The Sinclairs baseball team’s games were delayed due to the large amount of rain the region received in the past week.
It cancelled out every game, and with that, Coach Dintaman gave his guys a bit of a break. Typically, they get Mondays off, but he gave them a couple of days more, just to relax and get caught up on school work just like the rest of us are probably doing.
“We have a couple of guys banged up. Our catcher, Keenan Carter has a thumb injury. He is getting looked at by a doctor next week so we are down to two catchers, Andrew Holderman and Jordan Allen. Allen will probably get some opportunities. A few guys have some nagging injuries but nothing major. The big thing is just trying to keep everyone fresh,” said Dintaman.
Some of the guys are staying active by taking some batting practice and fielding, but the majority took advantage of the days off Dintaman awarded them.
All around, the team has been dynamic and dominant, especially with pitching. Mitch Asman, who recently committed to Northern Kentucky, had a few minutes to sit down and talk with me about how the pitchers have been mostly lights-out this season.
“We throw a lot of strikes. We don’t walk people. We don’t hit people. We don’t give them free bases. If they are going to beat us, they are going to work with our best pitchers,” said Asman.
Asman has the highest percentage of ground-outs and fly-outs, the least amount of walks, and least amount of hit-by-pitch. Anders, Sexton and Asman are all incredibly efficient and one could easily make an argument for who is the team’s best pitcher. Between the three, they have a combined record of 15-2. They are barely giving up two runs a game and have combined for 95 strikeouts while only giving up 25 walks.
“I think I’ve gotten a lot better between my freshman and sophomore year,” Asman said. “I’ve gotten a lot stronger. I know how to prepare and go at people. I’ve grown a lot mentally and that’s helped a lot.”
Speaking of mental, the offense is averaging about ten runs a game so far this season, which is ridiculously high. Knowing the offense has the ability to put up those kind of numbers brings down any kind of pressure a pitcher might have going into the game.
“Absolutely. You know if you go in an inning and give up a couple runs, you know your offense is going to come back and put up three or four runs for you,” said Asman.
On Tuesday, the Pride did not disappoint with run support again. In the first game against Indiana Tech, the team put up 11 runs on 18 hits, four of those hits coming off the bat of Billy Kidd, who also had a stolen base. Eight of the nine players on the team had gotten on base at least twice and all but one player had at least one run or one RBI. Pitcher Boomer Lowe pitched a solid four innings, with one strike out and two walks. The Pride did commit four errors on the day and only one of the four runs Indiana Tech scored were earned.
The second game of their double header was not much different. Shortstop Josh Mack went three-for-three, all of them being singles. Mack also stole a base, hit in a run and scored a run of his own as the Pride cruised to a 7-1 victory. Pitcher Johnny Crawford, who leads the team in strikeouts this season, delivered four innings of near-perfect baseball, striking out eight, giving up no hits and allowing just one walk.
Apparently the rained-out week did not hinder the team too much as they just keep on rolling with a 29-5 record. During the rained-out week, they were supposed to have four conference games against Lakeland so those will be rescheduled sometime in the near future. Assuming weather does not cancel more games, the team does have a stretch of games that could thin out the bullpen a tad bit, but Dintaman said that he is confident of the depth of the bullpen. Hopefully by this time next week, the standings will clear up a bit and we will have a better idea of where the conference standings look.
Matt Summers
Sports Editor