I don’t check the standings. With every team making the playoffs in our league, I don’t really see the purpose. Let’s worry about our team. Let’s worry about getting better. Let’s give the kids a chance to bat where they want, to play the position they want, and to pitch if they want. Through it all, we’ll see what’s what, and when it comes to the games that are win or go home, we’ll have options. However, at the end of Saturday’s game, I heard the team we’d be facing on Sunday night was undefeated; maybe I should have saved one of my best pitchers for THIS game?
I put the kid who had the next most innings pitched on the mound to start this one; he had been very good this year too, well, that is, until this one. The first 4 batters that came up all scored… and 3 more too, in that dreadful first inning. We had 2 kids on in this top of the first, but didn’t score. And now, we were losing 7-0. What the heck happened? Well, 2 walks that came around to score never helps the cause. Throw in a couple fielding errors, including one by our pitcher, and a dropped 3rd strike that hid behind the umpire’s leg, and mix it all up, and you got a big deficit. We didn’t score in the 2nd either. Our new pitcher in the 2nd inning gave up 3 more runs. We were looking at a 10 run deficit in the blink of an eye. The kids asked me the score; I told them. I also told them it wasn’t over. It’s only the 3rd inning; we have a lot of baseball to play. I guess they listened.
We didn’t give up; win or lose, this was the biggest lesson of the day. Never give up! Sure, we got jumpstarted because the other team brought in a kid who probably wouldn’t have pitched if they weren’t up 10 runs, but so what. We pushed 4 runs across, and then 2 more. And oh yeah, our 2nd pitcher settled down, and our 3rd pitcher pitched 2 shutout innings. Heading to the top of the 7th inning, we were trailing 10-6. The first 4 kids reached base safely; the game was now 10-7 with the bases loaded and nobody out. Strikeout; 1 out. This brought one of our best hitters to the plate. He hits a pop-up in foul territory down the first base line; the kid makes a great play on the ball. Our kid tries to tag from 3rd base and gets thrown out. Game over.
It was a rough ending, but what a game. In the dugout after the game, I told the kids I was proud that they didn’t give up; yeah, we lost, but more importantly, we didn’t give up. Now I have another quality of our team that I like. Meeting the undefeated team didn’t quite go as planned, but we may see them again. At 5-3-1, we have 3 more games on the schedule before the playoffs kick in. Time to finish strong!
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