Opinions re: Game Strategy: Bush League or nah?

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Aug 8, 2016
131
28
After blowing a 12-run lead last year, I am no longer comfortable letting off the gas until later in the game. Though when we do it, it is always stepping off of the base.
 
Jul 4, 2012
329
18
Let the coach do the coaching. Typically, coaches will reach the run-rule gap and back off, but maybe she had something else to work on with "her" team. Imagine if she'd taken her foot off and not gotten the remainder of the subs in, she would have been criticized for it. Doesn't sound like anything to get worked up about.

Coaches can't win. I overheard a parent the other day at one of our games say, I can't believe we're bunting when we're up by 12 runs, and I heard a parent from the other team say, that's awful nice of them to try and give us outs by bunting. Perspective I guess.

Support her. At least she knows a little about baseball/softball. She could just be a math teacher getting that few thousand dollars supplement for the money...
 
Nov 18, 2015
1,585
113
Agree that it was good she got everyone in.

As someone else mentioned, not being there makes it hard to "judge". Especially with GC, where the scorekeeper might be crediting a SB for every WP or PB, whether the player was running on the pitch or not.

Is this the same team where the coaches Dad was supposed to be a lot more involved at the start of the season (to support the inexperienced HC), or am I confusing this scenario with another thread?
 
May 23, 2015
999
63
Dont know what happened I was there. I dont keep choking when my opponent is already done. I've had coaches ask me to steal on purpose for live game catcher reps when they were outmatched.

I start pulling starters and let the younger players get a shot
 
Aug 19, 2015
1,118
113
Atlanta, GA
Agree that it was good she got everyone in.

As someone else mentioned, not being there makes it hard to "judge". Especially with GC, where the scorekeeper might be crediting a SB for every WP or PB, whether the player was running on the pitch or not.

Is this the same team where the coaches Dad was supposed to be a lot more involved at the start of the season (to support the inexperienced HC), or am I confusing this scenario with another thread?

Don't think that's me. The coach has mentioned her Dad in Zoom calls, but he has no involvement in coaching our team. ETA: this coach is not young. She's at least 40ish.
 
Aug 25, 2019
1,066
113
I'm guessing this had more to do with your coach's lack of experience than anything else.

DD was in a very similar situation during MS. She was playing a team whose starting pitcher was hurt and their backup could barely throw a strike. When she did throw one, it got hit hard. Girls were advancing on wild pitches left and right. We were up 18-0 very quickly in the first. I knew the opposing coach and she kept looking at me begging for it to stop. DD's coach was a good guy but he had no experience coaching softball. I eventually got his attention from the fence and told him to have girls step off. He looked at me like I had two heads. He had never seen that before and didn't think about doing something like that. We were able to end the inning by having a couple of girls bunt for an out. I explained the step off thing to him after that inning.

When I have been in that situation before I have followed these steps. The first thing I do is stop sending girls home on passed balls/wild pitches. Next is to stop running on them at all. If we are still hitting or walking in runs, I will let the ump know we are stepping off and do so. I absolutely hate having girls swing at bad pitches on purpose. I used to stop girls at one base on hits but I don't like doing that either. I want them to be aggressive and play like they would any other game on balls in play.
Yep, I agree, if she was a new coach, she it probably never crossed her mind to end the inning, let alone step off the bag. A few years ago, a team was pounding DD"s team 21-0 in first inning, when it finally ended, the opposite coach honestly said "I didn't know what to do"
 

Axe

Jul 7, 2011
459
18
Atlanta
You need 15 to end the game after 3 innings so you didn't go that far over. Once you've emptied the bench you want to let those kids play a little so it puts you in a bit of a bad spot. Getting to 18-20 vs. 15 is not uncommon in GA.
 

sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
But why not just quit stealing bases and running up the score? Like I said, the score did not matter. Our old coach would have stopped attempting to score once we'd hit the run rule number (maybe the run rule number plus one insurance run). We went way past that. Am I the only one who thinks our coach's decision was kind of bush league?

Nope. Bush league.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
DD told me she thought the HS she was going to attend won state, I told her no way. Looked up scores and 1 game was about 60-0 against our Team. DD is like, 'how is that even possible?'

Never thought I would suggest it but in MS a Team stepped off the base for us, we were getting whooped. It was done very was discreetly not to emberance or players. Our Team did it once too.
 
Feb 3, 2016
502
43
Every now and then you need to put the hammer down on that one team who has been routinely been disrespectful, crappy to other teams, or players.

I'm not a fan of running up the score but have had enough blowbacks from being nice and ending innings trying to get games over too. Sometimes you never can escape a game like the one you described looking good. It's a no win scenario sometimes except for the score of course...

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

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