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After making about 10 errors at third base in the first inning which led to 8 runs, I ended up going 0-for-3 for the day with a walk and a HBP. I’m pressing too much at the plate, in the field, and I’m not 100% on the mound. I’ll be going to Cleveland for a wedding and some sorely needed time off for 13 days starting on Monday, which I think will help me a lot.

I digress. I came on to pitch in the sixth and allowed three runs over three innings, walked four, and struck out one. If you guessed that Jacob is the lone strikeout, you would be right! In fact, I threw him a 1-2 curveball that got him swinging.

The PSSBL Mariners is suffering from attrition - people aren’t showing up, the arms on the team are getting worn down (mine included), and the morale is low because of a few other reasons. It’ll be good to get away from organized baseball for two weeks. I’ve been training hard all year and the first 75% of the year was excellent - I saw major strides in hitting, fielding, and pitching. However, over 100 AB’s, 40 IP’s, and countless pitching/hitting lessons later in just a few months, I’m too burnt out on baseball to compete at 100%.

See you in a few weeks, readership.

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Not much time to write, but I can’t wait for the game tomorrow (today, I guess) vs. the Saints. I’ll probably pitch in relief over Bobby, which has worked out well this year. He and I both like to work quick and set up batters in much the same manner, so it’s great to follow his lead.

Jacob’s not seeing a curveball, despite what he says. He’s going to see my best fastball and changeup. I might save something for him the second time through.

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So after 10 days of complete rest, my shoulder is starting to feel better.  I really strained something, but after throwing long toss with Kyle the other day, it responded very well.  It’s weak, but not too painful.  I’ve started doing light tube work daily again, and it has been very helpful.

On to the surprise.

So I got an email from the team that’s playing against Kyle’s Mariners on Saturday night.  Seems like they need players, and sore shoulder or not, I can’t pass up an opportunity to smash Kyle’s weak-ass curveball!  If he doesn’t get me with his awesome change, of course.  The team that I’ll be playing for is the Saints (same uni’s as the Northern League team in St. Paul) and one of my teammates from the Sox catches for them.  I can’t wait, I haven’t played ball in almost a month.

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Our game at Bannerwood (great field, by the way) for the PSSBL Mariners went extremely well today. John started on the hill and only allowed two runs over five innings. I entered the game in the sixth with a one run lead and finished it off, allowing 1 earned run (1 unearned run as well) on 1 hit, 4 walks, and 3 strikeouts. The defense played extremely well today (just a few minor errors) with two baserunner kills/pickoffs, and our hitting picked up in a big way in the seventh. We ended up winning 8-4, so I think I picked up a four-inning save!

The game with Nandemoya is fairly uninteresting except for the fact that we lost to a team who were a bunch of jerks just like our opponents, the Sox, in the PSSBL game. It’s not worth getting riled up about.

So, today my stats looked like:

Hitting: 2-for-5, BB, RBI, R
Pitching: 4 IP, 1 ER, 1 H, 4 BB, 3 K

Stats in summation:

Hitting Stats:
.353/.438/.482 over 89 PA / 85 AB
30 H, 9 2b, 1 3b, 12 RBI, 14 R, 8 SB, 8 K, 6 BB, 3 HBP

Pitching stats:
2-2, 1 SV, 6.94 ERA
33.7 IP, 20 H, 32 BB, 18 K, 26 ER

I’ve started a coaching over the Internet program with a known professional instructor who’s putting me on his pilot program. The cost is great, and we’re both going to learn a lot. I have a lot of flaws the need to be addressed, but I think before we even start to list them (bat drag, hip slide, oh wait…) I need to understand how a professional swing even looks like and works, broken down piece by piece.

At the beginning of the season I came out of the gates slicing doubles to the gap, stealing bases, and hitting for serious power and contact. I’ve regressed some, and not all of it can be attributed to luck, but it’ll be good to have that mental and psychological feeling back once I finish my lessons and continue to get more and more work in - which will be easier now, since my workload at the office has been diminished and I purchased a tee and a hitting net to go with my bucket of balls. I still get some running in as well (usually 2 miles), and I’m on a weight lifting program, but I’m trying to cut weight before I head back to Cleveland for my best man’s wedding. Hopefully I can wrap all this up without interfering with my in-season workouts and games!

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Well, my first injury as a ballplayer couldn’t have been timed better.  Yesterday I was diagnosed with tendonitis in my shoulder, and my honeymoon is scheduled for this week.  Hopefully everything will heal well and in time to help my team during the tail end of the season and playoffs.  It had been troubling me for a few weeks now, and backing off of throwing and just doing tubes wasn’t helping it.

I don’t even have to go to physical training, just discontinue tubes for a week and get on some anti-inflammatories.  Realistically, this wasn’t too bad; but I want to make sure I’m pitching when I’m 50, so I listen to every little thing my body tells me.

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Here’s a clip of one of my students:

This is excellent connection through the ball. He opens his hips early and gets the bat down and across the chest in the slot position, ready to unload. The only big thing he needs to work on is better hip/torso separation. Otherwise, I am thrilled with this swing - he’s come a long way, and he works extremely hard. I’m proud to be his coach, but not too proud to say that his swing is probably better than mine at this point!

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Here’s a still frame from live batting practice in a cage:

There’s a lot of ugly stuff going on in the video I took, so I don’t want to totally embarrass myself, but this is a major problem in my swing. It’s called “bat drag,” and it occurs when the swing gets too long or when the elbows get out in front of the bat. The malfunction in the swing is caused by torquing the hands/arms too early, rather than getting the bat out in front by cutting it across your chest. I hate the phrase “take the knob of the bat to the ball,” since it defeats a ton of rotational hitting theory (which is what I subscribe to and see in most good MLB hitters), but nevertheless it is applicable here.

Other flaws in my swing include hip slide after footplan. This will cause lost power and poor perception of the baseball in flight.
But enough with the bad (for now), on with the good! I have been trying to change a lot of my pitching mechanics for the past few weeks to help my control and my velocity, and I finally have clicked a bit on both issues. I’ll post a detailed gamelog later, but I went two innings the other day, striking out one, walking two, and allowing no hits while throwing almost all fastballs. The hitters were telling me that they were behind the fastball because all of my outs occurred on weak popups to the infield or short outfield. It was a real good shot to my confidence.

Without further ado, here’s a clip that I liked that showed improved velocity:

This clip is slowed down to 1/10 seconds per frame (I think). Here’s what I changed:

• Carry more momentum from leg kick apex to footplant
• Drift through the balance point
• Delay the arm and feel the disconnection between the body and the arm to produce the “whip” effect

Now, is this image perfect? Definitely not. My long, loopy arm action sucks, and I’m still getting into the high cocked position too early. However, the improvements are significant - I’m throwing much harder and my curveball grip is coming along nicely. What I need to work on in the future is breaking the hands later, speeding up the body more, drifting through the balance point more, and developing a more “elbowy” arm action instead of taking it straight back.

After studying this animated image sequence, it’s also very evident that I pronate extremely well after throwing the ball, which is really good news for my elbow. I’m happy I don’t have to teach myself this.

Here’s the full side session video. I think the increase in velocity on the fastball is markedly improved. Yes, I am telegraphing the off-speed pitches, but that’s the least of my concerns at this point.Pitches in order:

1. Four-seam fastball
2. Overhand curveball
3. Two-seam gyroball

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Tuesday’s game was at Eastlake High School at 6 PM without any lights. Great idea, PSSBL…

Anyway, I had a less than stellar day at the plate, going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against hard-throwing righties that had good breaking balls. The good news is that I pitched two innings with a final line of 2 IP, 1 K, 2 BB, 0 H, 0 ER. My stuff was the best it’s been all year, and all my pitches were fastballs with the exception of the strikeout with my curveball. The catcher was a last-minute replacement (our first baseman), and he dropped the strikeout pitch allowing the runner to reach first base, so we went with all fastballs after that.

A mechanics post is forthcoming with the details of my delivery as I continue to tinker with it, but I’m really happy with the progress so far. There are things that have to change, sure, but I’ve made a giant leap in the past week.

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I am fully aware of the videos being down and the account being suspended - it is due to the fact that I uploaded MLB.tv clips in the past. YouTube refuses to unlock my account despite my assertions that it won’t happen again, so I’ve temporarily lost all the older videos.

I’ve already opened a new YouTube account, and I’ll be uploading selected archived videos from my computer as well as the newer ones.

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