And um you know, I don't I don't know if you can you can put on the shortstop on that one. That's a that's a hard hit driven ball like you say and and Michael can can put um some pepper on the ball that he's probably um top two three in in offensive statistic for for the team because he is able to uh um make really good contact with the ball. So we got Michael Shriber on first. It looks like Nolan Soderberg. Yep. He's at bat. He took the took the first strike. It's hard for a ball. I think uh the game on Monday, I think Nolan had like three hits in the game. Had a very good game. Yeah. Yeah. One and one. A big lead there on first. And there he goes looking for the back pick. you know, he comes back. I'm surprised he didn't get the throw there.
Yeah, before the Yeah, either way, uh, you know, before the pitch or or from the catcher. Um, I mean, he's got a real healthy lead over there. One ball, two strikes. Balls on the ground. That's a double play ball. Yeah, that's in time. That's in. That was just in time. Yeah. Right. Um just to the left of the shorts stop. So he's moving towards second. Um a quick flip and and uh Eric Johnston able to get it over to first to uh um for the double play to Fontanny. Yep. Fantini. Yeah. The depth is perceive, you know, deceiving from where we're where we're standing. I thought the shorts stop was closer to the bag, was going to touch and throw it over, but apparently he was further away than it looks here. Yeah. Yeah. Just hide. Ian go one-on-one. Did he call him safe there, George, at at first?
I guess he did. Maybe he had. He beat that out. Surprising. Um, we're So, where we're located is uh right down the right field line on the outside of the fence and looking right down at it. So you can kind of see that um you know a good both um Brock Barry and and Eric Johnson really good transition ball from the glove and and to throw and I'd have put money that he had him there at first at least. Yeah. Followed back. Two balls, two strikes. throw to first. Yeah. Young uh mixing up the time he's taking trying to keep Soderberg guessing over there on first base. Yeah. See taking a slightly uh not quite the lead that uh Triber had. Yeah. Is that in play? That's a way up in the air. Third baseman's under that. Drops it. He dropped it. Did he drop it on transition?
It look I would say not. And um he's not he's not calling the out. So and it looks like it's in foul play when he touches it. So yeah. Um again, we're in a little bit of a tough uh location to see that play. Um but it but it's clear glad he was out of uh he was in foul territory when he when he attempted to make that catch. That was very lucky. Coming at us here. This one's for you. Right into left right field. It's kind of an easy easy catch. Not not you don't have to move too much to get under that ball. No. No. Good track by there by uh Douglas Walton. Two away now. Look like Ian was under a lot of those pitches there on that at bat. Aiden Con here at bat. Aiden's a senior. Aiden's playing right field there uh for them today.
Strike. Yeah, he waves through that one. A hit and run going on on there, but it's a foul. Y got himself up to speed. Yep. I I wouldn't want to be the second baseman that stands in front of him when when that ball's coming down, you know. Um talking with um coach Chapony. Um he's he's got a young crew here and um some of them are um giving up a little bit of size here to uh you know, the seniors on the Ashlin team. So yeah, you don't want to be on the wrong side of that that play. that ball's in the air. Highf fly ball. First baseman. Oh, that ball is missed in the glove of the second baseman who ran over to try to get it. Boy, that's a tough play. Then it popped out of his glove. Yep, George. You know, it's that is probably one of the, you know, believe it or not, that's not a deep shot and it's not a necessarily very high shot either, but it's one of the toughest plays, especially at this level to defend.
You know, you know, typically you want to um you want to uh a first baseman to defer to the to the second baseman and that second baseman calling it all the way. And it looked like um you had uh Nick Fontini there kind of tracking the ball a little bit and and backed out of the way a little bit late such that uh Eric had to make a diving play and and not able to to grip the ball. Yeah. Second baseman had to come over, you know, if it's was it 90 feet between the bases? Uh yes. Yeah. You know, like 70. Yep. 70 feet. uh ran ran over where I think the first you know the first baseman had to go backwards so he was also in a very tough angle. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously a long way for Douglas Walton to come from uh right right field.
So um you know you had uh Nolan Soderberg kind of pinching the middle infielders in to cover that second base. So to your point a long way to travel. Let's see if Ashley Yeah. kind of not really two errors, but we have the drop ball, the drop foul ball on third base, but that ended up being an out, and then we just had a drop fly ball there. Yeah. Yeah. These are the things that uh Ashley has to take advantage of. Finn Connory up at bat. I think he's two and0. Quickly ahead on the count now. We can be very selective. No, that's one of one on the count. Hard to ball to second base, but right to right to first base. That's is the third out. Bottom of the second, score still 0. Yep. Eric uh redeemed himself there with a good good uh play on a high driven ball.
Yeah. So, you had a chance to talk also to coach Messer before the game. Yeah. Um, you know, some of his thoughts on the season and how it's progressing and where they stand and what they need to do. What were some of the interesting things he uh Yep. he mentioned there. Yeah, I think you know, we we touched on it a little bit, George, is um you kind of getting the train rolling and getting getting the reps so that um um kind of seeing balls through offensively and and eliminating some of the errors. Um, and having a compete mindset, which um, you know, it's maybe a little bit cliche, but like we like we talked about coming against some of the teams in this league. Um, you know, maybe you don't have the roster that's going to overpower a guy. I mean, you've got a couple of good pitches here, but it's not, you know, deep all the way through the bullpen if if if you know what I mean.
Yeah. So, um, you know, on the on the defensive play plays we've seen so far in the outfield, um, you know, the first two innings or, um, the the base running that, um, you know, we're seeing out of, um, displayed there with Shriber and and Soderberg. Um, you know, they've got to compete. Find ways each play to to to make each play a chance to um get an out. Make each play a chance to move a guy at least one base. And um you stay on that for um for for 21 um well, you know, 21 outs um you know, through the through the seven inning game, then you give yourself a chance. One of the things I've noticed from the first few games that that there's a market improvement is the uh reduction in errors. This here's a hard hit ball into center field line drive over um second baseman's head.
That's Finn Connory over there. Um no chance to get that unless he was, you know, 67. Yeah. No. So we have a leadoff single here with no outs. Yep. pulls back the bunt there. Pitch low in the dirt. Ball one. Yeah, good good strong hit there by uh the second baseman, Eric Johnson. Now we have Connor Riley at bat. Jared Grumbom checks the runner over there at first. One ball, no strikes. That's in there for a strike. Got a piece of it. Yep. He went laid down a bunt, but one went foul very quickly. Looks like it would have been a nice bunt if uh Yeah. Yeah. Well, probably a good uh decision there by Luke to get to it quickly and and pick it up um before it came back fair. One ball, two strikes won't be That's a good off pitch and he fools him.
Yeah. Strike three. That's a good out. Um I mean, you you got to get that out out of the um nine-hole hitter there. Now we're back to top of the order. Y Doug Walton at about righty. Ball's down. Gets by was very low. Caught by Luke O'Brien back there which allows Johnson to advance to second base. Yeah, tough ball as a catcher right there, George. Um, you know, a lot of guys you're you're looking to get you as as a as a catcher. You're looking to get your your thumb underneath the ball there, but you know, you get into a position where you're somewhat in between where they're going to be able to get under it. You know, do I have to move the body over, turn the club over, and get a block on it and uh just gets away from them. Especially, you know, those breaking balls.
If if it's got a good break on it, sometimes it's hard to know just exactly where it's going to be. Yeah, that ball's hard hit on the ground. Nice play by Michael Shriber to get the out of first base, but the runner advances to third. So, good job by the hitter to get the runner over to third base, but two outs. Good range there by Shrivever. Um, good good pickup, good transition, tough play to make. Another ball on the ground here. And that's the uh that's the um that's the stuff that that Jared Grunbomb will get you there, George. You know, low pitches in the zone, you know, they're not overly powerful. They they entice the batter into into a swing and and he he gets him to roll over to that third baseman there. Yeah. And then nice play by Devin O'Brien. Just took the ball up, you know, took a couple of steps, took his time, knew he had time to get the ball and threw a strike to first base.
Absolutely. got the out. You not worried about obviously not worried about the the guy on third. Oh, that's the end of three innings. Yep. And we're still zero zero. This could come down to, you know, a one-run game or Yeah. maybe when the starting pitchers jump out of Yep. if they face different uh different pitchers. We'll see. But so far, it's been a a pitcher game. Yep. Uh Ashlin put some uh runners on last innings. So you've got um Payton Young who's at 30 pitches now. Um that's not a bad pace. Um so we could see him for a few innings. We could see him for a few innings. He's back out there on the mound as the uh as the Hawks warm up in the field. But John, what do you So I I you know, we have the um the Blackhawk baseball roster in front of us and we have uh three captains on the team.
Yeah. I don't think Ashlin is named captains. Yeah. Uh how do you I know you You coach hockey, you've coached baseball. Is does that matter? Well, um you know, I think what Ashlin has done is they've got a couple of seniors as captain, a couple of juniors as captain, and you know, you like to maybe get a couple of guys in there, George. And you like to get a couple of guys who are not just going to be, you know, you do need, you know, I would say maybe like an alpha guy whose voice is going to carry, but you also need a couple of guys, you know, baseball guys who can, you know, the way they take the field, the way they um come to the plate with a purpose. you know, they're able to lead with lead by example and lead by the play and and and lead with the character, the culture that the um the coach is trying to, you know, instill in the players, instill in the club.
So, um I think it is important to to have a captain, but um not just because you have a it's it's not whether you have a C on your jersey, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that you that dictates whether you are or you are not a leader on the team, if you know what I mean, right? Anybody can step off that. Exactly. Exactly. And you can Yeah. Um, and you know, to Ashlin's benefit, you've got a lot of everyday players who are not necessarily, you know, that senior big dog, you know, captain type you would think of that these guys come out day in and day out. And they do that. They display the right way to go about the game, the right approach uh, at the plate, the right approach on the mound. And um so I think that's that's starting to play starting to play out through the season, you know, in parlays our discussion of how this team has gone from 0 for three now and you know um 500 in the last eight games.
So yeah. Yep. So got Luke O'Brien at bat, the catcher. He's uh two and two now to Luke. And that's strike three. One down here at the bottom of the third inning and back to the top of the order with uh Chris Bratica struck out his first hem up. Think he's looking to uh get even here. gets the bat on it for a foul back over the fence. Yeah, first pitch swing in there, George. Um, so we'll see how this goes. Is a little bit more patient his first at bat and that's that's one of his strengths is being able to work a picture, but he's also the ability to be aggressive and um doesn't like that one on the inside corner. He's going to let it go, but he's going to let it go. Strike two. 0 and two. Another foul. Off speed there.
He's ahead of it. That ball's high. You talk about, you know, the cat and mouse game between the pitcher and the and the batter. A lot of pitchers are very focused on first pitch strike. You know, it's a huge stat. Um, and if you get the batter in there looking to hit early, you know, the pitcher, generally speaking, wants to get that first pitch strike. So, it kind of makes sense to be on the attack. Yep. Um and he grooves, you know, just seeing um Payton through these first two and a half innings. That ball is well hit into right field. Right back down here to W. He's going to try for two. He's got two. I think he's going to have it. He's in there sliding head first. Yeah, he gets it. Yep. That's a mistake that uh Payton probably wants back. you know, he was giving him uh you know, breaking balls um in the zone and fast balls out of the zone and he he kind of grooved on there and uh Chris just got got all of it right over the first baseman's head and able to uh hustle double there.
And it was far enough over into the right field corner right in front of us. The uh right fielder really had to move over quite a bit to get to that ball. Yeah, almost to us, George. Almost to, you know, dead air in the corner. for Douglas Walton hustling over to make it but not in time. I think he was kind of going in the wrong direction. It was hard for him to turn around and get that ball all the way back to second base. So, it's a nice double there by Chris Bratica. We get Oi Laro up at the plate. Yeah, one on man in scoring position. Hard driven ball right there. Right up the middle. That's going to get Chris around third. He's going to hold up there. Hold up a third. Nice single by Ollie Laro. Yep. moves the guy over. Ashlin's in in play here now.
Runners at the corners, so let's see what we can do. Only one out. Yep. Oh, he's pretty quick. You expect a steel steel to be on here? We'll see what happens. Um he does have a healthy lead. Um, I think coach will will make the call. Deon O'Brien up at bat takes takes the first pitch for a ball. You know, I think they'll at least try to minimize the opportunity for a double play. I mean, if we can get a ball in play here, George, you would expect Bratica to be able to score. There goes Ollie. Deon's under it. Hit ball. Got the right fielder tracking in. And he just he played that ball so well that he slowed down, made sure as he caught it, he had forward momentum to be able to make that throw. I mean, that that was that was a smart play.
Yep. Tough one. Hitting run right there into a kind of a line drive fly out there to left field. But um um another aggressive call there by Coach Messer. Let's see if they let him take second here. Got Michael Shriber up at bat. He takes for a strike. Has a healthy lead again. And he goes takes that for a strike. Yeah. So, as expected, they're going to let him take second. Um with two outs, no throw down. You got two runners here, George, in uh in scoring position. See what we can do. Yeah. No balls, two strikes, and there's a foul. John, I didn't see the last game, but I thought that um the the game ended with a u a throw down to second base on a caught steel. Yeah, delay steel situation. Um likewise, I wasn't at the game, but I think that's one that coach Messer wants back.