The NW Regional game

Well, I couldn't stand it anymore and just had to score a game! Withdrawal is a terrible thing!

So, I sat and watched the entire Idaho vs Hawaii game, and I must admit, it was a very exciting game and a lot of fun to watch. Its too bad both teams couldn't advance, but that's what its all about.

I must say, I did have ulterior motives in scoring the game. I was very interested in seeing how the real studs would do under my kind of scrutiny. On the whole, I think the starting pitchers did pretty well, but they certainly weren't any better than any one of a 100 kids I've seen throw at that age. But, let's see how they did anyway.

I didn't run the sheets through my program, but I think I'm still able to use a calculator! Although I did the best I could, without actually being there, its pretty tough to determine how far a pitch actually misses the location. So, I was pretty generous and unless I saw the catchers glove move substantially more than 1 full glove to get the ball, I counted it as hitting the location. I'm more than will to admit I could be off 10% either way.

I'm also willing to admit that I could be off on the curves too, but again, its really tough to say from a TV picture. If I say the ball with a big hump or actually saw it move, it was marked as a curve.

I have to admit that it was pretty unusual for both team's pitcher to throw exactly 100 pitches, but it sure made it easier.

The Hawaii pitchers:

27 batters
Earned runs - 0
Strikes - 42
Hit strikes - 22
Balls - 34

Strike % - 64% 64/100
1st pitch strike % - 67% 18/27
Pitches hitting location - 39% 39/100
Curves - 64% 64/100

The Idaho pitchers:

29 batters
Earned runs - 5
Strikes - 42
Hit strikes - 19
Balls - 39

Strike % - 61% 61/100
1st pitch strike % - 52% 15/29
Pitches hitting location - 48% 48/100
Curves - 39% 39/100

The curve percentages were kind of skewed. The Idaho starter threw 39-78 while the reliever never threw one. the Hawaii starter threw 38-71 while the reliever threw curves almost exclusively 26-29.

Please don't critique my math skills, I did the best I could. I also did the best I could trying to pick up locations and types on TV.

Just a couple of comments.

1) The announcers must not have been watching the same game I was! When Tom Candiotti made the comment about how surprised he was that the pitchers could call such good games by themselves was laughable. Evidently he didn't notice the catchers looking at the dugouts before every pitch or the batters asking for time several times because it took so long to get the pitch from the coach.

I was very happy to hear though that Mr. Candiotti did think the battery calling their own pitches was very important to the development of pitchers and catchers. Thanx Tom! Almost 20 years of ML pitching must have taught you something!

2) It really looked pretty darn stupid for a coach wearing a mike on live national TV to have his pitcher tell him he had given it all he had and should come out the next inning, and then the coach send him right back out!

I would think in a game of that magnitude, ol' coach KnowItAll would at least have had one of the kids on the bench start warming up right then! Preferably, I would have thought he'd have pulled the kid who eventually came in and had him heatin' up as hard and fast as he could and then re-entered him, but by that time he had blown his substitute wad.

But even at that, knowing the kid was tired, he could have had the other kid warming up while they batted, to at least get him loose. Think about the enormity of what that kid did when he told the coach he had, had enough. I don't know about other kids, but if my kid had said that in that situation, there's no way in the world he would have thrown even one more pitch! that's as close as any kid will ever come to quitting and that coach should have listened!

I was actually very proud of that boy to say that in that situation! He was thinking of his team, but I don't know what the coach was thinking of! To send him out there and to have him take the loss with his twin brother trying to save the game was absolutely criminal! What do you think that kid and his brother are gonna remember for the rest of their lives?

3) This one is a leap based on purely circumstantial evidence, but I think it shows how parents get upset around All Star time.

That Idaho coach's son looked like a poster boy for nepotism or the dreaded CSS! That young man looked like a deer caught in the headlights and his swing looked more like that of a decent 9 YO than an 11-12 YO All Star! I just can't believe that he was the 12th best player in his league, and my guess is that right now in Idaho there are at least a few parents of kids who didn't get to go because the coach put his own kid on the team that are more than a bit upset!

Again, I may be totally wrong, and I'm not trying to say the kid stinks, but judging by the evidence of the head coach's kid not being a starter, which is very unusual at this level, and how terrible he looked, I'd say my guess is pretty good.

4) Although I didn't even try to track it, I'd estimate that although those pitchers who threw curves didn't do that badly, not more than 20% of the curves were actually in the strike zone and quite a few of the ones that were got hit pretty well.

Batters swinging at pitches that were horribly out of the zone coupled with the umpire who even the great announcers said was calling a very big strike zone, made those kids look a lot better than they were.

in fact, if it wasn't for some pretty darn nice fielding plays and a couple of catchers who looked like they'd been pretty well schooled, the game could have easily had a lot more scoring.

But all that analysis which really proves little aside, it was a great game! It was pretty easy to see how those kids have gotten that far. I wish I could shake the hand of every winner and put my arm around the shoulders of every loser and tell him how proud he'd made an old baseball fan!