The Friday night game I only heard bits & pieces of while on the road, but I got the chance to watch the entirety of the Saturday and Sunday games...and I came away very impressed. Lane Mestepey gave up one run over 5+ innings if I'm not mistaken in his first action in over one year...He didn't have the command that you'd like to see, but then again, he was busy shaking the rust off. I think that he's going to "re-blossom" so to speak, back into the pitcher we saw as an 18 and 19 year old young man for the Purple and Gold... In other pitching news, from what I saw, when Dirks has confidence in that big breaking ball he throws, he can be very effective. He also looks a LOT more mature than a 19 year old...He looks more like he just got off a 14 day shift on a rig out in the gulf or something. I was very impressed with this guy, and I hope that he can perhaps fill the gap as our Sunday starter. With what I saw out of Determan last year at the end, I'm guessing that he might be our midweek starter, and be the guy the prep if someone goes down to injury or suffers a bout of ineffectiveness. Nate Bumstead went right around 3 innings, and got into some trouble, and even gave up a tater, but hopefully, if he's not sore, his confidence will bloom and he will become-like Mestepey-more effective as the season wears on. I don't know if anyone else was watching, but it looked as if Nate was short-arming and holding off on his throws at first, and that's where a lot of his trouble came from. I think that's more of a confidence issue with the health of his arm being in question. Another example would be him shaking off all those signs in the early going. He got confident later on and actually started heaving it, and at one point, was overthrowing...All good signs. As for the bats, everyone here knows we're going to be okay...and fielding, the only question mark I see is Nacaratta's armstrength at third. That could be a problem, though his fielding to me seems to be a strength. The ONLY coaching problem I saw was Smoke trying to bunt early on Saturday. There was a wild pitch, and then the runner on first moved to second. Smoke STILL had the bunt on...Why? Was he thinking that the bunt would have moved the runner on first to third before the wild pitch? I guess that "small ball" stuff that crops up from time to time kind of puzzles me. With the sticks we've got, we truly have no need to take the bats out of our hitter's hands.
I was surprised because my dad and I went out to L.A. last year to watch the Long Beach St. series.......another early season road series and we played pretty bad in every way possible. Couldn't hit, field.......got picked off first base, etc etc. I thought the team last year was in for a trying time but came around. This team looks to be ahead of last years team anyway. But yeah, I was surprised at the lack or errors, base-running mistakes.......good sign.
Well, we did get picked off of second on Saturday early on... But, all in all, I think the relative comfort level with this team is much higher than last year. I think we might have pressed early on because we KNEW we were going to have to swing the sticks and put runs on the board because we had a lot of question marks out on the mound and in the bullie. This year, we know when we're up at the plate that we can relax, because we know we can swing it, but we've also got a plethora of healthy, young arms... I also think that another year under Laval adds to the relaxation level and overall comfort of the players in that system. The coaching staff also gets more comfortable, and that helps, too.
I think that was Patterson at the plate with Holt on base. I remember thinking why keep the bunt on and concluded that Patterson probably missed the sign taking the bunt off. I agree with your assessment of the 1st weekend.
I want to see Determan pitch...I think he will be the midweek starter...I think he can mature and challenge the weekend starting rotation... I also hope Nate's arm is not sore too bad today...
