Most baseball coaches would agree: free passes are only acceptable at the fair or the movie theatre, not the ball diamond.
Southeast Performance Pump Twins coach Kent Phillips watched his team drop a pair of games Saturday at Lynn Prime Park to the Saskatoon Giants in part because of walks issued to the Giants in Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League action. The Giants was 12-4 and 11-6 in a doubleheader Saturday.
“The biggest thing is we’ve got to throw strikes,” said Phillips, an assistant coach with the midget AAA team. “That’s kind of where we dug ourselves a hole with the games again. We walked too many walks and had too many hit batters and we dig ourselves a hole and by the time you start rallying it’s a little bit shy.”
The Twins haven’t been able to score a lot of runs over the plate in the early part of games, Phillips said. The Giants put up seven runs in the first inning of the opening game.
“We really need to limit our mistakes early and that includes the walks and hit batters,” Phillips said.
The team might be turning that around a little bit as they were able to score a few runs, including a seventh inning rally in the second game that saw them get four runs.
“It’s very encouraging that they’re not giving up,” Phillips said. “They’re not rolling over… it’s easy to admit defeat right away but they kept fighting and fighting and scratch and claw and get as many runs as they could.”
In the first game, Hudson Neuberger went 2-for-4 with an RBI, while Alex Kerr was 1-for-3 with two RBI. On the mound, Burke Lyons gave up nine hits and two walks over three innings, with only three runs earned out of the eight surrendered due to errors. He struck out three.
In the second game, Neuberger went 2-for-4 with two RBI and Boston Walker and Tyran Dorrance were each 1-for-3 with an RBI. Ty Nikolejsin and Thomas Husband split time on the mound, allowing a combined nine hits and eight walks with five strikeouts.
The Twins are also a young team this year without a lot of midget AAA experience, but the team is getting that experience and confidence going forward.
“It’s giving us a better idea of the player’s strengths and stuff we’ve got to work with,” he said. “They’re new to us too. They’re not just new to the team. For us to know what we’ve got to work with and know strengths and things we need to work on to make them better.”
After Wednesday night’s game against the Regina White Sox in Weyburn, the Twins’ next action is June 6 against the Regina Wolfpack in Regina.
