Back in El Paso

Last night I was back in El Paso.  I spent about 2 months here last year playing for the Diablos so I know this place really well.  This is the first time I have ever played against a former team.  There were only 4 or 5 returning guys from the team last year though so I don't know a lot of the guys on the team.  One of them will be pitching against us today though so that will be interesting. 

We lost our first game against them last night pretty badly.  I think the score was 10-4 or something like that.  Once it gets bad I don't really remember the score.  Also, I came out of the game in the 8th inning because we were getting beat so badly and I was getting beat up behind the plate by some hard pitches in the dirt.  One of them was a fast ball that hit me in my achilles!  Don't ask me how that happened.  So this was my second game of the year and it was a pretty good night for me.  Not numbers wise but for seeing the ball and taking good swings it was a good one.  I know most of you little guys determine a good game by how many hits you get but at my level it isn't always about getting hits but about having good at bats and hitting the ball hard.  Just because you hit it hard doesn't mean you're going to get a hit.  I can attest to that!  I currently have 7 at bats this season, walking twice and getting one hit.  My six outs that I have made are as follows: weak grounder to the pitcher, hard line drive right at the third baseman, grounder to shortstop, hard line drive right at the center fielder, grounder to short, deep shot to dead center that I hit a little bit too high and was caught at the fence (went 400 feet with the wind blowing the ball back towards the field!!).  So as you can see out of 7 at bats I have hit 4 balls really hard but only have 1 hit to show for it.  That is 57% of at bats resulting in a hard hit ball.  Not bad.  I was told at some point during my time with the Braves that if you hit over 50% of your balls hard then you will have a .300+ average.  This game is a weird game.  You can do everything right and not get a hit then all of a suddon 4 straight hits fall somewhere.  So I will just keep playing the numbers and patiently wait for my hits to find the holes like they always eventually do.  Last night was a bad night for me behind the plate.  I had four stolen bases against me and threw out one.  The good news is I figured out why my throws weren't as strong as they should have been and it was because I was not keeping enough weight back on my backside when I do my footwork.  So that is fixed.  The other problem though is the pitchers taking too long to get me the ball which gives the runner a lot of extra time to get there.  I will have to just start calling more pick offs and slide steps to help with that I think.  It is always good to get all the learning out of the way early.  This is basically spring training for us because we had no exhibition games before the season started so we are working out all the kinks.  We play again tonight at 7:05 Mountain time, 9:00 Eastern, and I hope to have a better game behind the plate.  My arm is a little bit sore from all this throwing because I am not used to it yet so I will be popping about 800 mg of Ibuprofen and applying a little icy/hot and I'll be back there behind the dish!  You can't sit out when you don't feel good when you're a catcher because you would be sitting out just about every other day.  Gotta be tough and push through the minor aches and pains.  The guy I will be facing tonight is gonna be a tough one to get a good pitch to hit against because he walks a lot of batters.  Someone told me that he walked the first 3 batters he faced in the first game of the season this year.  Hopefully I will get some strikes to hit but if I walk 3 times that is ok with me too, at least I will be able to see a lot of pitches and get my timing closer to where I want it. 

It is 10:40 right now and our bus leaves at 4 o'clock today so I don't know what I am going to do during the time I have. I am about to go grab some breakfast right now and then possibly walking over to Walgreens to get some Ibuprofen and maybe rent a redbox movie if they have anything good.  There is a gym we can use close by but I'm not sure I want to lift today.  Might just give the ol body a break and just play baseball!  Last year when I was in El Paso playing everyday I think I went to the gym like 5 times the whole time because I let myself get a little lazy!  That ain't gonna happen this year though.  I plan to drag myself to the gym 3 days a week if I have to but hopefully because I will be going more frequently I won't be dragging myself but I will be looking foward to the gym time. 

Everyone keep up the good work.  I have been getting emails and texts from a lot of my pupils and I am so proud of each and every one of you.  All of your hard work during the off season is paying of big time now in your seasons.  Feel free to call, text, or email me when you want.  Send me videos, pictures, question etc...and keep up the great work!