I like that

Very fun game. Again, I like those low scoring affairs. And of course it is more fun when we win.

First I'll start off with my grouch. We did not have a base hit tonite. Our batting needs to improve. But with that said, we faced, when he is on, the best pitcher in the league. But we still should be able to put some balls in play, and we did not do that. Alex faced 19 Brewers, 11 Strikeouts (the 12th out was my mistake in sending Cody to the plate), and we got walked or hit by pitch 8 times. No balls put in play.

However, with speed, comes some wildness, and we were able to take advantage of that. And to our batters credit, we did get those walks. So our leading batters of the night were CJ with 3 plate appearances, 2 walks and 1 hit by pitch, and Schmidtty, with 2 plate appearances, and 2 walks.

Now on for what I really liked about the night. Great defense. We did not have an error. Grant pitched well against the Braves the first time we played, but didn't get much help from the defense. Tonite, error free. Spencer made a couple nice plays in front of the plate to throw runners out at first, he also had a great throw down to 2nd to start the game, enough to make their runner turn around, and then we ran a great pickle play (I think Mickey did the eventual tagging.) Will did his job at first on one chance there, Cody made a nice catch in windy conditions clear out in left field, and Jerald made a heck of a snag on a hard hit ball to close it out. And of course Mick was there to catch those throws, including the clincher, when Jerald's throw was a little on the low side.

Our pitching was great, obviously with the shutout. Jerald did a very nice job. Mickey pitched himself into and out of trouble in the 5th. I am not very keen about walks, especially with the bottom of somebody's order. Mickey looked a little off, despite striking out the first batter he faced in the 6th. So I brought Cody in, fresh off his good effort in Gilbert on Saturday.

Cody is Mr. Efficiency, he is averaging 2.3 pitches per batter on the year. That means he is not striking people out, he is letting the other team hit the ball, and our defense field it and get the outs. Good times.

I have not decided about practice on Friday. I need to talk to my coaches. Game on Saturday in SC. I will be sending out an email regarding the ICubs in the next day or so, with details. Thanks for your support this season, I really like the group of kids we have, and their good attitudes.