The NCAA regionals proved to be a test tube example of how you don’t pitch when you’re trying to win a baseball game…at any level!
Short and sweet, where media coverage is concerned the culture is increasingly sensitive to the little things that determine the difference between winning and losing.
It’s always been that way to a certain extent, and the cultural defense for losing in big athletic events has always been justified when people say…that the athletes are doing the best they can.
And that’s true. No one practices how to lose.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
But still, there are differences between the human factor of fatigue and nerves…and the fundamental factor that we saw over and over during the NCAA baseball regionals regarding pitching. And let’s be clear about it, you baseball coaches out there. There are just so many things you don’t do when you’re trying not to lose a baseball game.
If you’re not aware by now, the UCLA Bruins, the nation’s #1 overall seed were knocked out Sunday afternoon by little-known St. Mary’s, 6-5, in ten innings. Not that St. Mary’s was a bad baseball team, because they weren’t. But four times out of five, UCLA wins that game if they just take themselves out of harm’s way.
In fact, it should have been Virginia Tech, on Saturday, with a 5-3 lead over UCLA in the bottom of the ninth, that delivered the death blow to the Bruins. But they didn’t because they forgot how to pitch…or were they ever taught?
Some baseball talk today for fans and coaches out there. And I’d love to hear from you.
There’s an age-old axiom about pitching, and baseball, that says you have to throw strikes to get anyone out. And that’s true.
There’s also an age-old axiom that says when a pitcher gets ahead in the count you expand the strike zone and force hitters to swing at bad pitches…to get themselves out.
And when Virginia Tech reliever Maddon Clement, with a 5-3 lead, faced UCLA power-hitting first baseman Mulivia Levu leading off the bottom of the ninth, he quickly got ahead in the count, 0-2. But then, seeking the third strike with the count 1-2, Clement grooved a fastball on the inside half of the plate and Levu hit it out of the park to make the score 5-4.
Clement quickly got ahead of the next hitter, Roman Martin, 0-2, and again grooved a breaking ball in the middle of the plate and Martin hit it out to tie the score at 5-5.
Now the momentum is totally switched, lost by Virginia Tech, and UCLA comes back to beat them 6-5 in extra innings.
Here’s the axiom. When you get ahead in the count like that you don’t need to throw another strike because hitters get nervous, they swing at pitches that they wouldn’t swing at if they were ahead in the count, and they get themselves out. And it happens with every level of baseball.
Just ask Reds pitcher Brady Singer. You don’t have to throw a strike when you’re ahead in the count. In Singer’s case he probably makes a mistake trying to throw a more competitive pitch that’s out of the strike zone. The margin for error is less at that level. But in high school and college all you have to do is throw the ball a foot outside and watch them chase it and miss…about 80% of the time, when you get ahead of the hitter 0-2, or 1-2.
It’s how baseball games get won…and lost!
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For years now the Ohio High School Athletic Association has made a big deal out of competitive balance issues regarding everything you can think of – past record, transfers, socio-economic reality, who’s your guardian and where he or she lives, etc. – and yet, I invite you to check out the site locations for this week’s regional round of the baseball tournament.
And when I bring this up one would assume that the idea is to have the regional championship games that determine state final matchups played on a site that’s as neutral as possible. At least, that’s how it used to be…before the days of expanding beyond your options.
St. Henry, who’s playing Patrick Henry on Wednesday, has to travel to Hamler, Ohio, the home of Patrick Henry, and play on the home turf of the opposing team. Not a first-round sectional game, now, but a regional semi-final game to determine who might play next week for the state’s ultimate title in Division VI. At least this is what’s being posted online 24 hours before first pitch.
Likewise, Versailles, who’s scheduled to play Summit County Day, in Division V, has to travel ninety minutes to Mason High School to play a regional semi-final on a field that’s a driver and four iron from Summit County Day.
More?
Coldwater is scheduled to play Amanda Clear Creek, in Fairfield County, and the game is being played at Elida High School, in Allen County, a forty mile drive for Coldwater. But Amanda Clear Creek has to drive across five counties (as the crow flies) for two hours, twenty four minutes (140 miles) to get to Elida.
Tipp City has to play Hamilton Badin in Oxford, Ohio, literally in Badin’s own back yard.
“The truth with sports is like Tupperware,” said Kaye Kessler. “There’s a reason it burps when you start putting’ pressure on it.”
One would assume, of course, that there are numerous more-neutral sites to play those four high school baseball games in between, wouldn’t one?
And of course, the goal is to always do what’s best for kids. But former Columbus sportswriter Kaye Kessler once shared with me regarding what people say about sports (coach-speak), and what they’d like for you to believe.
“The truth with sports is like Tupperware,” said Kessler. “There’s a reason it burps when you start putting pressure on it.”
And like the federal government, the more one considers the relationship and trust factor between the people being governed and those doing the governing…is this more evidence that those with suitable facilities are conspicuous by their absence?
You’re asking us to believe…that there’s no place between St. Henry and Hamler (like Ohio Northern) that someone would offer to rent for the sake of a better optic? Or for respect of the outcome? I was at ONU a couple of days ago, and all you need do is mow the grass.
Like listening to Congress, how do you know?
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