Game 2 vs. Bonn

I hate making excuses. Since I was a youngster, my father and grandfather both taught me that making excuses is not tolerated in our family or in baseball. I learned this quickly. As a coach/player/scout, I'm definitely not one to tolerate them from younger teammates or players I coach or end up scouting. Things happen in baseball, you give up hits - you give up runs as a pitcher. As a batter you strike out, you're picked off. You win, you lose and sometimes it rains (to quote the great Nuke Laloosh/Crash Davis)... That being said, this past Saturday's game can only be summarized as excuse city. We lost game 2, my start, 13-3, and for that I can start the list here:
1. I didn't pitch well. I said to the team after the game that the loss was on me, of course, it's a team game and no one was buying that, but had I pitched like I threw last year in Bonn (8 2/3 of 1 earned run) we would have won. And the funny thing is I actually felt that this year's Bonn's lineup was nearly as dangerous as last years.
2. They're offense was actually good. They put 6 runs up in the first inning on our very good other "foreign" starter Max in Game 1. I say "foreign" because Max, as previously mentioned on this blog is an American who played college ball at Harvard, and summer college league with me in Virigina in 2005, but has a greek passport so can pitch Game 1 (the EU/German pitcher game)... and their offense did a good job when I was getting ahead in counts of 0-2 and 1-2 and fighting me off, making me throw a lot of pitches and putting balls into play.
3. I didn't finish guys off. When you get batters 0-2 and 1-2 you need your put away pitch to put guys away and I just didn't do that, at all. Granted it's the 2nd game of the season without pitching spring training for me, so I have room to work on this and grow but obviously with every game being important in the regular season, I expect to be sharper.
4. Still learning my catcher and my catcher still learning me. Jakub Voljak is the catcher for the Czech National team and an awesome receiver but we've only been battery mates for about 6 innings so far and I was half asleep the week before so we really didn't click this game. Everything was out of synch with the pitch calling, partly because he hasn't entirely grasped my repitoire and what pitches I can command and in what counts I like to throw them. He also just caught the previous game, all 10 innings (more on that later) and was run over in the first inning, so you can't blame him for being tired and a bit out of it, I know I couldn't do it, but hey that's why I'm a pitcher :)
5. The previous game. We managed to win a thrilling comeback 11-10 in 10 innings and pretty much used up all of our energy doing that. We just came out flat as a team, didn't score runs, didn't play good defense, and obviously (me) not pitching well... maybe beceause
6. The previous game. I have a set routine I like to do warming up before the game, and I was set to go and then we went into extra innings. That's really no excuse but it certainly could have played a factor in my mental preparation.
7. Red bull. Thus by the time I drank the red bull in the 8th inning - the extra innings kinda caffine crashed me by the 3rd and in the 4th is when I really started laboring and ended up throwing about 30 pitches that inning. Didn't make it to the 5th already down 5-1 or so.
8. Con Law paper. Have I mentioned don't do law school while trying to play baseball professionally overseas? Had this con law paper hanging over my head, and it still wasn't done with about 48 hours before it was due... and on top of that...
9. Was flying at 630 AM to Budapest for my first day of coaching with the Hungarian national team. Worry abut getting to sleep at a decent hour so I could wake at 5 AM, getting the paper done before that point, coaching this team for the first time, and seeing the girl in Budapest for the first time in 6 months...
10. Early season cold/stiff/soreness.... Thanks Detroit winter. Only my 4th or 5th time outside on a mound, so still need to build up mechanics/arm strength, etc.
11. Harry Potter. It was one of those unusual times in my baseball career where I couldn't "clear the mechanism" in the words of the great (and imaginary) Billy Chappel from For Love of the Game. I wear glasses when I pitch, ever since I learned in 2007 that the reason I couldn't see the catcher's signs at night in Israel wasn't because of the shadows, but my blurry vision for small objects at the 60 foot distance from the pitching mound to home plate. Anyways, Bonn was all over me calling me Harry Potter, and lame jokes from the movies, which actually I take as a compliment, because doesn't Harry Potter crush his more powerful and elder opponents? I digress, the fact that I could hear their bench when I was on the mound, and couldn't hear my own guys supporting me, was a bit frustrating. You can't get frustrated when you're doing something you love and you don't know how many more times you'll be able to do it... So just laugh it off, lock in on your target and make your pitch. Easier said then done in the moment, clearly.
12. Anyways, the comeback win in Game 1 was great, but we have to figure out a way to make this Game 2 thing work. Now off to Budapest in a few hours....