Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

One thing about the super-compressed SRBSA season: we're scoreboard watching already.

Our rematch with Oak Valley Tuesday is actually pretty important; after splitting with us, they swept a doubleheader the next day to improve to 3-1, good for third place in the 8-team South Division. My guess is their ace pitcher went both games.

We're in fourth at 2-2, so sweeping them is a must if we want to stay in shouting distance of the top.

The league standings are weird. One team stands at 4-0, but two of their wins were one-run decisions over the current cellar dwellers. Another team is 2-0 with two mercy wins, but no way to tell yet what that means.

An indication of how messed up the league season is: we'll play our fourth doubleheader, the midway point of the season, the same night one team plays its first games. Then they play 12 games in 10 days.

Of course, they might have a varsity-level No. 1 pitcher and mow through all those games, but if they don't, they'll be dragging by the end of that stretch.

 

We won our semifinal 10-6.

Title game starts at 1 or so.

 

We won the championship 15-13 over the top seed with the speedy pitcher.

The heat got to her and she was off and walked 18 to go with her 14 strikeouts.

We ran them ragged on the bases and took advantage of every single opening.

The team that nobody in the league wanted to see win the championship is the champion of 2017.

Two years ago we lost every game.

 

The other team's pitcher had 14 strikeouts and 18 walks? And stayed in?

 

"18 walks"
"New league record."
"14 strikeouts"
"Also new league record."

 

The other coach was going to go down with the ship.

Finally, in top-6, when we were putting up a max 5-run inning, she basically pulled herself.

She was cooked beyond repair, replaced by the 4-foot-3 second baseman.

The 5 runs put us up 15-11 going into bottom-6. I'll write about that later.

 

My 3-year pitcher threw 12 innings yesterday (60 batters) and walked 2 -- and those were the first 2 batters of the semifinal. She struck out 12 overall.

In 73 innings this season she struck out 77 and walked 36.

 

In a lot of kids softball kids (or teams) will just start taking, so your typical inning consists of three walks, a called strikeout, three more walks, a passed ball or three, maybe a hit batter, another called strikeout, etc etc, so you can be at bat for a half hour at a time, score 10 runs, and never swing the bat. It's aggravating even when you're the team scoring.

 

Hey, whataya know, sabermetrics even works in kids softball.

Let's look at the PowerCats' pitching lines and figure out what I should do:

PLAYER W L Sv. G IP R H BB SO WHIP
Pitcher A 1 0 1 3 7.2 6 1 16 23 0.913
Pitcher B 0 2 0 2 6.1 24 6 30 22 5.687
Pitcher C 1 0 0 1 3.0 2 0 5 9 1.667
TOTALS 2 2 1 4 17.0 32 7 51 54 3.411
OPPS. 2 2 0 4 17.0 40 21 59 35 2.000

 

So the Circusville Royals got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs last week. Led by two going into the bottom of what was almost certain to be the last inning due to time constraints, then they tied it up quickly and had runners at first and second with nobody out and the bottom third of the lineup coming up. Next batter hits into a fielder's choice at third base, then the next kid strikes out, so first and second with two outs.

Now, I'm very familiar with the bottom two hitters in the lineup - they live across the street from us. Twin boys, super-nice kids, with the small size and some very mild developmental delays that come with twins sometimes. They really struggled this year (although their father was set to play baseball at East Carolina before he fucked up his shoulder). Twin B was playing for the first time this year. Naturally, they went a combined 6 for 6 against us, with Twin B's first two hits going maybe a combined 20 feet. But they're the last two up and we feel like we might have a shot at another inning.

Twin A hits a grounder that we keep in the infield, but we can't get an out, so bases loaded, two outs, and up comes Twin B. He actually gets decent wood on it - his mom said it was his best hit all year. Our first baseman has a shot to get us out of the inning, but he whiffs on the grounder and the run scores. Season over. The twins were thrilled, though.

 

Team Songbird Hitting Stats for 2017

• 14 games (11-3)
• 468 plate appearances
• 139 hits in 366 at-bats (.379 average)
• 9 doubles, 5 triples, 5 homers
• 86 RBIs
• 91 walks
• 90 strikeouts
• 22 bunts for hits
• 166 runs (12 per game)

I'd say we took we over 200 bases. We punished you once we got on.

I'm pretty sure the numbers would be much greater if we got to play one of the weaker teams but 4 of our games were rained out and they never made an effort to reschedule.

 

Whitman Jr.'s league made the mistake of printing, "Relax. It's just Little League" on the back of all the coaches' T-shirts this year.

Now, any time a coach argues a call, asks about a call, or does so much as direct players assertively, you get five parents from the crowd shouting, "Relax, coach. It's just Little League!" like it's the most clever thing anyone ever thought to shout.

It's frequently the grandparents doing most of the bitching and moaning from the cheap seats, as they don't have to deal with any of the coaches on a weekly basis for the next decade. My dear mother, who has no filter and no off switch as it is, is part of the brigade.