"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Brooks Adams

Yes Henry, you’re so damn right! The Defensive Specialist has received so many emails from loyal readers offering thanks and praise for the quality of information that is flowing out of Deep in the Hole. It’s like the collective baseball community is growing in knowledge and intellect on a daily basis and judging by the comprehensive analytics used to track traffic on the blog, that knowledge is taking place in far flung regions across the globe.

Before the Defensive Specialist continues self-fellating, it’s probably wise to cast a quick eye over the fearless predictions made for each series last week:

Perth Heat Vs Adelaide Bite – the Defensive Specialist called a 3-1 result to the Happy Heaters and it looked like the Perth lads were going to turn in a 4-0 result. The Bite had other thoughts and rallied back to split the series 2-2.

Sydney Blue Sox Vs Brisbane Bandits - Your old pal went large on this one and predicted a 4-0 sweep to the Blue Sox. It didn’t play out like that at all with the teams splitting the series

Melbourne Aces Vs Canberra Multiculturalists – The season opener at the MCG was supposed to spark the Aces to a 3-1 series win. Mother nature decided she’d intervene and cut the series to 2 games of which Melbourne won both.

So, for another week, the Defensive Specialist’s tips were as useful as lockjaw at a suckers picnic. Seriously if you were laying your hard earned on the line based on the info being delivered here you’d be on the verge of having your legs broken by agitated bookies.

Since the Defensive Specialist is demonstrating no real ability to predict the future, lets examine the past and vault into the weekly installment of “What the Defensive Specialist Learnt” after the recent Sydney Vs Brisbane series.

1. For the second week in a row, the Blue Sox have demonstrated that their once feted pitching staff has a couple of holes in it. The arms that the Sydney squad has on its roster are impressive but have not consistently delivered across a full series in back to back weeks. Wayne Lundgren has been roughed up in his last 2 outings, surrendering almost a run per inning while staff ace Chris Oxspring showed a slight speed wobble in his last start (which will fill many hitters hearts with hope). David Welch regained form with an outstanding appearance but was questionable in the 2 previous and Vaughn Harris was excellent in his first start of the year. Matt Williams got the prison shower treatment in relief on the weekend although the defense behind him did not help his cause. If the Blue Sox can put it all together they have the best staff in the league – the question is consistency.
2. Despite evidence to the contrary, pitchers can be smart. Case in point – Alex Johnson’s performance. Numerous blogs (including this one) spent last week blowing on Johnson’s trumpet after he exploded onto the scene with ridiculous numbers to start his ABL career. All of a sudden Brisbane rolls into town after seeing him the week before and he submits a 1-12 with a double and a solitary RBI. Guys can go 1-12 where they square up everything and hit it straight at people but Johnson looked off kilter. Were the Bandits pitching him differently? Had they figured him out? Who knows, but this weekend’s series will really show whether or not he can make the necessary adjustments to get back on track and be the run producer the Blue Sox need.
3. The Brisbane staff has some arms but a real affinity for missing the strike zone. Starters James Albury and Hiroki Yamada have both demonstrated an ability to get hitters out but their walk rates are at an unacceptable level meaning that they’re giving opponents extra outs and consistently pitching with runners on base. Yamada in particular has the ability to blow lineups away (17 k’s in 16 innings) but extend at bats by falling behind. Not only does this slow him down and perhaps affect the defense behind him but it drives up his pitch counts and limits the innings he can eat up.
4. Yes, the Bandits dropped a 9 spot on Sydney in game 3 but offensively there are question marks. Josh Roberts has gotten off to a hot start and Shuhei Fukuda handled the bat well, but there is not one guy in the line up that puts any sort of fear into the opposing managers heart which means pitchers can go right after anyone in the lineup without fear of the long ball. Having said that, if Rory Rhodes got himself on a red meat diet and lived in a weight room he has the frame to be an absolute man-child. The youngster is 201 cms (6’7) and got down the line in a pretty good time when he dropped a drag bunt. If he can hang some muscle off his skeleton, he has the potential to hit balls that don’t come back.
5. Speaking of cold bats, Sydney’s Mark Holland and Pat “Stone Hands’ Maat are proving to be black holes in the batting order with at bats being sucked in and lost at a level that would arouse Stephen W Hawking. Holland and Stone Hands have punched out at an alarming rate (12 & 14 in 12 & 10 games respectively) while contributing almost nothing offensively. Holland has never been known as a force with the stick and is in the lineup to provide defense so you could turn a blind eye to his anemia. Stone Hands on the other hand is a proven contributor so his offensive slumber is creating large-scale problems in the run production department because he was banked on to be a middle order force and there isn’t another bopper on the horizon ready to be plugged in (unless Trent Oeltjen makes a cameo). Stone Hands looks to have lost bat speed and as a result is gearing up earlier in order to catch up – this of course makes him susceptible to anything with a change of speed.
6. The Bandits pen has been impressive. Chris Mowday who looks like a Metallica roadie was exceptional in relief last week and is proving to be a go to guy for manager David Nilsson. Simon Morriss, Phil Stockman and young pup Josh Warner have yet to concede a run in 18 innings of work. If the starters can get late into the game and turn a lead or close ballgame over to the pen, the Bandits would have to like their chances.

Your old pal could continue teaching but the word count is getting up and with attention spans not what they used to be, its probably better to stop the learning so that the influence remains. The Defensive Specialist will be back tomorrow night with a fresh round of unbelievably accurate predictions as well as the unveiling of the Deep in the Hole Dude of the Month.