. One good/bad thing about this team is that we all expect to perform to a certain level, the unfortunate part is that more than a few people don't handle not performing at that level very well. Usually it's only 1 or 2 at a time and it's a bit easier to bring them back into the fold, but last week, well, team wide almost and just brutal. I'm glad it was the Wednesday game so there was 4+ days to cool off rather than being back at the field two days later.

[Travis]

Game Six: Operation Shutdown (4-1-0) @ Killer Frogs (2-2-0)

Monday, June 1st

Preview

Coming off an early season low, we're short handed going into this one. We're down Joe (holidays), Mike (hand/ribs), Sean (concert) and Lisa (illness). Eli is coming out to help us out but his arm is bugging him so he's limited to infield duty. This also means we're onto our 4th string pitcher as Lindsay will toe the rubber tonight for his first game action. He's had 2-3 practice sessions over the past year or so, so certainly not the situation I was hoping to put him in for his first action, but my hands are tied a bit, so time to see if he'll sink or swim. My main concerns with him going in are consistency and much more importantly, the mental side of things. Lindsay has a tendency to get down on himself if he's not playing well, and especially in slo-pitch, the pitcher has to have a short memory.

As for the Frogs, they're .500 coming in, but both losses have been tight (we beat them by 4 earlier) while both their wins have been blowouts. They always come in pretty amped up when we play and they look to have their full lineup tonight.

Lineup

Greg - SS
Phil - LCF
Kat - Rot
Bernie - LF
Lindsay - P
Jessa - RF
Eli - 2B
Dillon - RCF
Twyla - 3B
Travis - 1B
Jenn - C

Recap

Usually I like to try and get as many groupings of 3 guys together as I can in the lineup and I even toyed with the idea of batting ladies back to back so I could do that tonight, but in the end I went with as balanced of a lineup as I could given the players we had out.

In the first inning, it worked like a charm.

Greg leads things off with a seeing eye blooper that Phil follows up with a drive that the OF hadn't yet retrieved by the time he crossed home. We end up maxing out to start the game which not only has smiles on everybody's faces as we head out to take the field, but also gives Lindsay a cushion to work with as he takes the mound for the first time.

The Frogs strike right back though, but through no fault of Lindsay. A gap liner and one of their ladies absolutely tagging one (3 run shot for her) makes it a one run game after the first, and as the team returns to the bench for our second set of AB's, the mood is a bit more somber than when we had headed out.

We tack on a pair in the second and another in the third as Lindsay settles in. He walked one batter in the second, but they never made it past second and the Frogs are only able to manage a pair of hits over the next couple innings. We push the lead to 5 after 4 as Lindsay continues to hang 0's on the scoreboard by throwing a nice mix of heights and locations. I'm not sure how much of it was intentional, but he never threw more than 2 strikes or balls in a row the rest of the way so their hitters were a bit off balance.

We go big again in the 6th, maxing out at 7, but in the end it just wasn't needed as Lindsay ended up facing only one more than the minimum over the final four innings. Our 4 across outfield really clamped down after the first while our middle infield was all over any ground ball hit and throwing nothing but strikes to me at first.

As brutal as our last game was, this one was about as complete as I could have hoped for, especially given the shortcomings of the roster available. To think that we could have added 3 more guys to the batting order (with 2 of those 3 being some of our hotter hitters so far), well, I'm hoping we've turned the corner a bit and will start to really heat up now.

That said, there'll be growing pains with any new pitcher and the Frogs don't have many true sluggers, so this was an ideal matchup given the short notice.

Final Score: 19-6 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Greg - 3/5, 3 S, 2 R
Phil - 4/5, 2 D, T, HR, 3 R, 5 RBI
Kat - 3/4, 3 S, 2 R, 2 RBI
Bernie - 2/4, S, D, 2 R, 2 RBI
Lindsay - 2/4, 2 T, 2 R, RBI
Jessa - 3/4, 3 S, R, 2 RBI
Eli - 3/4, S, D, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI
Dillon - 3/4, 3 S, R, RBI
Twyla - 2/4, S, D, R, RBI
Travis - 4/4, S, 2 D, HR, 3 R, 2 RBI
Jenn - 0/4

Next Game Preview

5-1-0 Operation Shutdown @ 0-4-0 Royals, Wednesday, June 3rd

How things change in the span of a game. We're now coming off a bit of a high, but still likely short a few key pieces (at this point I'm assuming we'll be down Mike, Joe and Eli for this one) going into a trap game. We played the Royals on opening night and while they were a new team, they showed that they do have some skill. The standings show them as being a bit of a punching bag since then, but given our hit/miss offense, we certainly can't afford to take anybody lightly.

Lindsay will likely take the mound again, so hopefully they're hitting the ball at us and we handle things as well as we did against the Frogs. If we start throwing them extra bases like we did against Those Guys, this game could get much more interesting than it should.

[Travis]

This marks the 1/4 point of our season. If there is anything you'd like more/less of, please let me know. I'm probably going to hold off on a review type post until the 1/2 way point but if there's anything anybody is curious about or suggestions for how to improve the look/feel of these write ups, please feel free to comment.

[johnnyshaka]

Nicely done...wish I could've written a similar review of our latest debacle...ugh.

[Travis]

After your next game

[Travis]

Game Seven: Operation Shutdown (5-1-0) @ Royals (0-4-0)

Wednesday, June 3rd

Preview

Another game day, another list of people who won't be attending tonight's game. We're down Mike (hand/ribs), Kat (work), Lisa (sick), Eli (knee) and Joe (holidays). So this means we'll be starting Lindsay on the mound for his second career start, and while Sean is back tonight, he'll slide over to second while I continue to play first. We'll be going with a minimum roster lineup, so no innings off for anybody, hopefully nobody hurts anything.

The Royals are late assembling, so while we're supposed to start at 6:15 with a grace period of 6:30, we don't actually get this one underway until around 6:45. They've got a few new faces including a few pretty sturdy looking gents who are certainly looking to show off the results of their time in the gym. I hope Lindsay remembered to wear his can.

Lineup

Greg - SS
Phil - LCF
Jessa - RCF
Bernie - LF
Sean - 2B
Lindsay - P
Jenn - C
Dillon - RF
Travis - 1B
Twyla - 3B

Recap

Ugly.

Painful.

And that was just the first 4 innings.

We start the game off with 7 in the top of one, then watch bodybuilder #1 approach the plate to lead off their half of the inning. After seeing his first swing I relax considerably. Another case of big arms but 0 hand eye. So long as he doesn't let go of his bat we'll all be okay.

Long and short of this one is that they've regressed since we saw them to start the season and we didn't make mistakes. We scored every inning, maxing out in 3 of the 6 limited innings and were basically playing at a job by the 3rd. They sent up more than 5 hitters in an inning once and even though our defensive innings went quickly, we didn't finish the game until just after 8:30.

I tried to make sure my players didn't show them up in any way, but it was really quite ridiculous. They had three good to above average players who you could tell were very frustrated, but the rest were developmental or worse, with one guy spending half of the game on the phone, leaving them a man short in the field for almost a full inning.

In the end quite a few padded their stats, nobody got hurt and Lindsay got some valuable experience in trying to keep his focus during a blow out. That said, I'm happy we'll only face these guys 2 more times and I sincerely hope they improve by leaps and bounds because this game wasn't fun for either dugout.

Final Score: 34-3 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Greg - 5/6, S, D, 3 HR, 4 R, 7 RBI
Phil - 6/6, 3 S, 3 HR, 4 R, 4 RBI
Jessa - 3/5, 3 S, BB, 4 R
Bernie - 6/6, 3 S, 2 D, T, 5 R, 2 RBI
Sean - 5/6, 4 S, D, 2 R, 4 RBI (note: this was his first extra base hit of the season)
Lindsay - 4/6, 2 S, D, HR, 4 R, 7 RBI
Jenn - 0/6
Dillon - 6/6, 4 S, D, T, 6 R
Travis - 6/6, S, 4 D, HR, 4 R, 6 RBI
Twyla - 2/6, S, T, R, 4 RBI

Next Game Preview

3-2-0 FA @ 6-1-0 Operation Shutdown, Wednesday, June 10th

We beat FA 21-7 a couple of weeks ago and it'll be interesting to see which version of their team we see on the field this time. They seem to have been playing pretty well for the most part, but the two biggest factors will be what sort of lineup we have to field (likely missing Joe, but so far nobody else has told me they'll be missing) and if their power/gap hitters show up at the plate. Should be a lot better game than this one was though.

[Travis]

Game Eight: FA (4-2-0) @ Operation Shutdown (6-1-0)

Wednesday, June 10th

Preview

FA comes into this one having won their last two (after suffering back to back defeats against Those Guys and us) and with a bit of momentum. Looking at the standings I'm assuming that their gap hitters are in good form right now, so start trying to figure out how to work our lineup to include a 4 guy outfield.

Then the bodies start falling.

By lunch I'm down 6 players. Joe (Wednesday game), Mike (hand/ribs), Sean (anniversary), Eli (family), Jessa (family) and Lisa (work) are all out. This knocks us own to a 6/3 lineup and I'm on the phone. In the end I get a nice surprise as a former full time player agrees to help us out. So tonight Chris will make his debut. He played full time for us up until last year (he subbed one game last year, blew out his ankle and was done for the season) as our main RF and carries with him a *very* potent bat. So now we have our base 10 as well as finishing off the 4 guy outfield I had hoped for.

Turns out FA was having similar problems. They end up having to field a team of 9 as they had 3 people not make it with little notice.

And on that note, let the battle of attrition begin.

Lineup

Lindsay - P
Phil - LCF
Kat - 2B
Bernie - LF
Greg - SS
Chris - RF
Twyla - 3B
Dillon - RCF
Travis - 1B
Jenn - C

Recap

We exchange 6 spots with FA in the first, then both teams go into shutdown mode. It's 9-8 for us through 4 and I'm getting a bit nervous as we're really letting these guys hang around. We've gotten ourselves into trouble with some lax base running and the sticks are looking awfully cold after a nice first inning where we batted around our order.

It's at this point that a few changes are made as Phil threw out his arm in center, so he comes in to pitch, Lindsay moves to LF and Bernie bumps over to LCF. Coincidentally enough it's also at this point that our offense picks it up a notch and ends up running FA out of gas. We max out in the 5th and 6th while Phil continues to shut down their offense and in the end we cruise to a deceptively dominant looking score. This is still a team that worries me, especially when their lineup is at full strength. We got lucky tonight because even though we were short handed we had a quality lineup from top to bottom and it still took us until the tail end of the game to put any spread on the scoreboard.

On the plus side, both Twyla and Kat hit the ball with authority every time up. Each had some bad luck as their best shots went straight at their outfielders, but if they continue hitting like this, each is going to catch a few defenses napping and take advantage of some gap shots. Twyla picked up a triple tonight like that and nearly had a pair more.

Final Score: 26-9 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Lindsay - 4/5, S, 2 D, HR, 3 R, 2 RBI
Phil - 4/5, 2 S, D, HR, 2 R, 4 RBI
Kat - 3/5, 3 S, 2 R
Bernie - 5/5, 3 S, 2 D, 4 R, RBI
Greg - 4/5, 3 S, D, 2 R, 4 RBI
Chris - 4/5, 2 S, 2 D, 4 R, 2 RBI
Twyla - 3/4, 2 S, T, 3 R, 3 RBI, SF
Dillon - 3/5, S, D, HR, 3 R, 5 RBI
Travis - 5/5, S, 2 D, T, HR, 2 R, 5 RBI
Jenn - 0/4, BB, R

Next Game Preview

2-6-1 Base Pirates @ 7-1-0 Operation Shutdown, Monday, June 15th

This is the only team in the league we haven't played so far due to swapping nights earlier in the season with Storm to help them out of a jam (resulting in us missing our first turn against the Base Pirates for an extra round against the Killer Frogs). The Pirates have gone 4-16-1 and 5-13-0 in the last two seasons, so their record so far this season seems in keeping with those numbers. Assuming I get something close to a full lineup out (we'll be missing Kat for sure and I'd assume likely Mike) this shouldn't be a difficult game.

Given our history though, we do tend to play down to the level of our opponents at times, so this'll be an interesting test to see how focused our lineup can stay.

[Travis]

Game Nine: Base Pirates (2-6-1) @ Operation Shutdown (7-1-0)

Monday, June 15th

Preview

We're down a few players tonight with Eli (knee), Mike (hand/ribs), Kat (holidays) and Lisa (misc) all missing. We do have Joe on hand though with it being a Monday night game. A few of us (Lindsay, Phil and myself) played in a tournament this weekend and came through it relatively in tact except for Phil's throwing arm so he'll toe the rubber tonight while Lindsay slides into the outfield.

We're trotting out an 8/3 ratio for the game tonight which bodes well for us so long as nobody gets hurt. The Base Pirates are short players as the start time comes and goes but we agree to wait for a few of their other players to show up. In the end they have 10 on the nose including a few I don't remember from last year, but none of the new players strike too much fear into us while watching warm ups. So as usual with these guys, they have one big bomber who will bite on short/low pitches (that he'll pound into the ground) and a couple speed demons who do their best to turn singles into doubles but don't have the power to hit the gaps and turn doubles into real trouble. They've got a couple other decent players, but those 3 are the guys we really have to watch.

Lineup

Bernie - Sub
Greg - SS
Phil - P
Twyla - 3B
Dillon - LCF
Sean - 1B
Lindsay - LF
Jessa - RF
Joe - RCF
Travis - 2B
Jenn - C

Recap

We max out in the first, then start a slow regression as the game gets out of hand. We're up 18-5 through 3 and of the 5 allowed, 2-3 were gifts as we make a couple of bad throwing decisions (re: not hitting our cuts and trying to make throws on the run). In the end I'm hoping that it helps out with our confidence at the plate but I'm glad we don't play these guys too often because our focus in the field really slipped as the game went on. We've got a tough stretch in the schedule coming up and our D will need to be much sharper than it was tonight if we're going to keep winning.

Final Score: 26-7 for Operation Shutdown.

Boxscore

Bernie - 5/5, S, 2 D, 2 T, 4 R, 3 RBI
Greg - 4/5, S, 3 D, 3 R, 6 RBI
Phil - 4/4, D, T, 2 HR, 3 R, 5 RBI
Twyla - 1/4, S, R
Dillon - 3/4, 3 D, 2 R, RBI
Sean - 1/3, S, BB, 2 R
Lindsay - 3/4, S, 2 D, 2 R, 4 RBI
Jessa - 2/4, S, T, 2 R, 3 RBI
Joe - 4/4, 2 S, 2 D, 3 R, 2 RBI
Travis - 4/4, 3 D, T, 3 R, 2 RBI
Jenn - 0/3, BB, R

Next Game Preview

Operation Shutdown (8-1-0) @ Storm (3-5-0), Wednesday, June 17th

We've moved into first by a half game over Those Guys who split a double header with the Frogs on the field next to us last night. We start a tough 3 game stretch against Storm this week, then the Frogs and Those Guys next week. Storm is starting to show signs of settling into the team they're capable of being (only 3-5, but still in the positive for +/- as they've won their last couple by big differentials) so hopefully our heads are a bit more in it for this one. We're going to be down Joe, Kat and Lisa for sure and likely Mike. I might see if Chris can make it out for this one to shore up our OF (likely going to try playing an all male outfield for this one) as well as adding another potent stick to the lineup. Either way, should be a much more interesting game than this one was.

[Travis]

Due to an abundance of players who couldn't make the game we've bumped this one back and it'll now be played as part of a double header later in the season.