2010 Outlaws Baseball Tournament #6 Day #3

Back to Big League Dreams for the second straight day, the Outlaws played in one of the semi-final games of the tournament. They played the River City Bandits. Austin and Amaury play for the Bandits. Austin played for the Gunners in 2008-2009 and went with the team to Cooperstown. A number of the Outlaws played with Amaury on the 2008 9U Laguna All-Star Team.

Channeling the fact that these are 12 year old kids playing a game, I rarely get upset at the umpiring. I got more agitated during this game than anytime I can remember in the last two plus years. I usually sit behind home plate to score the game on my iPad. The umpire's strike zone on the outside of the plate in this game was widely inconsistent. Particularly on outside pitches to a right handed batter, the strike zone moved back and forth all day. A pitch several inches off the plate would be a strike. The very next pitch about the same height but just off the plate would be a ball. This went on all game. It is not the reason that the Outlaws lost the game, but it makes it very difficult for the kids.

At the plate, Jack was 0 for 2 with a walk and a strike-out. In his first at-bat, Jack struck on looking on a 1 and 2 pitch that was several inches off the plate. Running the count to 3 and 2 and then fouling off two pitches, Jack walked in his second plate appearance. He stole second, but ended the inning there. In his third at-bat, Jack popped a 2 and 0 pitch up very high to the second baseman for an out.

In the field, Jack played four innings at third and one inning in center. In the second inning, he handled a high pop-up on the left side for an out. In the fourth inning, he made a great diving stop on a ball to his left, bounced up and threw the runner out at first by a step. On that play, Jack said that he saw that Coach Scott had called for an off speed pitch so he had taken a step towards the line. I did not realize that he was playing attention to pitching signs.

Allowing the Bandits lead-off runner to get on base with a 3DK and then walking the next batter in the top of the first inning, the Outlaws quickly fell behind 3 to 0. Austin pitched five strong innings for the Bandits. The Outlaws lost the game by the score of 7 to 3 and were eliminated from the tournament.