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What a difference a day makes. Not every day is better than the day it replaced, and that sure was the case for the Great Oak Spartans baseball team Tuesday afternoon against Jockey Hollow. Whether it was an emotional letdown because the team we were playing didn’t say “Rochambeau” on its uniform, or a pothole on the road we are traveling, I don’t know. What I do know – and the team was the one to say it – is that we believe we lost to an inferior team on Tuesday.
After the first victory against Memorial – which right now seems like eons ago – I wrote a blog entry entitled Day 17: Calm Before the Storm or Storm Before the Calm? In that blog entry, I wrote specifically about overcoming adversity. I predicted this was going to happen; it was inevitable that we were going to lose. The thing I didn’t have an answer to – but had an idea of – was how the team would respond when the going got tough.
It’s not the end of the world and I don’t want to make a bigger issue out of it then it is because maybe it was a one game fluke, but the idea I referenced in the last paragraph was that this team would hit a few potholes and continue on. On this road known as Great Oak Spartans baseball, there is one thing I’m sure of and can rule out: We are not going to miss every pothole and smooth sail the rest of the way.
Again, it’s only six games into the season, and if you told me at the beginning of the season we’d be 4-2 after our first six games, after last year’s debacle, I would have gladly signed up for it. This team is too awesome of a team to play the way they played on Tuesday afternoon. Like I have previously stated on my blog: no matter the record, I always believe my team is the best, and I know that to be above and beyond true for this group of kids. With that said, I know why the wheels loosened on Monday and fell off on Tuesday.
I’m not putting this entirely on the team because I need to do a better job of coaching myself. My motto is to be aggressive and when I needed to be aggressive the most on Tuesday, I cowered. In the last inning, down 6-5, Owen was standing on first base with no outs. Hindsight is 20/20, but what I’m kicking myself about is not having Owen steal second and have Adam bunt him to third. I elected not to steal Owen because I didn’t want to risk him getting thrown out, something that happened earlier in the game. After Adam struck out and Matty M. flied out to deep center, Owen stole second with ease, but by that time it was too late.
I know I have to suck it up and move on – and I will – but if I played to the situation instead of thinking “what could have been”, Owen would have stolen second, got to third on Adam’s bunt, tagged up on Matty’s fly ball and scored rather easily to tie the game. I should have taken the blinders off and realized that Adam is struggling right now, but I’ve seen Adam do some remarkable things with the bat and I didn’t want to take the bat out of his hands in that situation.
Part of being a good coach is reacting to the situation and not letting the “what could have been” get the best of you. I certainly dropped the ball on that Tuesday afternoon. I’m not saying that my decision – or lack thereof – cost us the game on Tuesday, but it certainly could have helped us tie it.
The bottom line is that we didn’t do a lot of things right on Tuesday. We haven’t had a game where everyone in the lineup has hit. We’ve had a few players step up and carry the load, but now they’re slumping while the others are starting to heat up. We haven’t had a game where the lineup is entirely on the same page.
Our defense has been atrocious the past two games – and that’s being nice. Standard, routine, easy groundballs are being booted! It’s funny because the plays we shouldn’t be making we are making, and the one’s we should be making – the standard, routine, soft groundballs – are going right through us or getting bobbled.
A few blogs ago, I talked about the outfield, and how in upcoming games, balls were going to be hit to them. That has held true the past three games and the outfield defense has been no better than the infield defense. Plain and simple, we are bad at judging fly balls. It’s one thing if the ball hits the glove and drops out, but its another thing if you call for it, think you size it up, and the ball doesn’t even hit your glove!
There have been mistakes on the base paths but I can forgive those. I’m fine with the team being aggressive on them. Especially now, when no one can seem to get on base, it’s like they feel the need to get to third so they can score on a passed ball. I can’t necessarily blame them for that.
I briefly mentioned hitting before, but we aren’t picking up the ball well at all right now. Unfortunately for us, the pitchers we have been facing aren’t walking us. When we were averaging 16 runs a game thorough our first four games, pitchers were walking us with ease. It’s no coincidence that in the past two games when we’ve hardly walked, our runs per games average is cut to 6.5. Does that mean that walks have accounted for 40% of our runs?
However, all of those things are not the reason I believe the wheels fell off on Tuesday. What I will not tolerate – and until Wednesday’s game I have not acted on it – is the attitude on the team so far. I’ve tried to create this motto where it’s not about me, myself or I; rather, it’s about the team. Much to my dismay, it’s been more about the former than the later recently. It’s easy to overlook something like that when we’re winning, but now that we’re losing, it needs to be rectified.
I’m tired of the selfishness. I’m not one to take kindly to praising myself, but I have done a decent job at staying true to my words of “sucking it up and moving on”. After an error or a strikeout happens, once I say my piece, I’ve over it. I can wholeheartedly say I’ve been better at doing that then I thought I would be. If I can do it, there’s no reason the team can’t.
Even during the post-game meeting on Tuesday, it wasn’t so much the loss I was ticked off about as it was the reason in which I believed we lost. I ripped into them about the selfishness of them. There’s too much blaming of the umpire. There’s way too much sulking. There’s way too much feeling sorry for themselves. There’s certainly a time and place where all those all acceptable, just not in a team atmosphere. More specifically – not on this team.
I’m tired of the backward K’s and then throwing a fit or helmet and blaming it on the umpire. It’s bittersweet – for obvious reasons both good and bad – to hear the team say things such as, “That team sucks. We are so much better than them. I can’t believe we lost to them. How the heck did we lose to them?” I’m tired of the always blaming someone else for what is entirely our fault. Again, it goes back to the whole concept of being selfish and making it all about me, myself and I. Sometimes the best remedy comes from within, and if the team ever took the time to look in the mirror, they’d see the obvious reason why they are struggling. They’re holding the other team, the umpire, or other teammates accountable for their own shortcomings these past three games.
I will continue to beat into this team the concept of a team. If changes are needed – and if this continues I will make changes – whatever those changes are, I will make them. As I said from the get-go, I’m here to win. If the players don’t like the changes, I’ll know by their reaction if they are a team player. If they bitch and moan and blame me, well then it’s all about themselves and we’re back to square one about always blaming someone else. Rather than get upset at me, do something about it. I was afraid of losing the team last year and I ignored those changes, but I swear to you that won’t happen again. If they understand the changes and do something about them, then I’ll know they are team players.
I don’t want people to take that the wrong way and view it as a threat. If we just get back to having fun instead of pressing – like they’re doing now – then we’ll be back on the road in no time. It’s tough for me to yell at these kids because they are a special group, but if I’m having fun – even after these two loses – then there is no reason they shouldn’t be as well. If we put the egos aside, and focus on the completed puzzle instead of just one piece, we’ll be fine.
As with every dark cloud, there’s a silver lining. I don’t believe we’ve played our best game this season and we are still two games above .500%. Even as we were mercying teams, I still don’t think we have come close to our capabilities. I wouldn’t make a promise I couldn’t keep, so I promise you all that we’ll be able to look back on these two games and laugh about it when it’s all said and done and we have completed a successful season.
Bear with us and we’ll get through this,
-Matt-
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