Last place is lonely, but it doesn’t quite define the depths for the 2015 Waynesboro Generals, who are still very much in striking distance in the Valley League with a lot of baseball still to be played this summer.
It’s not even the 14-1 smackdown laid down by Front Royal at Linco Park at Kate Collins Field Sunday night that is the floor for this team, not the score, anyway.
It’s how that loss that sinks the Generals for the next couple of days into last place in the South Division went down.
Front Royal starter Corey Sessions only needed 81 pitches to finish out his complete-game effort Sunday night.
Put that in perspective: if Generals hitters had kept their bats on their shoulders the entire night, and Sessions got all 27 outs on three-pitch strikeouts, he does that in 81 pitches.
As it was, Sessions ended up with two strikeouts on the night, getting five outs on the first pitch of at bats, and 14 outs on two pitches or less.
That’s a lot of swinging at pitches early in counts, which if you’re going to do that, great, but when as a team you get a total of five balls to the outfield all night, maybe a patient approach is the better approach.
On the other side of the ledger, Front Royal had 21 base hits on the night. For emphasis: 21.
The Cardinals didn’t need three Generals errors to give them four unearned runs, but add those in for effect.
This all happened in the game following a move by coach D.J. King to sit several players for the start of a 6-5 loss at New Market Friday night because they were late arriving for the team’s scheduled departure time.
The kids might not like to hear this, but whatever.
It’s called baseball. Play it. It’s called adversity. Play through it.
They’re called expectations. Play up to them.
A lot of people put a lot of time and money into creating these opportunities for players to play summer baseball. That’s the case across the summer league landscape, the Valley, Cape Code, Coastal Plains, Northwoods, Alaska.
Not everybody wins championships at the end of the season. It doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way.
The way life works is people show up for work on time, and when they’re there, they do more than punch the clock.
There are myriad ways for people to spend their summers. Great music, local attractions, movies, TV, evening strolls around the neighborhood are just a few.
If Generals fans have the option of watching a team barely go through the motions as was seen Sunday night weighed against the others, the others are looking pretty good right now.
– Column by Chris Graham
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