Thursday I decided I would go to the batting cage early to try and work on the things Coach Lantigua had taught me on Wednesday. I wanted to get in early, and really hammer out the new swing so that it would begin to feel normal by the time we took batting practice on the field later in the afternoon. I brought my phone out to the cage and created a makeshift tripod, using a bucket that was once filled with David's Sunflower Seeds and two 16 ounce batting donuts. I placed the phone in between the donuts on top of the bucket and took the whole contraption and put it in the right hand batters box to get film of my swing. It worked out well, as I got to see, and then go over my adjustments with him. I think any time hitters can work with video, even something as rudimentary as hitting off a tee and having to start and stop the camera, it is incredibly beneficial. We, as hitters, don't get to know our swings well enough from the outside and so watching and understanding both the feel and the look of it is a great help.
Now if you've been wondering why I gave this post the title "Learning" you'll find out. Thursday's practice was the beginning of the end of Maxx the Seawolves second baseman, and the beginning of Maxx the Padres infielder. What exactly does that mean? It means that the hundreds of thousands of practice hours I spent at University Field, in the arena, on the track turf, and at Joe Nathan Field were going to be rendered obsolete in favor of new double play feeds, footwork, timing and throwing. Obviously the Padres philosophy is very different from the Coach Pennuci philosophy, but such if life in baseball. There are thousands of different ways of teaching, correcting and even performing the same tasks. I worked with Jonesy the infield instructor on slowing down my feet, and not crossing over as much. He told me that I had learned to play and be successful on the border of out of control. We are trying to slow that down, and make sure that all of the routine plays are exactly that. Thursday was also my first experience in practice at 3B. Yes, I am working in that new DW5 model glove at the hot corner. The changes were weird and felt extreme at first, but as I took more reps both at second and third I began to understand how they worked and what they were supposed to look and feel. So there it is, I have begun learning to play Padres defense.
Thursday night we played in Surprise against the Rangers. The game was played on a practice field, instead of the stadium fields as we've played in every other game since I've arrived. This was the wrong night to not be in the lineup as the game took forever! Me and Max sat in the dugout and tried to make the most out of a long game by broadcasting into the little cone shaped cups we were given to drink out of. Rodney Daal and Vince Belnome (in his final AZL appearance) both hit home runs, and Travis played 5 innings before heading on to bigger and better things in Fort Wayne. By the time the game ended there were a combined 27 runs, 32 hits and 3 errors. All of that took 3:29, and a little after 10:30 pm we were headed back to the complex with a W.
On Friday, J-Rod, Max, Zach Eflin and I went Go-Karting before practice. These were serious Go-Karts, and as I made it around the first turn into a straight away I knew this racing thing could get dangerous. We were flying around the track, with the exception of Zach who stalled his car a world record 5 times on the first lap, en route to a world record lap time of 4:33. I was a little hesitant in whizzing the car around, trying not to crash the car, or myself. Unfortunately for me, not all of us were that concerned about life and limb as Fried came flying around the corner, and as my car was skidding through the turn, T-Boned me at full speed. My car probably went about 5 to 7 inches off the ground, before two wheels landed on the track wall, giving me a jolt, before kicking me back onto the track and leaving me feeling like I got hit by a semi. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but it really wasn't a good feeling. I finished 4th in that race, and then 3rd in the second one. More importantly we all made it out alive, and we killed a few hours before we had to be at the locker room.
Friday's practice was focused on middle infield work with pitchers, and corner infield work on the half field with Jonesy. I got to work with the corner guys because I don't need to know the exact timing of the pick offs and plays at second base with this pitching staff. I headed over to the half diamond with Fernando Perez and Gabriel Quintana and we took ground balls for about half an hour at 3B. We worked on ranging to our left, making back handed plays to our right, and on slow rollers. We finished up by reading bunts as though we were in a late inning, bunt situation. We had a pitcher on the mound and we had to communicate whether or not we would be able to field the bunt, or whether the pitcher could make the play at third. I think I started to understand the pace and the footwork of the defense which was nice because the first day was not very impressive. On Friday I made all the plays I should have, and had some success on the tough ones. It is a small step, but that's how this works. Baby steps.
Friday night had us back at home against the Giants who arrived wearing bright orange jerseys and black socks with orange stripes. It was a pretty flashy look, especially for the Arizona League in which most teams seem to have single color, bland uniforms. I spent the time in the third base dugout talking to the guys, including Luis Tejada, one of the Domincan players. He told me that he made a promise with his family that before he returned home at the end of the year that he would have learned to speak English. Though his sentences were broken he knew all of the words and understood the conversation. I give him a lot of credit considering a lot of the Spanish speaking players simply keep to themselves and don't worry about English other than in their classes. We lost the game 9-8 thanks in large part to some questionable calls by the umpires, but those happen in baseball. It is best to leave nothing to chance, if we had buried the Giants earlier in the game the two balk calls wouldn't have mattered. Daal homered for the second straight night, hitting an absolute missile to left field that smashed into the back wall of the bullpen.
Okay, I'm almost done, sorry about the length, but three days worth of fun takes time. Saturday I was back at it for early work in the cage with Lantigua. This time we altered my stance. He explained that when I took my wide stance I was forced to use my shoulders and chest to try and hit, because my body couldn't freely rotate. We narrowed my base, and that coupled with the new trigger we had worked on a few days prior helped me feel far more loose, controlled and aggressive in my swing. I was really hitting the ball well by the end of my early work. If an outsider had walked into the cage during early work he might have noticed that one of the players didn't seem to fit. In the near cage was Filpo, then Daal and me, then Quintana and Moreno and finally Blanco and DelCastillo. Tissenbaum doesn't really qualify in a group with those baseball names. I headed inside and checked the bulletin board to see WHAT I had to do at practice and found out I was going to hit in a simulated game. I walked back to my locker and grabbed a drink, sat down and checked my phone. I cooled off, went into the equipment room to pick up my grey practice shirt than Jonesy had been bugging me about all week and headed out to practice. More learning. I walked outside and was stunned to see all the infielders on the field already, about to begin the early work drill. Notice I put the word "WHAT" in caps? I knew what I had to do, but not WHEN and so for the first time (I think in my life) I was late for practice. Not a good feeling. The day was a bit of a blur as I tried to get over the fact that I had screwed up.
We headed out to Tempe Diablo Stadium which took about an hour and took on the Angels. Again I stood with Eflin, Cam Stewart and my new friend Luis Tejada. We tried our best to ignore the fact that we got smoked in the game. We were down 8-1 after 1 inning and it didn't get better all night as we sat and watched the drubbing our team took. Nothing exciting to write about in this game. So that is it, you're all caught up. Today is an off day, meaning we're off to Wet N Wild Phoenix, a local water park!
No comments:
Post a Comment