Open Bat Night

7.0-?-10-?-1-2-7

That would be my stat line in a baseball tournament last Saturday at Graham Field in Caro: innings, hits, runs, earned runs, walks, hit batters, and strikeouts. Let me start by reminding everyone that I wasn't a pitcher in high school and I've done nothing more than throw batting practice since high school. I have no idea how many hits I gave up. Rarely did they cream my fastball. But rarely could I just blow it by them for strike 3. I never had an "out" pitch. I could get 2 strikes on a batter many many times, but just not the 3rd.

First, I'll hit the positives of the experience:

1. Only 1 walk...first batter of the entire game. But I did hit 2 guys later in the game.
2. I pitched all 7 innings.
3. I didn't get mercied.
4. I had 7 strikeouts, give or take (we had a terrible scorebook guy...where were you Adam!?)
5. I threw a shutout in 4 of the 7 innings.
6. Only gave up one homerun (first inning curveball). The guy who hit it played for Mott College in Flint (didn't know they had a team).
7. Gave up 5 runs in the first inning and only 5 in the final six innings.


Negatives:
1. Needed to change up the pitches more (which I did because I pitched 4 shut out innings in the final 6 innings.)
2. Needed a catcher to move the glove around more to try and hit corners and change locations.
3. Run support. It wasn't too promising for us to score many runs. We nearly had 4 automatic outs in our line up of 10 batters.
5. No real team. We had 3 high school players from Caro, 1 from Reese, 5 from Owen-Gage, and then me.

We only had 2 pitchers on the team; me and a kid from Owen-Gage. I've umpired for him pitching so I already knew what he had to offer...nothing. I didn't know what I had to offer so I was taking the mound. After the 4th inning, I said to the other pitcher, "Eric, are you leading off in the 5th inning?" "Yes." "After you bat, warm up your arm. I don't know how much more I've got."

But then I shut them out in the 5th, so why come out of the game, right? I had 2 outs in the 6th and no runs scored and no runners on base. Then I had 2 runners on base and gave up a hit over the second baseman's head. He was our weakest and shortest player on the team and I think anyone else could have jumped high enough to catch the ball and save those 2 rums from scoring. He he would have caught the ball, I would have had 5 total shutout innings. And then I had a shutout in the 7th, so can you blame me for pitching all 7? I don't mind getting raked and throwing batting practice. I'm not upset because I hit their bats. If I start walking guys, which I never did, then I'm staying in. Walks are boring and lead to runs.

Also, this was supposed to be an "Owen-Gage" team. The only O-G players that showed up didn't arrive until exactly game time, 10 a.m. Then, another one didn't show up until after the first inning. I know I may have bullied my way on the team and bullied my way onto the mound, but if you aren't going to show up until game time, then I don't feel bad "mound hogging" the whole game.

Batting: 1-3, (1B, 1 RBI)

My first time up I laced a single up the middle to bring in our 2nd run in the first inning. After that, the team "shut down" and we never scored again. Or maybe 1 more run. We lost 10-2. Their pitcher is the assistant coach to the Millington Varsity team. I guess he pitched for Northwood in college back 5-10 years ago.

1st Inning: RBI single
3rd Inning: Fly out to Left Field
7th Inning: Ground ball back to pitcher

All in all, it was a blast and can't wait to pitch again.

Finally, a good friend of mine lives by this philosophy:

"If you don't walk anybody, you'll probably be in the game." (Nathan Fritz)

Well Nathan, I only walked 1 guy...but was never really in the game.