Echelbarger Phantoms 2010

Wow! What a game! The Phantoms came out of a heated battle to win a close one with Bennett & Bennett.

I can’t tell you how much this was a stressful game to manage, especially when I was already without my starting catcher in the line-up and learning right at game time that I was down another player. I had to make on the fly adjustments and made mistakes on who was suppose to sit out an inning. I like to have things dialed in at least a day in advance.

The Phantoms had 9 hits and 12 walks while B&B had 6 hits and 8 walks. The team had 3 doubles by Benji, Sean & Ian and 6 singles by Alex R, Chris, Reilly & Ryan. The game started with 2 runs at the top of the 1st inning for team Echelbarger, but B&B came back with 5 runs in the bottom half. We went ahead in the 4th with 5 runs and scored a run in the sixth.

Chris was our MVP of the game. The kid is as cool as ice in both batting and pitching. He pitched 4 awesome innings of shut out baseball with 9 strike outs, 1 hit, 3 walks and 0 runs scored.  I’d like to give special honorable mention to Reilly for solid playing at 1st base.  He leads the team in put-outs with 9.

Defensively we made a few mistakes…Kids didn’t cover home plate and we bobbled a couple plays in the field. I’m trying to teach the kids to move to the ball once it is put in play. Charging a grounder would have made a difference for an out instead of waiting for it to roll in the glove. A couple missed opportunities cost us 3 runs in the sixth to tie the game.

I was hoping to try out Jack pitching tonight, but didn’t want to put him in a high pressure situation for his first time out this season. He and others who haven’t pitched yet will get a chance in the next couple of games.

I remembered a rule from minors last year that if the game results in a tie at the end of the game and no more innings can be started, the score reverts back to the previous inning. So the score of last nights game is 7-5 in our favor!

All in all we played hard. I’m proud that the team held it together and didn’t get down on themselves too badly when we were behind. Our offense will give us a chance to win in every game.

Our next match is Thursday, April 1st against Insurance Resource Group @ 5:00 pm on Field 1. See you there! Go Phantoms!

Final Score: Echelbarger 7 – Bennett & Bennett 5

Great game last night!  The Phantoms had outstanding pitching by Chris, Christian & Jordan and our offense was relentless.  We managed 10 hits and 17 walks and held Windermere to just 7 hits and 2 walks. What a turn around from Saturday’s game where we had a league high of 150 pitches in a game to the league low of 88 pitches.

I made a few minor changes to the batting order based on our previous game. The experiment worked! The Phantoms have a potent offense that will scare opposing teams. We had 2 triples from Reilly & Ryan, a 2 RBI double by Chris and 7 singles from Chris, Jordan, Benji, Caesar, Reilly, Jack & Ryan.

Defensively we got 15 outs and took better care of the ball. Reilly leads the team with 4 put-outs. I’m eagerly waiting for the Chris & Christian double play combo. Although we may not see it until we build up the rest our pitching staff since both are pitching a lot right now.

Christian was the MVP of the game. He pitched lights out not allowing a hit, walk or run and got 2 strike outs.

Our next game is this Friday against Bennett & Bennett on Lynndale Field 1 at 7:00 pm. If you are not able to make to the game, you can watch via web-cam at http://www.pacificlittleleague.com. Go Phantoms!

Final Score: Windermere 4 – Echelbarger 18

What a great day for baseball…Beautiful weather and great hitting! The 2010 Phantoms offense came out with fire against team Sparta’s.

The top of the order is in fine form and we were able to capitalize on runs early in the game.  Chris lead off with nice single, Christian also hit a single and Jordan was able hit an inside the park home run.

The middle and bottom of the order is a work in progress at this point.  Many of these kids moved up from super 9’s and haven’t been in kid pitch for a whole season.  Alex R, Reilly, Sean, Jack and Caesar did get some good hits in the game.

This years team is a little light in the pitching department.  We had 6 strong pitchers last year and we are going to need to mold our staff this year.  The bright spot was that Christian started real strong with 1-2-3 strikeout to their lead off batter, but the ump didn’t call the close ones for him and he struggled to find his control after he walked a batter.

The other area we need to work on is defense.  My starting fielders are going to be pretty strong, but as we rotate players through the field positions we have some holes.  Team Sparta’s took advantage of our mistakes on the field and scored several runs on errors.  This will get better with more practice and games.

The MVP for this game was Jordan for the HR in the 1st inning.

The Phantoms are an exciting team and will be a great squad.  We have a fabulous cheering section and we have great assistant coaches working with the kids.

Our next game is Wednesday, 3/24 at 7:00 pm on Field 2 against team Windermere.  See you then.  Go Phantoms!

Final Score: Echelbarger 10 – Sparta’s 14