Contemplating the Crawdads

..... I'll never stop. (the offense? or this article?)

Had every intention to write this last night, but an 8 am tarp duty awaited. Great way to start the day.

For a game lasting 2:08, a lot happened and I hope I can remember it all.

The best part of the night, the offensive was finally rewarded with base hits for their line drives. As I wrote on Tuesday and Thursday, Hickory continued to hit the ball hard but had little to show for it. In the first two innings, it appeared as if the same script would repeat itself against Lakewood.

The Crawdads first batter, David Paisano, hit a rope that was caught by a leaping Jeremy Hamilton, who needed every one of his 6-foot one-inch frame to make the catch.

In the second inning, Hickory loaded the bases with one out, only to see Blue Claw pitcher Tyler Cloud strike out the 8th and 9th place hitters, Doug Hogan and Edward Martinez respectively.

The dam finally burst in the 3rd inning.

Paisano, eschewing the line drive, hit a ground ball just inside the bag at third for a stand up double. One out later, Eric Fry singles in Paisano and Mike Bianucci hit a screamer to left center for a double.

The coup de grace: Matt West broke the Crawdads nearly two week homerless streak with a no doubter shot to left to close a 4 run inning.

On the other side of the ledger Cliff Springston pretty well had his way with the Blue Claw lineup. He was perfect through three with only one hard hit liner to third.

Lakewood's first base runner, Anthony Gose, reached with one out in the 4th. Gose hit a grounder wide of first. Murphy fielded the ball cleanly, but when he went to make the underhand toss, Springston had not arrived to cover. Once the pitcher arrived, the rhythm of the play was clearly thrown off and Murphy's toss was past Springston, allowing Gose to reach.

This was one of those plays that under other circumstances may have been a hit (Gose seemed to beat Springston to the bag) and was originally scored as such. But, an inning later, with it being the only hit allowed, the play was changed to an error.

Then of course, after the scoring change, Lakewood responds with two hits and the 4th inning call becomes a moot point.

Despite the three errors on the board, including the one above, the defense was outstanding. In fact, continuing the 4th inning from Gose reaching: the next batter, Travis D'Arnaud hit a looping foul ball down the line. West sprinted back from his third base position and made the catch falling into the tarp. Gose, hoping to catch West napping, tagged and went to second. West alertly fired to second to double up Gose.

Back to Springston: Allowed 2 runs in the 5th, on three hits, but finished his 7 inning stint strong, throwing only throwing 70 pitches, striking out one and walking none. By my count, only 3 line outs, the remainders were ground balls or harmless fly balls

Cody Eppley was hit hard in his only inning of work-- a sprawling catch on the warning catch by Eric Fry to open up the inning wound up being huge as Lakewood scored a run, and could have had more, but perhaps the line drive curse that Hickory suffered under was passed on to the Blue Claws as they hit into a couple of tough outs.

Nevarez struck out the side in the 9th, allowing only a bloop single.

There was an ejection of Lakewood Blue Claw pitcher Esmelvin Jimenez, as home plate umpire Joel Myers felt that Jimenez was throwing at Bianucci..... on a curve ball. Apparenly an umpire who needed to be the focus of attention.

The win was needed, of course, but there is at time a focus issue on this team that is disturbing. Errors, of course, are a part of the game, and Hickory is clearly not a talented defensive team, but its other stuff that's happening is of concern.

Example: Edward Martinez picked up a hit in the 6th inning (incidently, the last Hickory safety of the night). He then proceeded to be picked off at first by the righthanded Tyler Cloud. Martinez never moved, as if frozen by a lefty at first..... this along with pitchers not covering first, or backing up third on a throw from the outfield, missing cut off men, throwing to the wrong base, etc.

There is obvious talent on the team, far superior to the 52-87 Pirate infested debacle of 2008, but there is talent on the other teams as well. The NWL season of 2008 is over and its time to get moving for this season.

... and sometimes you're the bug. And on Tuesday night, Hickory was the bug.

Took my annual visit to Kannapolis' Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium (named after the textile plant that no longer exists). A nice enough small town park with NO overhang for sun, rain, gloom of night. But on Tuesday night, no such thing was needed as it was as beautiful a night as you could ask. Unfortunately for Crawdads' fans, the evening would not fare well for the Hickory squad on the mound as the 'Dads lost 4-2.

The omen of what was to come started in the first inning. In the Hickory half of the first, David Paisano hits a hard ground ball up the middle; Drew Garcia ranges far to his right to make a diving stab and throw out Paisano. Edward Martinez reaches on a flare to left. After Jared Bolden strikes out, Mike Bianucci hits a laser to right, but at Intimidator rightfielder Sergio Morales. Two missles-- side retired.

For Kannapolis, Eduardo Escobar reaches on a 45-foot nubber up the third base line. Escobar then takes off for an attempted steal of second. With 2B Ogata covering, Garcia hits a bloop that barely makes the outfield lip of the grass, just past the reach of the retreating Ogata behind second base. After a strikeout, pitcher Jake Brigham hits Garcia with a pickoff throw that dribbles 10 feet away from 1B Clark Murphy; however, the ball was far enough away to allow Escobar to score.

Intimidator starting pitcher, lefthander Charlie Leesman, did a masterful of curtailing the Crawdads running attack all night. His quite deceptive move to first kept the Hickory runners close to the bag at the risk of being picked off. This led to a double play in the second, in which Matt West did not get a good jump from first to second, a pickoff of Martinez in the third, and another double play in the fourth.

Meanwhile, the Kannapolis offensive strategy of putting the ball in play and see what happens worked well. The Intimidators finished with 10 hits, none of them line drives. In fact, the most important piece of real estate at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium was the area in front of home plate. The dirt there must be made of brick, superball material, or something to cause the high hops that occured.

In the third inning, .116 hitter Jordan Cheatham opened the inning with a seeing eye single. He would steal second, moved to third on a sac bunt, then scored on a high chopper to Brigham that he had no choice but to wait for gravity to take its course, then retire the batter at first.

The other two runs for Kannapolis came courtesy of two more high hops, and a poor pitching sequence. With one out, Jorge Castillo hit a high one hop chopper to second that Jason Ogata played on an in between hop for an error. Brigham still had a chance to get out of the inning unscathed after a fly ball out. I's catcher John Curtis found the magic dirt spot again, as he hit a one hopper that bounced over 1B Clark Murphy's head to place runners at 1st and 3rd. Kenny Williams (yes, the White Sox GM's namesake and kid) hit a seeing eye single to score a run.

Now down 3-0, Brigham threw a four-pitch walk to the above mentioned .116 hitter. Escobar then hits a flare to left for an RBI single and a 4-0 deficit for the good guys.

In the 5th, Ogata hits one-out a triple past the diving CF, but is stranded. After scoring a run in the 6th and 7th to draw within 4-2, Hickory gets the trying runs aboard. However, the dreaded pickoff move by Leesman cuts down Paisano at first.

After throwing 102 pitches, Leesman is replaced by sidewider Drew O'Neal. O'Neal enters to walk the first batter, Jared Bolden, on four straight balls, none close. The next batter, Mike Bianucci, swings at the first strike of the inning, only to hit into a 6-3 double play. For all intents and purposes, that was the ball game, as the Crawdads went meekly afterwards.

For the second straight game, the worst hitting team in the Sally League entering the game (Kannapolis hitting .218) collected double digit hits off the best the Sally League has to offer (ERA 1.96). However, the ten hits were as follows. infield hit, bloop to second base area, ground ball, high bouncer past Murphy, bloop to left, bloop to left, bloop just past third, ground ball single to right, ground ball to right.... a very frustrating night.

Edward Martinez shortened his swing as he was content to serve a base hit in front of the shallow OFs. He left 3-4 with a single to left, center, and right

And last, but certainly not least: Martin Perez looked as good as he has in April. Martin used his fastball well, hitting corners and spotting it well, which made his off speed pitches much more effective. Was as aggressive in attacking hitters as I've seen him this year. Still has a problem closing out hitters. In the 6th inning. Perez had Tyler Kuhn 0-2, before needing 10 pitches to secure a ground out. In the 7th, had Jon Gilmore 0-2, surrendered a 10 pitch walk; had the next hitter, John Curtis 0-2, before he hit a ground ball single on the 7th pitch.

Hickory has a 10am start on Tuesday, so hopefully they will find Kannapolis still looking for sleep at this time of morning....

-Mark

(pictured, David Paisano)

Yeah, so I thought this game would have awesome weather from start to finish....well, that prediction was a bit off. During the first 4 innings we were dry, and enjoying a mountain lightning storm in the distance, but after 5 innings that lighting storm was directly overhead and it was time to run for shelter. Time for some observations from those 5 interesting innings.

The game opened with a thud. Here's my transcript from the first inning:

-Groundball to SS. Martinez overthrows Murphy. Error on the throw, man safe at 1st.
-Baserunner steals 2nd
-Bleier hits the batter. Men on first and second.
-Sac bunt laid down on third base line. Murphy misses the catch on a perfect throw. Error on Murph. Run Scored.
-Fly ball to RF. Bianucci catches the ball to record the out then unleashes a missile to get the tagging baserunner at the plate.
-Groundball finds it's way between the thirdbaseman and the SS. Single.
-Groundball out to SS.

The 5' 9" Edward Martinez committed his team leading 5th error in this inning. He's supposed to be a little guy that's a defensive wiz but a liability at the plate, but again I leave a game thinking Martinez's glove is overrated. It's not just the errors; in the games I have attended the guy has "stone hands." I have seen him knock down too many balls (hit right at him) rather than catching them. The guy is 21 now and needs to show more.

Bianucci has a track record of being barely average defensively. His outfield assist on the second out of the 1st inning really surprised me--really, really surprised me. He was at 3/4 depth when he caught the ball and threw a no-hop missile to the plate. Catcher Doug Hogan caught the ball over his head and applied the tag.

Murphy continues to look clumsy at 1B and struck out looking like he was confused. Murph did get a single later in the game and scored on the Hogan triple. The rollercoaster ride continues for Clark.

I got my first look at David Paisano this year. He missed the opening series as he traveled to mourn the death of a family member. I was impressed. First off, the dude runs like the wind. 'Runs' isn't the right word, he glides. He has a long stride and looks like one of those racing motorcycles as he leans at a 45 degree angle when turning at 1b. David had a very competent approach at the plate, fouling away bad pitches and waiting for good ones (compared to the younger players that flail at bad pitches and watch good ones go right into the glove without swinging). David is 21 now and I think this could be his year to start moving up if he can stay healthy. A ball did hit Paisano on the hand during his second AB but he stayed in the game and knocked an RBI single right up the middle later in the game.

One of my main goals this night was to watch Richard Bleier. First off, I have read reports saying that Richard throws his sinker as high as 91mph....on this night Bleier never touched above 83 on the stadium gun. Because the stadium gun is 3-4 mph slow, it's probably safe to say he was actually at 86-87 consistantly. Give the man credit though, he was crafty as a fox producing a groundball to flyout ratio of 10-2. Bleier used his curveball and slider very well. His curve ball moved more and more as the game went along. What started as a Millwood baby curve turned into a Zito-esque (well, probably not Zito-esque, but you get the idea) 12-6 curve by the end of the game. I am concerned about the velocity if it doesn't pick up. By the second time through the order, batters were sitting on that low to mid 80's sinker and hitting it hard (luckily right at waiting defenders). It was only Bleier's craftiness with his offspeed pitches that kept batters on their heels just enough. Bleier just turned 22 in April.

As if they knew the game would be called after 5 innings, the Hickory offense came alive scoring all three of their runs in the bottom of the 5th. 24 year old, Doug Hogan plated 2 runs on a triple off the CF wall. Paisano brought Hogan home on an RBI single up the middle.

Until next time, enjoy the only video I was able to capture, a somewhat boring AB by Mike Bianucci (who will probably be the first position player promoted). Nothing special here, but it's something to fill 1min of your weekend downtime.