Brutal Walk Off Loss

[Traps71]

10U Little League All Stars. State semi-final game. We go down 2-0 early. Fight our way back on good hitting. We are leading 5-2 going into the bottom of the 6th. 3 outs to get. Has been cleanly played game on all sides. Our starting pitcher had cruised for 5 innings. Gave up 2 hits. Had 7Ks. Couple walks. Never really been in trouble the whole game and had only 75 pitches through 5. The manager decided to bring in a "closer" to go through the top part of their order, which was coming up for the third time. Top of their order had done nothing against the starter. The "closer" had pitched one inning in the quarter final game (a blow out win) about 6 hours before. You know where this is going...

Closer has control issues from the start. Added to that are a couple hard luck balls and strike calls. Now it is 5-3 with the bases loaded and one out., the closer just having walked the last batter. They bring the starter back in. She proceeds to K the next batter. 2 outs. Bases loaded. Full count on the batter. Walks her. 5-4. Passed ball on ball 4. Tying run now coming around 3rd. Catcher throws to pitcher who is running to cover to try and make play at plate. Throw is wild. Ball rolling around infield. First basemen runs and stops it with her foot. Winning run now coming around 3rd. First basemen trying to make play at plate about launches ball over the backstop. Lost, 6-5. Opponent scored 4 runs on 1 hit that inning, the hit being a bunt single that should have been allowed to roll foul. Never seen anything like it. A complete and total disaster at absolutely the worst possible time.

The girls went 4-1 and had a great tournament, but should have had the opportunity to play in the finals. IMHO, the manager overthought the situation, perhaps paniced. I have no idea why you would take out a starter who was pitching as well as ours had. Let her start the 6th clean. And give her a quick hook if need be. Instead, you bring her back into about the worst situation you can imagine and let her "lose" the game. (and, no, I am not the pitcher's dad). Of course, the girls got over it in about 10 minutes. I kept going over my scorebook last night looking for answers while drinking a 1/5th of Jack Daniels...

My older DD is on the 12U LL all stars team. Hope the above was not foreshadowing....

 

[justanotherguy]

The best laid plans of mice and men... Sounds like the coach had a plan that failed. If it had worked everyone would be calling him/her a genius. It's life. The girls had fun and obviously aren't that upset. Parents shouldn't be either.

 

[Ksphenom]

I think if the pitcher was in shape enough to finish let her finish. One WP, BB, HBP or hit the coach could've made a change at that point.

Too many times I've witnessed the opposite.
Girls with hardly any reps goes 4 good innings, pitching well and see the opposing team lineup for the 3rd/4th time and coaches not pulling the girl and letting her get tired and start missing locations.

So If I had to choose I'd rather see a loss due to a perceived coaching error verses a non-move and let a girl that pitched a great game lose form from being tired out and get a loss when a coach had an opportunity to give the girl and the team a win.

Question.... did the coaches after the game take responsibility for the game loss or did put it on the girls?

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[canyonjoe]

As a coach you try and put your team in the best position to win. You send runners, make subs, set the defense and hope it works. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[The Man In Blue]

I’ve seen that exact pitching scenario play out too many times. Yes, you don’t want to ride that cruising starter into the ground and you want to get others involved. It’s possible the fourth time around the line-up the offense starts dialing in in your pitcher, so I am OK with making the change. But why the coaches let the reliever get into that much trouble is always beyond me.

You are up 5-2, not 10-2. A couple of walks is all you can spare, then it is time. You may be the best pitcher in the world, but sometimes you just don’t have your stuff.

 

[Momo'sDad]

Yeah, in a 5-2 game (that matters), I'd most likely send the starter back out to start the inning with the primary goal of retiring the leadoff.

It wasn't the wrong call. Maybe coach tried to outthink the room or maybe he gave more weight to getting a reserve player some quality reps in a pressure situation. Sometimes the other team executes 1 time more than yours.

 

[shiocschmidty]

Is this something the coach routinely does? And you did say 10U correct? This is not the worst possible time. Kids need to grow and get opportunities to succeed and fail. Sounds like it was a great learning opportunity for all involved. Never fun losing. So don't consider it losing, consider it learning.

 

[NJgators14uSPARK]

Always have your second baseman back up the throw from the catcher to the pitcher on a wild pitch. The second baseman should be in the circle waiting for the over throw. Anticipate it, get in line of the throw. It would have given the pitcher at least another batter. But that's what makes the game so much fun. The girls went through the process of that loss. They can reflect and get better from it. Fail forward.

 

[bmakj]

Is this something the coach routinely does? And you did say 10U correct? This is not the worst possible time. Kids need to grow and get opportunities to succeed and fail. Sounds like it was a great learning opportunity for all involved. Never fun losing. So don't consider it losing, consider it learning.

one of my favorite umpires in our area, retired, told there girls the L is not for Losses or Losing, it is for Learning

 

[Greatdaytobeawildcat]

The best laid plans of mice and men... Sounds like the coach had a plan that failed. If it had worked everyone would be calling him/her a genius. It's life. The girls had fun and obviously aren't that upset. Parents shouldn't be either.

We just had a mid-week friendly against the team we just beat for the state championship two Sundays ago. Down 6-2 in bottom 5, we fight back to tie against the starter. In bottom 6, their coach puts in new pitcher – 2 walks, wild pitch, game over. One of the dads on their team went absolutely ballistic (scared the crap out of our girls) shouting at their coach (including obscenities) about the decision. In the handshake line, we ask coach “is everything alright?”. He says “Oh, that’s just Ray”, like it happens all the time.

Yikes.

Anyway, we make decisions and live with them. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.