Barbee's World: Lamenting the long ball and loving the little things
Under Review – The good, the bad and the perplexing from Day 3 of the NWAC Baseball Championships at Story Field
Sam Barbee special to BlastZoneMedia.com / blastzonenews@gmail.com
NWAC Baseball / Commentary
STORY FIELD — After LCC won on Friday night, a come-from-behind 7-4 victory over Spokane, I jokingly told the coaching staff to stop making it so hard on themselves, to have an easy one.
Just one time. Go ahead. Make it easy on yourselves.
And for a while on Saturday it looked like they might.
Wenatchee Valley kicked the ball around some, threw the ball around some more, and didn’t throw enough strikes, and LCC turned that into a five-run fifth inning with just one hit, a leadoff single from Sam Davidson.
The Knights needed four pitchers to get three outs and surrendered five runs. Lots of numbers, none of them good. At least for WV.
LCC went to the ninth up 11-4, just three outs away from one of those easy, chill, relaxing final site wins that feels like a confirmation but is not a quite a coronation.
But then the ninth inning happened.
Harlan Rowe got the final inning on the hump for the Devils after reliever Lincoln Berg allowed a homer. Giving up dingers is bad, true, but otherwise Berg was stellar, and that came after starter Graham Learing scattered a pair of runs over the initial six frames.
But Rowe allowed six baserunners (three hits, three walks), got one out and surrendered five runs (four earned), and Brandon Bowyer had to come slam the door, which he did in emphatic fashion with a pair of high-velocity strikeouts.
And here’s the thing about bullpen decisions: They’re really hard.
Planning pitching is really difficult. It’s so volatile. The range of potential outcomes is a chasm. So all your plans are made to eliminate as many variables as possible, knowing most variables are entirely uncontrollable.
And then sometimes the game situation changes so rapidly that the whole set of variables to control changes. I really hate griping about who pitches when, and in what spot, or for how long.
Because there are plenty of opinions about who pitched when, and in what spot, and for how long. And then there are valid reasons to answer all those questions — but they are generally only communicated between coaches via bullpen phone and facial gestures..
From LCC’s perspective, they won the game. Which is the most important thing. And they have La Center’s Justin Fuller, and his heavy fast ball, going Sunday in another loser-out game.
But they’ll play Everett, which is a squad that can — and probably will — hit homers. On a related note, LCC’s one problem recently has been allowing the long ball. Which is a crazy thing to say if you’ve been reading around these parts for any time at all.
Let’s get along to the the things I liked, and the other things I didn’t on Day 3 of the NWAC Championships in Longview.
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