One of those nights

One of those nights at the ball yard. As Paul said during the post game huddle, we've had favorable things happen before, and they didn't happen tonite.

There are some things that I did find a bit bothersome. And they bit us. A lot of it revolves around a lack of practice. We have not had situational practice for awhile, and we had a couple cases of not knowing what to do with the ball when hit to them.

Something you may be unaware of. In the beginning of the year, I encouraged the boys to play catch with their buddies, and if not that, watch some baseball on tv, or investigate the MLB, and in particular the Brewers on the internet. Two games ago in the pregame huddle I offered the starting pitching position to anybody on the team who could name a MLB Brewers pitcher (I exempted Jerald cause I know he likes the Brewers). Nobody could name one. That irked me a little. (Mickey at least came up with a Brewers pitcher from last year)

On the batting side, our attempts to walk our way to victory also got us. Now, I am not complaining about the umpiring, but the zone tonite did not work in our favor. I have no doubt our pitchers have surrendered the fewest walks in the league. And I would say our batters currently have a reasonable view of the strike zone. But a huge strike zone works against us, because our pitchers lose the advantage of their ability to hit the zone, while the other teams give up walks. We only walked twice tonite.

But I am not going to fault our kids for some of the strikes they took. Ya chalk it up to one of those nights. Our first 7 strikeouts were all looking. We are not that bad of a batting team. Our guys do that occasionally, but the first 7 is definitely an anomaly.

We did have some good things tonite. Ed had a nice catch of a line drive at 3rd. CJ made a nice catch in CF. Cody, Mickey, and Spencer all had nice base hits.

But credit to the Orioles too. They hit the snot out of the ball, and their catcher and shortstop each had very good defensive nights. They made the plays, we didn't.

And just like that, the regular season is done. With the loss, and unless the Braves totally collapse, we are not going to win the regular season, so we will be playing in the local year end tournament. And I like that too. So pretty much plan on playing Friday night, May 12 in SC or Roland.

Now, you will be seeing a little change in how the Brewers are operated. It has nothing to do with our loss tonite, it would be the same thing had we won 20-0. With our next loss, we are done with the season. I don't particularly want that, as I enjoy this team, and I enjoy playing baseball. So during the regular season I like to move guys around a little bit.

But the team will now become a bit more of a meritocracy. The guys will be playing where the coaches feel they can best help the team continue to keep playing. And one of the places for that to earn some merit is the practices we will be having. If I can confirm field space, it will be on Wednesday night in Roland. Not a done deal yet, but stay tuned to this space and your email for details.

And a bad night on the baseball field still beats a good night of soccer.