An Abbreviated Look

The Heat and Bite went at it again and in somewhat of a surprise the Heat put a beat down on the Bite and their ace Brandon Maurer, taking the contest 9-2. Let’s take a look at a couple of key points: 

• The Defensive Specialist was furiously ironing shirts when he commented at the top of the 5^th inning that the Heat could be in big trouble. After all Maurer was serving up 94 mph fastballs and complementing it with a hellacious slider on his way to striking out 6 through 4 innings. Mrs The Defensive Specialist looked up from whatever it was she was doing and responded to her husband’s comment with “baseball is a funny game, you can score 6 runs in one inning”. And wouldn’t you know it, the Heat came out and hung a 7 spot (Perhaps Mrs The Defensive Specialist should be writing this blog!). It was startling how quickly the wheels fell off Maurer who had been absolutely dominant until the point when Ronnie Welty went big fly to lead off the 5^th. Whether it was fatigue or a mental breakdown, Maurer was unable to get back on track and his good work through 4 came undone in one foul inning. 

• The Defensive Specialist has seen his fair share of games at the Barbagallo Ballpark and can honestly say that even some of the best lefthanded hitters have had a tough time getting balls out of that yard to rightfield. All of a sudden a right handed hitter takes two balls out to that very area – one of which he was completely out in front of! So either some ungodly jet stream decided to show up for game 2 or Welty has some serious juice in his bat. Despite Welty’s wiry frame, he has demonstrated the ability to hit the long ball (18 in his last minor league season) and this was on display in the top of the 5^th where he appeared to sit on a fastball and drove it with authority out to right field. The second at bat with the bases drunk was a little different as he got out in front of a breaking ball and managed to flip a fence scraper out to right for a grand slam. Either way, the fact that he could put two out to the usually dead part of the ballpark is a testament to his bat speed and strength. 

• The Foxtel camera work is still a step behind the action and some of the camera angle decisions are probably not the best but once again the quality of the product has been very strong and definitely a building block for future broadcasts. The more the Defensive Specialist thinks about it, the more it makes sense to show a ‘series of the week’ (assuming MLB and Foxtel have plans to continue their television coverage of the ABL). For the series of the week, Foxtel goes all out like this and really showcases the contest. Single cameras could be dispersed to the other series in order to capture highlights which could then be combined to form a highlight / baseball show during the week which would be a great way to keep the game growing. 

• Trevor Caughey has proven that the local baseball competition can be a fertile ground for finding replacement players. The lefty has been lights out since joining the Heat and held the formidable Bite line-up to just 1 run through 7 innings before conceding a junk run in the 8^th. Working backwards (breaking balls in fastball counts), kept the Bite line-up off balance (particularly James McOwen and Quincy Latimore) en route to his 2^nd playoff victory.

• The Adelaide outfield seems to be having a very tough time with balls in the air at Barbagallo Ballpark. Tom Brice in particular would be better served with a shotgun rather than a glove as he continually stabs at the ball and makes routine fly balls an adventure. Fortunately the ball he dropped did not end up hurting the Bite at the time but he can’t be doing much for his manager’s stomach lining. The wind does appear to be howling at the ballpark (Welty’s second home run will attest to that) which is clearly moving the ball around in the air. 

• Interestingly (and as part of the Defensive Specialists global reach), when the Defensive Specialist was in New Zealand last week, there was a back page story in the newspaper about softball and how it needs to work with baseball. Anyway, that was a little boring but as the Defensive Specialist read on, mention was made of the Boston Red Sox signing a softball catcher to a professional contract. Further reading also indicated that Baseball New Zealand had hopes of having a team competing in the ABL in the next 2 years of so! While your old pal is sceptical of the quality of team that a New Zealand franchise could put on the field, the possibility of expansion is always exciting. 

Right, so where does this all lead us? Well we’re at game 3 for all the marbles! The Heat storm back to grab the momentum and the Bite are left with the challenge of rebounding from a beat down (of their ace no less). The Heat will send Ben Moore to the mound, who was 1-1 during the regular season with a 3 ERA and 14 k’s in 12 innings. The Defensive Specialist’s advance scouting team suggests that Moore owns one of the funkiest change ups you’ll likely ever see so look out for that. It would appear that Adelaide will counter with lefty Paul Mildren who started the season as the Bites ace but has been consigned to number 3 guy late in the season. Mildren contributed a 2-6 record with a 4.58 ERA in 57 innings of work. Caughey spared the Perth bullpen last night by gobbling up 7.2 innings so almost every arm will be available in game 3. The Bite do appear to have the advantage if it becomes a battle of the bullpens with Dushan Ruzic, Darren Fidge and Tom Becker all fresh and ready.

Game 2 drew a crowd of approximately 3000 so you’d have to assume that the Perth faithful will be out in force to push that number up even higher (with local competition wisely rescheduled to accommodate the deciding game).  Since the Defensive Specialist has been firing blanks all season long on the prediction front, let’s turn things over to the brains of the operation”

Defensive Specialist: “Who’ll win game 3?”

Mrs Defensive Specialist: (with resolve) “The Heat”

There you have it!