Your Golden State Warriors are the metaphor du jour for all good team play, these days. Who can argue with 72-9 going into the last day of the season, with a chance to take down the all time record for wins in a season in the 70 years of NBA History. We won't mention the other countless records they have set this year, and this is on top of winning the whole shebang last year, yet emerging the hungriest team in the NBA.
The Warriors, as we know, are so good that they get sloppy at times, and this leads to the few losses and close games that shouldn't be. Coach Steve Kerr likes to say that he wants them to play "solid". By this he means make the routine play; be consistent; don't try to be a hero, just make the high percentage play. The outstanding plays will then follow without trying to force them.
Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't, just as Nick sometimes must throw behind the runner from left center to first base as he did last week. The point is that there is a balance in there somewhere.
Which leads me in my roundabout way to talking about our opener and what this season looks like.
Adding Rusty to the lineup just makes this team SOLID. It's not like we weren't successful before, but sometimes that last piece is what you need to push you to the next championship. No pressure Rusty, but you filled that role for us perfectly.
So that's what I felt driving home from our last game (wanting to actually forget the Warrior loss later that night) - we played solid. It started with good defense in the first, holding a good hitting Brew Crew to a single run. Tom had them reaching to try to jack the ball out all night, and it led to a lot of easy fly ball outs.
And then we came up in the bottom, and after a single, walk, single, single to tie it up and load the bases, up strode our version of the three pointer - Big D. Ironically, Steph Curry is probably about the same height but on the basketball court he looks like a little guy. Not so D on a softball field. He hit a laser shot over the right center fence for the slam and we never looked back.
In the second it came back around to the top of the lineup, and once again, it was Jason, Cage, Rusty and D putting up another five runs, with an assist from Albert, Pauly and Heffe. Solid.
At that point you're thinking, well can we just put up five every inning and win like 30 to whatever? But instead it got to be a defensive duel in the middle innings - some nice catches by Rusty and Cage, and Albert, and some wildly entertaining dancing if not completed putouts by our prima ballerina third baseman Pauly.
In the fifth we pushed across another two runs, and in the sixth Rusty put the icing on the cake with a three run Jack; he had flirted with a couple of long fouls and a deep flyout and had to settle for two hard line drive singles to that point. He was determined to put it out. Just in time, I might add, to make Bert's followup deep fly a single as we were over the limit. So Bert had to settle for a quiet 4-4, and will probably complain that D and Rusty took all his RBI chances away. Which they did.
But again with the Warriors comparison - it's about the extra pass, in our case the extra at bat, and we are solid from 1-12 this year in the lineup.
Milestone:
Bert 100 ab (#40)
The Warriors, as we know, are so good that they get sloppy at times, and this leads to the few losses and close games that shouldn't be. Coach Steve Kerr likes to say that he wants them to play "solid". By this he means make the routine play; be consistent; don't try to be a hero, just make the high percentage play. The outstanding plays will then follow without trying to force them.
Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't, just as Nick sometimes must throw behind the runner from left center to first base as he did last week. The point is that there is a balance in there somewhere.
Which leads me in my roundabout way to talking about our opener and what this season looks like.
Adding Rusty to the lineup just makes this team SOLID. It's not like we weren't successful before, but sometimes that last piece is what you need to push you to the next championship. No pressure Rusty, but you filled that role for us perfectly.
So that's what I felt driving home from our last game (wanting to actually forget the Warrior loss later that night) - we played solid. It started with good defense in the first, holding a good hitting Brew Crew to a single run. Tom had them reaching to try to jack the ball out all night, and it led to a lot of easy fly ball outs.
And then we came up in the bottom, and after a single, walk, single, single to tie it up and load the bases, up strode our version of the three pointer - Big D. Ironically, Steph Curry is probably about the same height but on the basketball court he looks like a little guy. Not so D on a softball field. He hit a laser shot over the right center fence for the slam and we never looked back.
In the second it came back around to the top of the lineup, and once again, it was Jason, Cage, Rusty and D putting up another five runs, with an assist from Albert, Pauly and Heffe. Solid.
At that point you're thinking, well can we just put up five every inning and win like 30 to whatever? But instead it got to be a defensive duel in the middle innings - some nice catches by Rusty and Cage, and Albert, and some wildly entertaining dancing if not completed putouts by our prima ballerina third baseman Pauly.
In the fifth we pushed across another two runs, and in the sixth Rusty put the icing on the cake with a three run Jack; he had flirted with a couple of long fouls and a deep flyout and had to settle for two hard line drive singles to that point. He was determined to put it out. Just in time, I might add, to make Bert's followup deep fly a single as we were over the limit. So Bert had to settle for a quiet 4-4, and will probably complain that D and Rusty took all his RBI chances away. Which they did.
But again with the Warriors comparison - it's about the extra pass, in our case the extra at bat, and we are solid from 1-12 this year in the lineup.
Milestone:
Bert 100 ab (#40)
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