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

Tough loss for the Phantoms…I think we had a few questionable calls at the plate calling balls and strikes favoring the opposing team.  Definitely had some bad calls on the field.  But we just need to focus on making our plays on the field and taking advantage when we are at bat.  If we do that, we can win just about any game and the officiating isn’t a factor.

Offensively in this game our 1-8 guys are getting on base and scored all the runs.  But the bottom of our lineup is going down 1-2-3.  Defensively our players are playing tentative and missing routine plays.  Our green players are costing us runs.  Hopefully we can work with them and get their game in order.

In the past 2 years Christian has batted in the middle of the lineup.  But I’ve moved him up to 2 to take advantage of his speed on the bases.  He’s batting 333 right now and making good choices on the plate.

Christian didn’t get to do much at the plate.  He worked his friend Gabe to a 3-2 count and walked in the top of the 1st.  In the top of the 3rd he got put on base with 4 straight balls and stole home when he got to 3rd base.

He and shortstop Chris had another 6-4 play to get the 2nd out of the 1st inning.  Those are starting to become regular plays for those two.

In the bottom of the 4th inning (our last due to time) we made a mental mistake and tried to get the runner at 2nd and let the runner at 3rd score.  If we would have taken care of the ball and got the 3 outs, we would have won the game 4-3 because the score would have reverted back to 2nd since we were tied in the 3rd.  Oh well…

Our next game is Saturday evening at 7:00 pm on Lynndale Field 2 against team Windermere.  Christian’s teammate Michael from the Red Dragons from a couple years ago is on that team.  See you there!

Final Score: Coldwell 7 – TE Briggs 8