The question that most begs to be asked after the Salem-Kaizer Volcanoes completed their mini-series sweep on the Vancouver Canadians is, are the Volcanoes the hottest team in the NWL right now, or is Vancouver just coming back to their natural level?
I guess both could be the case, or it could be a case of neither - even the Devil Rays sweep a series once in a while.
Two errors and a double play were the difference in this ball game, which gives Canadians fans reason to be encouraged, while at the same time giving cause for concern.
The C’s squad is not one that has been drafted without attention paid to defense - in fact, in recent years Billy Beane has put a premium on drafting players who aren’t ball fumblers, knowing full well that with the big club being short on power, groundball pitching and solid D is the key to staying competitive.
So why have the Canadians, stacked with new recruits picked with D in mind, commited 45 errors in 35 games?
The most likely reason is complacency - when your pitching shuts out team after team for weeks on end, it’s easy to start standing on your heels rather than your toes, or take chances you might otherwise not take. And when you notch up one error, what are you thinking about the next time the ball comes to you? "Don’t miss this one… come on, don’t miss this one."
Let’s look at who has the dropsies in this Vancouver roster:
Wilber Perez (2B) 7
Justin Sellers (SS) 7
Isaac Omura (2B) 5
Jeff Baisley (3B) 5
Wes Long (3B) 4*
Steve Kleen (1B) 3
Zeke Parraz (SS) 2**
Travis Buck (RF) 2***
* has only appeared in 13 games
** has only appeared in 4 games
*** has only appeared in 6 games
Clearly, when you look over that list, the Canadians are having issues in their infield. Granted, the infielders have to deal with a lot more hot-shots than the outfield does, which normally makes their errors stats a little inflated, but these guys are making easy errors right now that must be sending the pitching staff into fits.
Last week, in back to back innings, Wilber Perez fumbled one ball, and then watched a rolling grounder take a bad bounce that sent it over his head. Isaac Omura, last week, not only fumbled and missed balls, but also made non-stat errors, such as not going in hard for a tag and watching a base-stealer slide around his glove to safety.
Which, of course, would all be just nitpicking if it wasn’t for the fact that things didn’t start out this way.
In fact, in the first month of the season, the C’s were strong on their D and the pitching was loving it. With a team ERA of 2.30, Vancouver’s pitching and fielding was winning ballgames, even when the hitting couldn’t score more than a run a game, and the base-running was dire.
But now the C’s are league leaders, which means other teams are playing harder to beat them, and the Vancouver side were perhaps beginning to feel a little untouchable in response.
This last series, which they lost 3-0, seems to have demonstrated a sense of non-urgency in the team at times, as if they were saying… "oh well, we’re still leading the league by 5 games… I mean 4 games… okay, now it’s only 3 games…"
I know the players read this blog, so guys, if you listen to only one piece of advice from me all season long, try to make it this one:
"Catch the ball. Throw the ball. In that order."
Tonight’s game saw Jimmy Shull on the mound, with a 2-0 record and a 1.37 ERA, against a Volcanoes starter who was every bit as competitive. Sergio Romo brought into the game a 2-0 record, and an 0.72 ERA, and even his K:BB ratio was pretty similar to Shull’s - his being 24:7, with Shull coming in with a 24:1
It truly looked like a battle of the giants, but with the C’s having crumbled over the last few days, the Vancouver fans needed The Shullacker to be at his finest.
And indeed he was over the opening two innings, notching up 4 K’s on 7 batters faced, and cruising into the 3rd with the scores blanked.
At the other end, Romo was having issues of his own. The 2nd inning saw Vancouver leave two men on base, and in the 3rd, a Salem-Kaizer error had seen Chalon Tietje get on base with two outs, before stealing 2nd, and coming home on a Justin Sellers single to left.
The only hindrance to that plan? The arm of Volcanoes left fielder Charlie Babineux Jr, which rocketed a throw home to the catcher and caught Tietje at home plate. It was a solid play, the kind you need after your shortstop has let the other team into the game on an error. But then it all went pair-shaped for Vancouver, as Jimmy Shull did something he hasn’t done all season long… he got shullacked.
Single, double, RBI single, RBI single.. It took a 1-4-3 double play to stop the bleeding in the end, giving Salem-Kaizer a 2-0 lead going into the 4th.
Travis Buck can hit baseballs. This has been the layman’s scouting report, brought to you by Vancouver Community College.
Fastball inside, Buck turns on it, ball leaves park over right field wall. And that, my friends, is why they pay 1st round draft picks $1.5m.
As Shull came back to the mound to right the wrongs of the previous inning, you had to think this game was wide open. Shull, after all, hasn’t got himself a strikeout to walk ratio of 24:1 by throwing back to back stinker innings. But when you give up a single, a wild pitch, a walk and a sac bunt on no outs, the word ’stinker’ starts to hang over your head (no Anthony Recker jokes, please). And when your first baseman tosses the ball away on the next play, allowing two runs to score, that word is officially tattooed on your ass.
4-1 Salem-Kaizer, and suddenly it’s all starting to look a lot like a blow-out.
Vancouver left two on in the next inning, before Shull came out again, hoping that his head would clear and his arm would send flames through the strikezone. Alas… Double, hit by pitch, single - run scores. 5-1 to the bad guys, and only the good graces of the double play gods kept the deficit that small when Travis Buck took a screaming scatch in right field and hurled the ball in to double up S-K shortstop David Maroul.
Now, yesterday we discusses the phenomonon of minor league pitching scheduling. That is, that instead of deciding who will pitch by situation, the decisions on who will come in, and when, are essentially made in Oakland. Sure, Lefty Lefferts pulls the strings, but if the big club is interested in seeing if Shull’s ready for Kane County, then Shull will be told he’s staying in for a sixth inning, even if he’s been getting tattooed. Results be damned.
And so, while most of us listening on the (ever improving ) Canadians webcast were pulling out large tufts of hair, yelling "take him out!", Shull was sent back to the mound like a revolutionary to a firing squad. He gave it his all - he really did - but when you’re being pounded, it’s really hard to ignore the guy standing on 1st and just stick to the basics.
When Shull walked the lead-off batter, essentially doubling his season’s base on balls tally, all the signs were there that he was in big trouble.
Mark Minicozzi singled, a wild pitch pushed both runners into scoring position, and a walk loaded the bases good and proper. A force-out scored one run, a single scored another, and Shull was on the way to the showers, perhaps a little Shull-shocked, and with a suddenly non-superhuman ERA of 2.84.
In came Jose Corchado, who has the unusual distinction of being near unhittable, yet entirely unreliable. Corchado is a totally emotional pitcher, meaning if he walks a guy (or even gets a few bad ball calls from the ump) he begins to freak out. Nothing too weird, you understand, but he leaves the mound, walks around, and thinks WAY too much about what he’s doing.
In the words of Crash Davis, "Don’t think, Meat, it’ll only hurt the ballclub."
Today, Corchado didn’t think. Today he threw hard, and the Volcanoes hitters winced. Strike out, end of inning, Volc’s lead 7-1.
Ultimately Corchado would throw two beautiful innings of pitching, showing the ability that had him in Stockton earlier this year before he started to panic himself out of ballgames. By the time he was hooked to give an inning to the always nasty Dangerous Bradley Davis, Corchado had taken nearly a run off his ERA.
If he can throw like that another four or five times, he may well find himself back in Kane County faster than you can say "steee-rike."
Top of the 8th and the game is lost… right? Well, not necessarily. Chalon Tietje likes the lead-off role, and though Mike Massaro and Justin Sellers have been shifted in to the lead off spot with more and more frequency of late, when Tietje is given a shot, he invariably makes good use of it. ‘Sweet Chal’on Mine’ (gimme the Satan horns, Guns’n'Roses fans!) is the kind of player who doesn’t make ridiculous superstar plays, but does just about everything to a high level of efficiency. He’s a quiet achiever, but his determination and efficiency make him a valuable member not only of this line-up, but also of the clubhouse.
In 2004, Tietje gathered a reputation by season’s end for clutch-hitting that didn’t just win ballgames for the C’s, it got them over the line to the Western Division title. I lost count of how many times Tietje would knock one off the wall to drive in two or three runs and bring the Canadians into the lead, or force extra innings, or avoid the third out of a comeback inning. And in early 2005, he lit up Kane County, mashing a .300+ average while the rest of the team languished.
But something happened to Chalon’s swing, he drifted to a .280 average, then a .250, and when draft picks came a-knocking, Tietje was brought back to V-Town to be the ‘calm head’ of the clubhouse. So when you need something special and Chalon Tietje is leading off the inning, you pretty much know that if there’s a chance of a comeback, he’s going to be shooting for it.
Top of the 8th, Rickey Putman (1-1, 9.95) comes in to relieve for Salem-Kaizer, and a change in mood is suddenly afoot. New blood on the mound equals blood in the water, especially when he has an ERA like that, and Tietje’s been around long enough to know that if you can rattle a shaky reliever early, you can see him off quick, though not before you’ve put a few more runs on his record.
Putman sends in a change-up, Tietje dribbles it past the pitcher up the middle and turns on the afterburners. Minicozzi gathers in the ball, but he can do nothing to get an out as Sweet Chal’on Mine stomps the bag on his way through. At this point, anyone who knows Chalon Tietje knows that, one way or another, he’s coming home for a run. He will not be denied.
Sellers flies out to right for the first out, but Travis Buck knows what’s going on when he arrives at the plate, so he flat out refuses to swing for anything that isn’t a bona fide strike, and duly draws a walk. Here comes the comeback.
Up next is Jeff Baisley, the man with a swing "like buttah", who drills a grounder through the hole into left, and Tietje guns it from 2nd. He rounds 3rd like a bullet train, and he ain’t stopping for signals, crossing the plate in quick time as the Volc’s elect to hold Buck at 2nd.
Haas Pratt, hitting 0-3 for the night, must have been tempted to swing for the fences and be a hero of the hour, but he’s much smarter than that, and with Putman not seeming to want to give the meat of the order anything to really swing at, Pratt draws a patient walk to load the bases.
Oh yes, now we’re smoking - bases loaded, one out - hold your hats, ladies, the Canadians are coming home with a wet sail!
Unfortunately, the Volcanoes coaches can also see where this is going, so they pull their pitcher out, replacing him with the 0-0, 1.74 ERA Alexander Hinshaw. Note: This was a situational change if I’ve ever seen one. No leaving Putman out to dry, no risking it that he might work his way out - the Volcanoes wanted the win, and they were sending out guns that could earn it.
Vancouver coach Juan Navarrete is a gamer, so he decided to call Salem-Kaizer’s hand and put in his own hired gun.
With a lefty on the mound, J-Nav pulled the left-handed Chad Boyd, sending in the towering righty Steve Kleen (.270) to clear the bases.
And clear the bases he did. By hitting a shot into center that Minicozzi stretched for, before spearing the ball into 2nd where he caught Jeff Baisley too far off the bag. Inning over, S-K leads 7-2, and that just has to hurt.
A clean bottom of the 8th from Dangerous Davis brought Hinshaw back for the close, but if you think this Vancouver team aren’t looking to win even the games they’re being hammered in, you’ve got another thing coming.
Leading off, Jose "Can You See" Garcia, who invites Hinshaw to throw strikes that the big pitcher simply doesn’t want to throw, leading Garcia to duly amble to 1st on a walk. Catcher Shawn Callahan didn’t waste any time after him, dispatching Hinshaw into right field to put Garcia on 2nd and the crowd began to look nervous. Wilber Perez flew out to the unfortunately named center fielder Joe Dyche (does he carry his sweats in a ‘dyche-bag’?), but then came Chalon Tietje up to the plate.
Remember how I said Tietje is clutch? Well, when the count is at 1-2 and a fresh-armed 1.74 ERA pitcher is throwing at you, clutch isn’t an easy thing to be. Especially 5 runs down in the top of the 9th. Yet, somehow, Tietje maintained his composure and watched Hinshaw miss high, then high and outside, and then low for ball four. The gutsy team leader had stood pat against the firestorm, refusing to take his bat off his shoulders, and the bases were now loaded with Justin Sellers up to bat.
Did I mention Sellers was playing high school ball a few months ago?
Strike three, Travis Buck up to bat.
You know what makes the difference between a regular minor leaguer and a 1st round draftee? The 1st round draftee can go 0-2 in the count and STILL draw a walk.
Ball. Foul tip. Ball. Ball. In the dirt, run scores, and the tying run is at the plate.
Jeff Baisley, the pride of Land’O'Lakes, the guy who had hit a solo homer at Nat Bailey in the bottom of the 11th to keep his team in the game just a few weeks back, only to walk in the winning run in the bottom of the 13th, was taking his stance and readying himself for glory.
This was it!
We would sit in silence as Baisley would drill a grand slam, or a deep double that scored three, or a gutsy walk that would bring the team within striking range. Baisley is the king. Jeff Baisley would win this game for us all!
Fastball - strike one.
Change-up - strike two.
Change-up - ball one.
Change-up - Baisley swings - the ball goes through to the catcher - yer out.
Salem-Kaizer wins a game that the C’s were one hit away from taking back, sweeping the series and really pissing off every single Canadians player because, damn it, Salem-Kaizer is NOT that good. What really hurts about this game is that it was errors and a hung-out-to-dry pitcher that lost it. What really hurts about yesterday’s game is that it was errors and a hung-out-to-dry pitcher that lost it.
What hurts about the series? I bet you can guess.
Road trip to Boise tonight, which will suck for the players, but at least they’re out of Volcano country for a while. The Salem-Kaizer side has the top three hitters for average in the NWL in their line-up at present, in William Thompson (.372), Mike Mooney (.364), and Pedro Sandoval (.331), which is a murderers row at this level, but none of them outright killed Vancouver’s pitching, rather Vancouver killed their pitching with fundamental errors and lapses of judgement.
We’re better than this, and Boise will find that out the hard way.
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Game Notes:
* Take away Tietje, Sellers, Buck and Baisley, and the rest of this Vancouver team had a total of one hit between them. Shawn Callahan, the back-up catcher (or is it back-up to the back-up?) managed that at a time when it was needed, but Pratt, Boyd, Garcia and Perez looked uncomfortable all night. Boyd in particular is in a definite slump at present, having not managed a hit since July 21st, but he’ll surely bust out soon.
* Travis Buck, who rules, continued his amazing batting performance since turning pro last week, going 1-2 with 3 walks, 2 RBIs and a home run. He’s now hitting .370, and if he comes back to Vancouver at the end of this road-trip, not only will I be surprised, but I’ll be telling anyone who will listen to get their backside out to the ballpark so you can see him before he’s gone.
* With an RBI tonight, Jeff Baisley works his way to the NWL lead in runs batted in. Though his .261 batting average isn’t formidable, Buttah just seems to know how to get the runner home, which is great when you’ve got someone like Buck hitting into gaps in front of him, or Tietje drawing the high pressure walks in the lead-off spot.
* Speaking of Tietje, 2-4 with a walk, a steal and a run scored is just the ticket to get his numbers bacck to where they were early season in Kane County. In a very Good Will Hunting kind of way, nothing would please me more than to turn up to Nat Bailey Stadium and see Tietje not there. He’s better than this level, but in short season ball you don’t always have time to break out of slumps. And if you don’t, then you get cut. Swing hard, sweet Chaliot.
* Brad Davis is a machine. He came into tonight’s game with a 3-1 record and a 0.00 ERA (the loss was down to, what else, errors) and threw a pretty good inning to keep that 0.00 going. Dangerous Davis has struck out 25 this season, and walked 5. Which is insane.
Stay tuned to Noted From The Nat for all the latest news and scores, and be sure to tune in to the webcast game call from Boise, which you can hear on CanadiansBaseball.com… or… if you prefer to SEE the game, the Boise Hawks website offers full (and free) streaming video of their games at BoiseHawks.com.
Nothing against your call, Matt, which is getting better and better every game (seriously, which is especially hard to do when you’re calling games solo), but I aim to watch the thing on Boise’s Fiberpipe set-up and see every swing up close.
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