Well the playoffs have started. The Phantoms have shown through the whole season that they are a team to beat. From moments of brilliance pitching, solid defense and great hitting.

I’ve been working with Christian outside of regular practices: soft tosses, throwing golf ball sized wiffle balls and pitching from the mound. He’s been really consistent hitting my pitches, even the ones outside. So it’s all mental. I also had him switch to his old bat since he can swing that faster.

We’ve been telling Christian to swing at everything unless its obviously a ball. This afternoon, he finally cracked a hit in the game. Unfortunately it was caught by the opposing 3rd baseman. But a hit is a hit and maybe he’s finally broken out of his hitting slump.

He had a high batting .427, now batting .227 since his slump. He’s a better hitter than that and he’s such a great threat on the pads.

At least his defense hasn’t been slumping. He got a key 4-3 out in the game. It’s funny to see that he’s a better defensive player right now when his bat has always been his strength.

The Phantoms showed Harbor Square who was boss and took charge of the game. I don’t think our guys ever really were in danger of loosing this game. The Phantoms got 8 runs in, but the score reverted to 6-4 when HS couldn’t finish their inning.

Final Score: Coldwell 6 (8) – Harbor Square 4

This was our last regular season match-up before the playoffs, a make-up game from the rain-out earlier in the month.  This was suppose to be a tune up game, but the boys didn’t really take the game seriously.

Christian was the starting pitcher and only went 1 inning. Playing at Meadowdale Elementary the field doesn’t have a mound and actually has a hole in the spot. So he was even more a disadvantage being shorter than most of the other players.

I think we figured out what is wrong with Christian at bat. He’d been hit by a pitch and is scared. He struck out a few times looking again.

The Phantoms could have easily won the game as both Christian and Matt loaded the bases in the first 2 innings. Eric and Zach shut down NWK8 in the the later innings and CB tied the game at the top of the 4th. Unfortunately we had to revert to the 3rd innings score officially and lost the game.

Final Score: Coldwell 5 (10) – NWK8 10

In our 2nd to last regular season game, the Phantoms have their 2nd rematch against Sparta’s.  There is a big rivalry between these 2 teams as they beat us pretty good last time and we share practice fields on Thursday’s.

Our pitching was outstanding again in this game.  We held Sparta’s to 2 scoreless innings to start the game and we got a jump on the lead early.  We also had some pretty out standing plays in the field.

Christian had an off game both in the field and hitting.  Earlier in the day during recess, he was rolling around in the grass and got a bug bite near his eye.  It looked awful and probably cause him to not see well…Although he denies it.

I don’t have any videos or pictures of this game as the weather was really iffy for the cameras.  Hopefully we’ll get some good shots at the next game on Thrusday the 28th.  We are making up our rained out game against NWK8 during our practice time at Meadowdale Elementary from 4:30-6:30 pm.  We begin the playoffs Saturday, May 30th on Lynndale Field 2 against Harbor Square.  See you there!

Final Score: Sparta’s 7 – Coldwell 9

The Phantoms showed a lot of heart in this game against Pacific Trust.  The over the top manager of the other team made game not very fun to watch.  His antics coaching 3rd base and calling time out for inspection of the game ball were just atrocious.  I understand being competitive, but trying to steal home from 3rd on every pitch was getting old.  Also having their pitcher throw the ball as soon as the batter stepped in the box was just awful.

Christian was back to hitting 2nd and managed to get walked in the 1st and 5th innings.  He struck out at his 2nd at bat.  He needs to be more aggressive at the plate and not rely on walks…BTW he leads the team on base on balls.  But he’s been striking out a lot looking.

He didn’t do much on defense today.  He really didn’t need to as our pitchers got 13 strike outs and the team combined for 5 put outs.

Despite Pacific Trust trying every dirty trick in the book.  The Phantoms were victorious by playing the game their way.

Final Score: Pacific Trust 4 – Coldwell 10

I just realized that I haven’t updated the baseball blog in a long time.  These will be short as I usually post what I remember along with the score book.

This game was to be another 1st of back to back games.  The Phantoms had shown that they were a team to beat in the last couple of games.   In this game, they had started well into the top of the 3rd inning.  But they had trouble getting the last out of at the bottom of the 3rd.

They were without big guns Chris & Drew and only fielded 8 players.  The borrowed outfielder from Distinctive Glass also cost us a run or two.  But the game was done by the bottom of the 4th.  We had too big of a hole to fill.

This was Christian’s first game to lead off.  He struck out in the 1st, grounded out in the 2nd and walked in the 4th and 6th.  He didn’t do much on the field either.

It was a tough loss for the Phantoms.  They had been playing at a high level and just couldn’t put a string of hits together for this game.  That and the inconsistent pitching after the 4th inning was our downfall.

Final Score: Phantoms 6 – Distinctive Glass 14