Cage Work and Bike Rides

Following our long series with Boise the team loaded up the bus and hit the road to go to Vancouver.  Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to go due to Visa issues, so I packed up my bag that I bring back and forth to the field and hotel, phone chargers, headphones and whatever other trinkets I need to stay occupied and headed back to the hotel.  I was happy to find out that Cody Gabella an infielder who I had met in Arizona and who was now back with the Ems was also staying behind nursing an injured leg.  I borrowed River's bike for the few days knowing I'd have to get to and from PK Park every day. 

As the team played its four game series north of the border Gabby and I enjoyed a pretty simple, easy schedule.  Each day around noon I'd wake up and we would exchange texts confirming that we'd meet in the lobby at around 1:30 to ride over to either Jimmy Johns or the Pita Pit for lunch. We'd eat, sit around for a few minutes to relax after having to ride our bikes a whole two blocks, and then make the trip over to PK.  We discovered an alternate route on the way back to the hotel after our first day at the park and it made life a hell of a lot simpler.  No uphill bridge riding, no crossing major streets without a light, and certainly a shorter distance.  When we arrived each day at the ballpark we'd head under the stadium to our clubhouse punch in the code on the security door and then sit in our lockers for a few minutes listening to music and playing games on our phones.  Again, nothing too taxing right away, just making sure to take care of the finely tuned machine that is a professional athlete's body.

Our routine at the field was pretty standard operation, we'd stretch for a few minutes in right field then walk through the bullpen, up the steps and into the temporary batting cages that the U of O has set up while the indoor facility is being built.  We did a few rounds of tee work with the mini bat, working on our top and bottom hand path, before moving to our regular bats for some tee work.  We would finish up with a couple rounds of front toss.  Next, we headed back to the field and threw just to keep our arms loose, and we finished each day by hitting some ground balls to one another.  Overall a very low stress workout, but it was effective in keeping us both in the flow of things.

The Ems lost 3 of 4 to the Canadians and took an overnight ride back to Eugene.  We headed out to Salem-Keizer for our next series which is a back and forth series.  We don't stay in SK because its only an hour to drive back and forth.  We got up to the ballpark plenty early and got to pick out lockers, I'm in the corner so that I have extra space to my left with the lockers not going right up to the wall.  We took bp and although we had done all our work the previous three days I felt like I couldn't find my bat path, I felt long and loopy.  After bp I headed inside and grabbed a roll of tape from our Athletic Trainer, Jeremy and taped a fat knob on the end of my bat.  By shortening up, I created better barrel awareness, and better bat speed.  It must have worked as I got two hits and cashed in two rbi in game one, however our team was a shell of itself after the long trip back from Vancouver and nothing really went right for us in a lopsided loss.

Game two was much better for everyone.  We jumped out to an early lead putting up a 5 spot in the first inning.  I singled home two runs, and "stole" home (thanks to Goose getting hung up long enough for me to get to the plate).  In the 3rd I hit a solo home run to make it 6-0, and then after a long night I came up in the 8th.  With a man on and a 3-2 count I managed to foul off four pitches. The fifth 3-2 pitch was up in the zone and I put a good swing on it.  I knew right away that I had, for the first time in my career hit two homers in one game. I had to suppress the little kid in me that wanted to put on the huge goofy "I did it" smile.  We finished up with a long ninth and escape with the win.  Tonight we head up there for the finale of our three game set, and then we have an off day tomorrow.

I'm sure you're all thinking this right now, tough life isn't it?