Canes 8, Solano Storm 2 (Saturday, 4/4/2009)

Against the Storm our Canes came out Bangin'... Game time was 8 am, and by 8:05 we were up 3-0. With Vince Leon on the hill and in control, we scored in each of the first four innings and never looked back. At the end of 6, our Hurricanes proved to be too much as we took home a solid 8-2 victory.

If there were two defensive keys to this game, it would be pitching and outfield. Our boys in the outfield have been challenged many times this year as teams have tried to stretch the extra bag only to get gunned by one of our tremendous arms. If you saw yesterday's post, I gave it the name "Martinez Madness" ...Well, it was madness alright. Yet another poor kid tried to take an extra base on one of our young-guns and another poor kid is sent back to the dugout. This time one of the opposing coaches was sent home as well. I overheard CK Toribio say: "Why get mad at the umpire and get tossed?"  "...Just stop trying to run on us."  Well said, Toribio.

On the hill, Vince was ON. In three innings of work he walked only ONE batter, gave up only ONE run on ONE hit. The only runner that scored got on base by error (on Vince). Leon did all this and kept his pitch count down to 27 pitches. 9 pitches an inning is AWESOME...

Not only did Vince pitch well, but our boy Jordan Barnum came in and was Dealin' as well-throwing only 27 pitches over 3 innings while only giving up 3 hits, 1 run and ZERO walks. Nice.

At the plate, CK Toribio, Kaya Lacey, Jack Brydon and Devin Hurtado all crushed the ball in this game. CK, Dev and Jack had 2 hits a piece while Devin scored twice. Kaya blasted a monster double...

Please check the calendar for the upcoming games. Next tourney is in Manteca. I will have June and July schedule soon. Please be sure to remind me of any weekends that do not work for you in those months. 

Helmets and bags should be in soon. Hopefully something shows up before the 18th!

See you tonight.

 

  

Martinez madness

Overall, our Canes had a solid outing in Martinez this past weekend. Without question, we wanted to finish the weekend with a trophy and our "gameness" in the last game was proof. 

We just ran into a team that made fewer mistakes...

We finished by winning one and losing two.

Game one started out strong as we came out swinging and put up three runs in the first inning against the Solano Storm. Todd Porter set the tone by leaving his breakfast at first base on his way to an extremely "Gutsy" performance for the day, and the weekend. Our boys made a number of nice plays as we had some great, breakout performances by many. For the weekend, Vinnie Poole, Vince Leon and Todd Porter all received Hurricane MVP baseballs.

Vinnie had an all-around fantastic tourney as he was solid behind the dish by throwing out runners and by taking command of our pitchers. On offense, he was just as solid going 3 for 7 with a triple, a double, 3 RBIs and a run scored. Once again, Vin lead by example, hustled and made sure that everyone knew that he was one of the top players around.

Vince Leon earned his ball with his stellar defense. Vince only gave up 6 hits and 3 walks in 6 innings pitched over 2 days. He picked off 3 runners with his sweet move to first (and one to third) - he actually had a runner picked at second for the "pick cycle" but sailed it to center... Once the boy was finished on the hill, he went onto Center field and was inches from gunning a runner at first base!!!! His pitching, work in center and hustle gave him a great weekend to build on. Great work, kid.

Todd Porter won our "great team-mate" ball this weekend as his toughness, pride and hustle cut a great path for the rest of us to follow. His first at-bat of the weekend was a single to center, followed by a brief barf session at first. Yeah, you read that right. He was not feeling well and tossed his cookies once he reached first base. Due to an odd, misinterpreted rule, he could not come out of the game... If he did, he was an out. So what did he do? What do THINK he did!!! He's a Hurricane! He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, put his helmet back on and scored on the next base hit. He then came out later in the day and pitched two solid innings for us. Unbelievable. his performance and leadership was outstanding. He never complained once. Thanks Todd. Or should I call you Ralph?

I will have more individual game info posted tomorrow. I'm out of time!!

I hear we may be rained out tomorrow. Hope not. If we are, I will see you Friday.

Game time, WOO!!!!

Game times for this weekend are posted on this link:  http://usssabaseball.yuku.com/topic/1750

Waterfront Park - Martinez
Park phone number 925-372-3551

From 680, take the Marina Vista Exit. Stay on Marina Vista, Go right on Ferry St

Our first game is at 8am!!!! Please be there BY 7:15!!!

Puget Sound Shockers 14, Canes 7. (3/15)

Our Sunday afternoon game against the Shockers (who came all the way from Washington) was a little messy, but something to build on.

We jumped up early with 2 runs on 4 hits in the top of the 1st and showed some true grit and guts to battle hard throughout. With a score of 7-7 going into the bottom of the 5th, the Shockers proved to be a little much for us a they ran off 5 runs to seal our fate and send us packing. The Shockers looked imposing, but our Canes showed to be more physical as we hit the ball harder, ran faster and seemed to be more aware. In the end, it came down to throwing strikes and a few ill-timed errors. Overall, we hit well and ran bases well. 

The (offensive) stats tell the story:

Shockers= 11 singles + 6 walks + 4 Hurricanes errors... and only ONE strike out. 

Canes = 12 singles + 2 walks +  2 Shocker errors... and TWO strikeouts.

We OUT hit them! But the walks, errors and whiffs proved to be too much to overcome.

- Notice I said "singles"... Once we convert a few singles to doubles, triples and HRs, we will be golden.

Once again, this Shocker team was solid. All the teams we played this weekend were very good, well coached teams. Although we came up short in all but one game, there has been some wonderful improvement.

Vinnie Poole, Roman Reed and Jordan Barnum each had 2 hits.

CK Toribio was 1 for 1 with a walk.

Kaya Lacey was 1 for 1 with a walk.

Vinnie drove in 2 runs and scored twice.

I must say, Mr. Poole has been straight raking the ball! This reminds me...

Starting this week, We will have "Tournament MVP" balls to give out. They will be given out based on offensive and defensive play, awareness, leadership and the plain-old gut feeling of your fearless leader...

Also this week, I am awarding game tokens to anyone who gets an extra-base hit. It

 must be legitimate; a single and a throwing error that lands our batter on second base does not count!!!!

When we win our first tournament, Vinnie's dad J.R. has pledged to allow the boys to shave his head. 

PYB Crushers 7, Canes 1. (3/15)

Hit.... If you were to ask a thousand people what wins baseball games, 90% of fans, players and coaches would say pitching. The other half would say hitting. for those of you paying attention, that is a new twist on an old joke...

Our boys really have played well lately. We may not "hitting" on all cylinders, but much of the sloppiness has passed.  In this game against the Crushers our bats were quiet and we had trouble with finding the plate. Anytime we have trouble throwing strikes, we could have a long day... Well, we had a long day. To make things worse, the Crushers only walked  2 and spread 2 errors among 3 hits in 6 innings. We issued 4 walks and 7 hits and tried to hide them somewhere within TWO innings. It really doesn't work th

at way. 

I'm not sure if our boys knew, but the Crushers were actually coming up and trying to hit from the opposite side of the plate... But I knew. We will not say or do anything at this point, but we will remember it. We will remember it and use that memory as a tool. We knew coming in that we would get bounced for a bit.We just need to learn from it. We will.

We will get our walks down, attack the baseball, play smarter, be faster and show more all-out hustle. 

Luck = hard work +opportunity.

Please don't get me wrong, talking about the negative is not something that I try make a habit of. Remember the lean times and never let it leave your memory. Motivation comes from many different places. If ever in the future we need a little more motivation, we can draw from some of our tougher games. This, was one of them.

CK was 1 for 2 with a walk

Vinnie was 1 for 2 with a walk

Jack was 1 for 3 

Justin was 1 for 1 with a run scored.

Our boys are learning more and more baseball each day. Many of them are right where they should be at this point, and at this age. The wins will come over time.

It could be worse... We could be Cubs fans.

Canes 7, Muckdogs 3 (3/14)

 Game two on Saturday and we looked like a completely different team. We won the toss and unconventionally, we chose to be visitors. Why? I don't know. I guess it just felt good. When we are hitting, I love to hit first to intimidate the other squad by starting the game with a whole gang of runs. So don't ask what I was thinking as we had exactly ONE HIT in the morning game...

But it worked.

Jordan Barnum led off with a single. Todd Porter dropped a bunt for a hit, then CK Toribio grounded to short and scored Jordan. Vinnie Poole drilled a base hit down the left field line to score Todd. Nice. Up two runs before the Muckdogs even warm up.  On Dee, Todd pitched extremely well to hold back the dogs as when he left in the fourth, we were up 3-2 as he scattered 4 hits and two walks in front of a very sound defense that played the entire game with ZERO errors. Jack Brydon closed out the final two innings on the hill striking out 2.

In the end, The Canes led the whole game and played solid through out. On offense, we swung at good pitches to hit and drove the ball. We ran bases well, never missed a sign and executed a few very nice bunts.  Defensively,  we made plays. In the first inning Jelani laid out for a ball down the line, picked it up, fired to Jordan who fired to Torin who then laid a quick tag on the runner trying to squeeze a double for the second out of the game. Our boys may not know how big this was- No other runners even attempted to try for two for the rest of this game... We only walked 2 runners. 

This was our best all around game as a squad.

Jack was 3 for 3 with a double and two runs scored.

Daniel Gates was 2 for 3 with a triple, an RBI and a run scored.

Vinnie went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs

Todd was 2 for 3 with a run scored and and RBI

Jordan went 2 for 4 with two runs scored.

Justin was 1 for 3 with a run scored.

Slammers 9, Canes 0 (Saturday, 3/14)

Saturday's opener seemed to be a typical opener for us as of late. It took us until the 6th inning to come out of a deep sleep. Too bad the game didn't go 6 innings. Our Canes went down without much of a fight to a good Slammers team, 9-0. 

 Our boys really didn't play all that bad - We just didn't hit and gave up a few too many hits and walks on defense.

Roman had our only hit as we only managed to get 2 runners on board with nobody even reaching second base.