MWL Baseball: 2 Week Full Moon over Baseball Fields

Last week I wrote about some oddities I saw on the baseball fields as the April full moon approached. I'm not sure that the full moon is over.... Marshfield won it's first league game since May 3rd of 2010. Marist beat North Eugene 11-5 after losing to Churchil 12-1 last Friday (the 13th). And Willamette got the full moon hex, which I'll explain later.

I've seen several really good games since last Monday (the 9th). A lot of that was due to seeing some of the best pitchers in state and some of the MWL # 2's coming through with superb efforts. After so many good games, I was going to write about the little things in baseball. Most of the games I watched were close and the little things were costly; like a first baseman not coming off the bag after holding a man on first and the subsequent grounder ten feet away from first base going into right field. But there are too many wonderful team storylines to cover, so let's look at the developing storylines as we are about halfway into the regular season.

Thurston at 11-0

My pre-pre season pick to have a cakewalk through the hybrid league. I later backed off due to a season ending injury to Aaron Clift and predicted the Colts would still be the best MWL team, but not as easily as I originally thought. And, in fact, it hasn't been a cakewalk.

The Colts last four MWL league wins have been by 1, 2, 3 and 3 runs. Still, we're not playing horseshoes, and opponents being close doesn't show up in the loss column. It's good for the Colts to know that they can consistently win the close ones.

The Colts batters can go deep and the Colts can play smart small ball. Thurston small ball success is as much attitude as it is the speed that can be found in many of the Colts, especially the 1-2 hitters, Aaron Hoover and Joey Urness. Kyle Watson is stroking the ball at the three spot, Goddard is in form as cleanup hitter. Shane Quarterly and Hunter Combs had some big hits in the 5-2 win over Churchill.

The Colts fielding is excellent as always. Kyle Watson continues to pitch masterfully - he isn't overpowering the hitters and striking out a dozen a game, but pop ups and grounders are about all that come off of the other teams bats.

Can the Colts get through the regular season without a loss? Depends on the match-ups. Churchill's number 2 pitcher Jordan Thompson had the Colts corralled for five innings for a 1-1 tie while the Colts were throwing Watty. Would Churchill have won with Lessel on the mound? Or if Thurston had thrown their number two?

Can the Colts go deep into the state playoffs? There's no reason to think they can't. The critical week of the playoffs is the Monday-Wednesday-Friday first week. Most teams throw their Aces on Monday and Friday. If there are no rainouts, the aces can go again the next week for Tuesday semi's and Saturday finals - it's been done. It's that Wednesday game of the first week that tests a team's number two pitcher. I think Thurston has the balance of a good pitching staff, good fielding and good bats that they can advance to at least the semi's. Just gotta hope they don't get seeded against a superman pitcher.

Churchill

I saw Churchill twice in the past week. They are looking tough. Almost a clone of the Colts, just less speed on the bases. Like Thurston, the staff ace is a lefty with a great pickoff move - Jake Lessel. Lessel doesn't need to use his pickoff move too often as he tends to sit down ten or so batters via strikeouts each game. If Jordan Thompson's pitching performance against Thurston is indicative of Thompsons's ability, coach Hoberg is happy. Once Thompson settled in, it was mostly ground ball outs for Thurston as Thompson held the Colts to 1 run through five innings.

I don't think of Churchill as a bunch of speedsters and maybe they don't need to be. Chase Kearney and Jake Dezarn provide the wallop at the plate. But more importantly, the Lancers are trained to play small ball. If you can lay down sac bunts and pull off the hit and run, you don't have to be stealing bases all of the time.

Defensively, the Lancers are very good as always, and it was nice to be entertained by Andy Arruda's circus catch in the Thurston game.

Can Churchill sweep the 5A MWL teams? Why not? Hopefully, we'll get to see a Lessel-Moore matchup Wednesday at Churchill. I'm thinking that both pitchers will shut down the other team and the game will ride on which team's defense has a critical breakdown. I'm leaning towards Churchill for this game as I think North is still gelling on defense.

Can Churchill go deep into the state playoffs? I say yes, and I think seeing so much good pitching in the hybrid MWL is a great advantage for our better teams.

Willamette

The Wolverines were victimized by the lengthy full moon hex. What else could explain facing Lessel, Moore and Nielsen in three out of the last four games? Shouldn't the league give each team one 'Can't Pitch This Guy' token, so teams can use it to avoid a relentless stretch like that? Hey, at least Thurston didn't throw Watty at them.

Look for the Wolverines to get back in the groove after recently playing Churchill, North, Thurston and Sheldon. The Wolverines will tackle 6-6 Crescent Valley before hosting South Eugene. Will the full moon hex extend to South's Joe Schindler?

Willamette bats are still trying to find their way after losing Cole Hathaway to a season ending injury.

Marist

I came home from the Marist - Churchill game last week and told my wife I had just seen the weirdest thing. Marist made a bunch of bizzaro errors. Not stupid bonehead errors - just weird. Like the pitcher fielding a bunt and with all the time in the world to tag the runner, tags the runner only to see the ball fly out of his mitt. Then the shortstop gathers in a big bouncer with a huge handle, only to toss the ball behind himself instead of towards first. It just kept going until the Spartans walked away after the loss. My wife said, "Are you sure the full moon is over?"

Then I wake up Sunday morning and read that Marist went 9 innings at North Medford before losing 4-3. Hunh? Imports? Ringers?

Then I get home Monday night and the OSAA scoreboard says Marist has beaten North Eugene 11-5.

What's going on? I don't know, but I'm guessing that Marist might be starting to gel after losing parttime baseballer/trackster Austin Baird to track fulltime. With the infield reset, the lads can get the experience they need. Pitcher Malik Evans is good for several wins and I think Grant Jamieson and Josh White can keep them in games as they head into the second half of the season. I think the Spartans are going to cause trouble for a few more teams besides North. By the way, I've been looking at Evans as mostly a pitcher, but he had a great battle against Lessel and went 3-5 in the win over North.

North Eugene

Wax on, wax off. Bats on, bats off. After 12 run outings against Springfield and South, North's bats have cooled off. Andrew Moore pitched the Highlander's past Willamette's Trent Waggoner in a great 3-1 game last week. North then scratched out just one run against Sheldon's Taylor Allie. Not a good trend.

And maybe... Defense on, defense off. North gave up just 1.4 runs per game in 7 pre hybrid league games. But they've given up 5.2 runs a game in league.

Big game against Churchill tomorrow (Wednesday). The Lancers have been better than North as of late. North needs the win to avoid a three game losing streak. Hopefully, it'll be Lessel versus Moore.

South Eugene

South is currently ranked #9 in the OSAA RPI ratings. They are going to need to sweep their next four games if they want to stay up in the ratings. RPI hinges a lot on your opponents record and South's next opponents are Marist (3-7), Willamette (6-6) , Grants Pass (5-8) and Springfield (1-8). Will the Axemen be mean to Willamette (who has faced the league's aces over and over) and hold Schindler for the Wolverines on Friday? Or will the Axemen try and stop Marist's surge with Schindler on Wednesday?

In any event, South is trying to sneak through the regular season unnoticed, but I'm not letting that happen. The Axemen are fine even when Schindler isn't on the mound because they can use Cameron Jack and Alec Wechtawski.

I like South's defense. The Axemen have been holding most teams to 1 or 2 runs in games that really count in their quest to place high in 6A special district 1. South beat Sheldon 2-1 and Lincoln 12-2. Thurston's big bats got to South for 7 runs in a 7-5 Colt win. That's not too bad for a worst case scenario.

Sheldon

The Irish lost two games that were called due to rain after Sheldon had taken the lead or put runners in a postion to tie. If those games had gone Sheldon's way, the Irish would be 9-4 rather than 7-6, and in second place in the 6A special district. Instead, #13 Sheldon is tied for fourth and trying to catch #10 Redmond for third in the league.

Close games haven't been unusual for Sheldon. The Irish have been caught up in 7 games decided by just 1 or 2 runs. They've lost four of those.

Sheldon's defense has been good almost the entire season, giving up just 3.2 runs per game. The teams that put the ball in play - Churchill and Thurston - took 7-5 and 5-4 victories from Sheldon. Those aren't insurmountable numbers and those are winnable games if the offense gets in gear.

Offensively, Sheldon likes to score four to six runs a game. I'd think Sheldon would be scoring more because they have the sticks and speed to put up good numbers. Maybe last night's 10-0 win over Willamette is a good omen for Irish bats.

Marshfield and Springfield