Park1221

Luke Maile

I absolutely agree throwing offspeed when ahead can be effective, especially if located well. Against good fastball hitting teams(even a well located 82-85 mph fastball can be driven) I would rather throw a couple offspeed pitches, preferably for strikes, get ahead, then a fastball down and in the zone or down and away in the zone or up and out of zone. If you don't have a 90 mph heater, use your offspeed to set up your fastball not the other way around.

Sportsfan, I'm not sure which games or pitchers you've witnessed so I won't debate you that there have been occasions when an X pitcher has struggled throwing his off speed for a strike. But, is that inability to throw it for a strike a function of not having thrown it enough in game situations with a live batter or does the pitcher just not know how throw it for a strike, or he knows how and is just not executing? My feeling having watched almost every game is that all X pitchers throw off speed better when its called earlier in the game, earlier in the count and more frequently in general throughout the game. Throwing offspeed mainly when you're ahead 0-2 or 1-2 is not IMO an effective pitching stategy against the quality teams X has faced. I would be willing to bet that of all games played, we've thrown first pitch fastball 90% of the time. Maybe fastballs are all that are needed to win against some teams, but I think you play every game leading up to district trying to improve on the things that need improving, which in X's case may be offspeed pitches.

Our young pitchers are learning that pounding fastballs by frehman and jv teams may work, but it doesn't work against good varsity teams like Trinity. Hopefully our coaches who call the pitches will begin to understand that as well.

Corey Littrell lived up to his billing. He had great stuff.

9-1 Rocks

That's impressive!

Mother nature not looking good.

Did he have control problems, errors, just got hit, or a little of all three?

St X baseball does have 4 football players who haven't forgotten the pain of the last game. But in truth, those kind of emotions don't translate into hitting and thwoing a baseball.

What is the anticipated pitching matchup? Littrell? v. Grayson?

Take the coach's poll, throw'em all in a hat and pick 5. From what I've seen: 1. Male 2. Lex Christian 3. Cov Cath 4. Lex Cath 5. Bullitt East From what I've heard: 1. PRP 2. Eastern 3. Henderson County 4. Trinity 5. Tates Creek

For the 21 innings of the LIT, 3 sophmores logged 12 innings, a freshmen threw 7 and a junior 2. As talented as our younger pitchers are, X needs their senior pitchers to get healthy to get out of district and make a run in the 7th.

Originally Posted by Blue Magic The pitch hit him and literally bounced into the zone. There is no way it was in the strike zone originally because it hit him in the triceps area. If the catcher drops that ball its a clear HBP but somehow it went right in the mit. Our pitcher and catcher didn't see it hit the batter...but if your player says it hit him I'll accept that. I will say that I saw nothing close to the ball "bouncing into the zone". It must have been one stich from the ball that tickled his tricep because the catcher didn't have to move his glove to adjust to any change in the ball's flight. It's then a judgment call as whether the ball was in the strike zone at the point of contact. And yes the tricep could have been in the strike zone if the hitter was looking for something on the outside part of the plate(he was down in the count, not an unreasonable guess on his part) and triggered his hands to reach for something outside. The first gesture by the umpire was a ring up called third. He shouldn't change that call based on the batter's reaction.

Our pitcher and catcher didn't see it hit the batter...but if your player says it hit him I'll accept that. I will say that I saw nothing close to the ball "bouncing into the zone". It must have been one stich from the ball that tickled his tricep because the catcher didn't have to move his glove to adjust to any change in the ball's flight. It's then a judgment call as whether the ball was in the strike zone at the point of contact. And yes the tricep could have been in the strike zone if the hitter was looking for something on the outside part of the plate(he was down in the count, not an unreasonable guess on his part) and triggered his hands to reach for something outside. The first gesture by the umpire was a ring up called third. He shouldn't change that call based on the batter's reaction.

The umpire initially made a strike signal ...the batter did not swing. It was a curve ball and basesd on the batter's reaction he changed it to a HBP.

CCH has an impressive lineup. The early errors were costly, but it is synthetic turf and you can't blame those on bad hops. CCH also capitalized on a pop up lost in the sun and a phantom HBP in the 5th which was initially called a strike by the umpire(I don't think it hit the batter...but if it did it was in the strike zone and should have been strike 3).

Considering X was without the services of all three of its senior pitchers for the three game LIT I think they fared pretty well going 2-1. The seniors who were not available have logged significant wins over Bullit East, Manual and DeSales.

Final

Frosh Andrew Willinger goes the distance and gets the win for the Tigers in his first varsity appearance. Tiger bats stay hot.

I think when you allow Dads to coach you open yourself up to a lot of scrutiny. When it comes to what team the kid makes and how much playing time he gets there is a perception, fair or not, of preferential treatment. If the Dad is a really good coach and you really need him then you better be really objective when it comes to the kid and make sure he earns his spot. From what I know, there are some really talented sophmore catchers at Trinity who may have been overlooked.

This "varsity" catcher wasn't one of the coaches kids was it?

St.X is looking forward to hosting you guys this weekend. We may see if Maile can hit the Eeffus pitch, lol. Inside joke, X got beat in the regional final last year by CAL who threw a blooper pitcher that we struggled with.

Uhhh, 8 hits a game? Has he been starting since 5th grade? If he's played in 300 games, that's over 40 games over 7 seasons, he's still averaging over 3 hits a game. Not saying he didn't get that many hits, but I'm having a hard time getting the math to work if he only played 5 varsity seasons. 40 games would be just about the max you could play per season which would give you at most 160 plate appearances, x's 5 equals 800 PA's. We still need another two seasons of PA's to get over 1,000 PA's and assuming he didn't get a hit in every PA, you probably need an additional season of PA's to get to his .750 average. 8 seasons at 40 games equals 320 games x's 4 equal approx. 1,280 PA's to get to 1,165 hits. Did they count summer and fall ball games?

Anyone have the details? I didn't see the boxscore in the Courier.