These are the games you hope to play every time. Evenly matched good teams playing solid baseball. 3D Roofing has gone undefeated through the whole season. Except for the top of the 1st inning, the Phantoms held the Blue Devils to 3 runs or none.

Christian is finally hitting again and had a great single at the top of the 1st. He is such a fast aggressive runner, that it can get into the other teams psyche. His voice in the dugout also came back as a result and he leads most of the cheers. The quiet non-talkative team of the last couple games is now gone.

He’s been solid again at defense. Had another 4-3 out and almost had a couple outs with base runners not paying attention.

The Phantoms had a great game and played 6 complete innings in 1:45. If we could have taken care of the baseball in the first, we would have won the game. 5 runs in an inning is a lot of runs to give up. 3D looked scared when the score was 8-7 at the bottom of the 5th.

We are now playing in the lower bracket and will play up to 7 games the in the next 8 days if we stay alive. Our next game is Thursday at 5:00 pm against team Windermere on Field 2. See you there.

Final Score: Blue Devils 10 – Phantoms 7

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

After a long midday spend at Little League Day.  The Phantoms had a game at the Edmonds-Woodway HS softball turf field against the NWK8 Blue Thunder.  Team Coldwell Banker had a better defensive game against this team by getting 18 outs in six innings.  The previous game we only managed 10 outs in five innings.

We’ve won just about every game where we’ve had 10 or more outs by fielding or strikeouts.  It makes sense since we don’t let 5 runs come in for the other team stopping the half inning.

Christian didn’t have a great game offensively.  He walked in the 1st and struck out the next 2 plate appearances.  He had changed to an open batting stance and it has made him take some bad swings.  I hope to correct this for the next 2 games as he will be the lead-off batter while Chris is away for the weekend.  Christian is usually a patient batter and leads the team in walks due to his small strike zone.  He’s also one of the fastest guys one the team and is a threat on the base pads.  He has stolen home a couple times this year.

Defensively Christian had a better game and got a 4-6 out with Drew at short.  Since we’ve had the prior experience on the turf field, the Phantoms played their positions deep while NWK8 played at normal depth.  This became a huge advantage for us as balls rolled fast by the opposing team when we got a hit.

It was good to see former teammates Jordan and Charlie on the baseball field, even if they were on the opposite side.  Charlie pitched well and manage to strike out Christian.  Jordan was playing mostly outfield.  Their manager uses a 2 squad system where players play all outfield one game and all infield the next.  Not exactly legal according to PLL minors rules, but I think it’s a huge disadvantage for them when their strongest players are not in the key positions.

We have another set of back to back games next Friday and Saturday.  The first 6:00 pm game against team Distinctive Glass at EWHS and a 7:00 pm rematch against NWK8 at Lynndale Field 2.  Christian is scheduled to pitch against Jordan and Charlies team.  See you there!

Final Score: NWK8 3 – Coldwell 9

Saturday was Little League Day! The players parade to the field, team pictures are taken, the kids get to pitch, get timed around the bases, hit at Slugfest and eat lunch.

It’s a pretty fun day to spend at the ballpark. Us coaches didn’t get to participate in the homerun derby since we had a game immediately after our pictures. Maybe next year.

Zach, Christian and Alex

Waiting to pitch for candy.

Christian pitching strikes.

Tug-A-War: The other team let go because we were winning.

The Phantoms are able to keep up with the best teams in the league.  Even when they have bad defensive games, they are within a few points to win.

My lineup strategy has been to put Chris and Christian as the leadoff batters.  Both are good hitters, fast base runners and have really small strike zones.  The advantage is that it makes the opposing have to pitch perfectly in order to get them out.  This has been working really well and even the best pitchers are having a tough time pitching to them.  They get on base and then our power hitters are right behind to drive them in.

Christian was walked 3 times in this game and finally got a hit late in the game.  He’s had better games defensively, but he wasn’t the only one to miss grounders and pop ups.

The Phantoms had a couple bad calls by umps go against them.  It cost us a couple runs and we could have tied up the game or gone ahead.  Team Bennett & Bennett was undefeated until they played 3D Roofing, the only team now to be undefeated.  We feel pretty good that we gave them a good close game even when we didn’t play well.

This was the first of 2 back to back games for this weekend.  We have Little League Day and a game against NWK8 on Saturday.

Final Score: Coldwell 11 – Bennett & Bennett 12