Barbee's World: Counting outs and cursing the ones that got away
Surviving The Game – LCC, Linn-Benton reach Championship Monday from the dark side of the bracket
Sam Barbee special to BlastZoneMedia.com / blastzonenews@gmail.com
NWAC Baseball / Commentary
STORY FIELD — When Kai Miller hit a two-run homer in the top of the second inning, Justin Fuller didn’t seem long for the ballgame.
The Lower Columbia College freshman and La Center grad was a little erratic. Lots of at-bats started with balls and turned into lengthy face-offs with lots of stress pitches.
A four-run deficit for the host Red Devils felt like a lot, especially with a quality arm in the other dugout. But he stayed with in. Stayed on it. And pitched all the way into the eighth inning, when a second homer finally sent him off the field.
Lower Columbia had another arm ready the whole game, expecting the worst, but hoping for the best.
And the best came. It just took a while to arrive.
After a strikeout to end the seventh, he was as demonstrative as you could be, full of sound and fury, but signifying everything.
Pitching coach Mike Calia asked if he was good, if he wanted to go back out. There was no question.
“I wasn’t going to let him take the ball (from me),” Fuller said postgame.
It highlighted the Red Devils’ team mentality. Head coach Kurt Lupinksi called it relentless.
That’s an idea. A concept. A feeling. So, let’s look at one specific thing.
You have to get three outs in an inning, right? And you have to throw a ball at a guy who has a stick, and if he’s good, which ideally he is, then there is a rather significant risk he might put it in a place you can’t catch it, and that’s scary.
So you work really hard to throw the ball in such a way that he can’t hit it, or that he’ll hit it somewhere you can catch it. Or, better yet, that he misses altogether. Those are called outs.
And you have to do that three times. And you can’t always guarantee that you can get the other guy to hit it where you can catch it or, ideally, miss altogether.
Three times. Nine times over.
And that’s what baseball is.
It’s imperative that when outs are presented, you take them. That requires practice. Taking grounders, Catching popups. Making throws. Over and over. So that when an out is presented, you take it.
When Lower Columbia got extra outs to work with, it pounced.
When Everett got extra outs, it got back-picked.
Let me explain.
Chase Halvorson was really good on the hill for Everett the first time through the order. His confidence was buoyed by an early 4-0 lead.
Sam Davidson singled to start the second time through the order for LCC in the third inning, but then Karsten Hansen hits a tailor-made double play ball. Second baseman gets there in time. Backhanded flip to second.
But the transfer is too fast. Ball not quite in the glove. It bounces away. Davidson should be out, but is safe. That’s an out evaporated. Hansen is obviously safe at first, maybe could’ve been an out. Now you have to get 20 more outs and you lost out on the possibility of a double play.
So what should have been a three-out inning becomes a four-out inning. And LCC is now seeing Halvorson a second time. Then Jaylen Kennedy comes up and hits a double. Hard into the right-center gap. Davidson scored easily. The relay throw to the plate was perfect. And Hansen was called out, but later ruled safe after review.
You miss an out, you give up two runs. Baseball collects its debits — now or later.
Then James Coté grounded out with two outs. Hit it right at the shortstop. Throw is wide. Throw is in-between, first baseman tries to turn the short hop into a long hop.
Can’t. Another probable out — gone.
Now you have to get five outs. You’ve already gotten three. But you missed one, and now two, and now two more runners are on. Martyn Hernandez hit the next pitch into the right field corner. Two runs scored easily.
Tie game.
LCC was given two extra outs and scored four runs. The game is unforgiving in regard to mistakes.
Now it’s Everett’s turn.
It’s late in the game. Everett has already singled and been back-picked (we’ll talk about that later). Popup on the infield. We learned later that the ball got a chunk taken out of it and was both sky-high and dancing around all over the place from its irregularity — because Hernandez dropped it.
That’s a precious out wasted, missed. One of those bad breaks everyone wants to desperately avoid.
Then LCC closer Matthew Kosderka gets a flail at a slider in the dirt for strike three but Kennedy can’t glove it behind the dish. It gets to the screen. Runner gets to first. Another missed out. A five-out inning in progress.
And then Everett turns the lineup over.
See, this is where LCC exploited the extra outs on offense. Can LCC account for the extra outs on defense?
Kosderka threw four pitches. Three were strikes. Kennedy caught the last one. Ballgame.
So when people say they capitalized, this is what they mean. With a 6-5 win at the end of the day, LCC earned at least nine more innings this season. Meanwhile, Everett ran out of both outs and innings left to play.
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