RMJ 10 February 24

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24 ● Kissimmee

This day started with the sound of an alarm at 6 a.m. Under most circumstances, this would be a shock to my system; but given the uplifting quality of the wedding, and my desire to get back in the saddle, it was a pleasure.

I arose singing Jimmy Buffett songs and arrived at the ballpark at 6:30. Cubby came in about the same time, and we went to work on the teams for the “stimulated” (instead of “simulated”) game that morning.

I named it a stimulated game because there was a rule against base-stealing, which allowed the pitchers to work quickly. We stayed with the animal format on the offense, adjusted the defense, and gave the pitchers five minutes each on the mound, figuring they could throw roughly 20 pitches in that time.

Vern came in about 7:00 and gave the plan his blessing. The only thing we were concerned about was the changeovers on defense each 15 minutes. Because the extra players would be taking batting practice on another field, we had a small migration each time a new team came up to hit.

As it turned out, the defensive teams took a few minutes to get into place. Most of the players had to be told where to go. That resulted in some pitchers warming up on the mound for several minutes after they had already tuned up for 15 minutes in the bullpen. For starting pitchers, this was not a problem, but it was certainly an excessive amount of time for the relief pitchers.

Whatever the reason, the hitters won the day. Each group scored in multiples, and few pitchers escaped the onslaught.

 

After the workout, I met with the coaching staff to discuss the game. I was happy to hear that they thought it was a good drill, for the most part. I suppose they had all experienced enough of the typical intrasquad game blahs to be juvenated by the upbeat change of pace. Still, modifications were necessary to make the game flow better.

Five minutes seemed to be not enough time for the starters, but about right for the relievers. But using the time system proved clumsy, because some of the pitchers reached their limit in the middle of an at-bat. By the time these at-bats were finally resolved, the pitchers sometimes had spent an extra minute on the mound.

The six-man offensive units worked well, except that some hitters came up twice, some three times in 15 minutes. We decided to warm up the relievers for 8-10 minutes and give them 15-20 pitches; we’d warm up the starters 15 minutes and allow them to throw 25-30 pitches.

We also decided that the game would start when the first pitch was thrown, and the players on the other field would report for assignment 13 minutes later, so they would be on hand for the changeover.