Sorry for the Hiatus.....October 22, 2010

Greetings readers, I apologize for the extended hiatus. I have been dealing with an injury, and have been trying to get all that in order before continuing with the blog. But now that I have that all settled I can continue my blogging.
When I last left off I was preparing to throw in a scrimmage against St. Cloud State University. I got the start in that scrimmage, tossing two innings. I didn't have my best stuff in the outing, but was able to minimize damage for the most part. I gave up one run in the first inning, and two in the second inning. I had two walks in the outing and allowed three hits to provide the three runs for SCSU. For the outing I threw 40 pitches (19 strikes, 21 balls) giving me a strike percentage of 48%. Not the best, but as I said I was able to minimize the damage.
Following SCSU I had one more outing on the mound in an intersquad scrimmage before suffering, what would be a significant injury, at the end of fall ball. I had some nagging pains in my hip and groin area throughout the fall, but nothing serious. By no means was it anything that effected my play, and therefore I didn't think anything of it. The last week of the fall the pain started to be sharper and come more often. By the final day of fall practice it was getting to be pretty bad.
I went to the trainer and they suggested I see the team doctor over at TRIA Orthopedic Clinic in Bloomington, Minn. The day after the final fall practice I went to the doctor and had my hip checked. After initially thinking it could be a sports hernia, the doctor did some range of motion tests which he thought indicated a tear in the labrum of my left hip.
He sent me to get an MRI, which I did this week, and when the results came back the doctor's fear was confirmed. I had a rather substantial tear of the labrum. He explained to me what this meant.

I will be having surgery this coming Thursday, where they will put me to sleep using general anesthetics, at that point they will make a small incision in the front of my hip as well as one in the side. They will go into the joint with a tiny camera, and make the repairs necessary, this is known as an arthroscopic surgery, or "hip scope".
To the right you will see the picture of my MRI. The white in the middle is my labrum, and that black dot on it in the upper right portion is the tear.
The procedure will take about an hour and a half of actual surgery. After that I will spend the weekend recovering at my sister's house in the western suburbs of the twin cities. My mom is flying in for the weekend to help take care of me. It won't be easy to deal with me after the surgery as I will be a heavily sedated 195 lbs.
Recovery from this operation is typically 10 weeks to three months. This means I would hypothetically be 100% somewhere between January 7th and January 21st. Our first official practice of the season is scheduled for January 17th, meaning I am in good shape for the season. Unfortunately though this means I will be sidelined for all of the off-season lifting and conditioning, meaning I will be a step or two behind the rest of my teammates when practice kicks off.
As for my goal of becoming a weekend starter, that is not currently the case, as I met with my coach last week. But after my meeting I can set a goal of being the best reliever possible to help this team win games. I was informed that I would begin the year as one of the top guys out of the bullpen, with the chance to throw 30 to 40 big innings. I was told I would not be a guy that throws in blowouts this year, I would be turned to with the game on the line and be expected to win games for us out of the bullpen, and with the potential to get some spot starts.
It might not of been my goal, but it is a role that I will gladly accept. Anything I can do to help this team win is what I want to do. Being a weekend starter may have been one of my goals, but my number one goal in baseball has always been to win a championship, and I will do whatever it takes to get us to that point.
So for now what I can do to help this team is to get this surgery and rehab it back to strength so I can back our starters up out of the bullpen.
I will not be taking any more lengthy stretches off from writing. I will be keeping readers up to date on my recovery from surgery, my rehab, and life in general as a D2 baseball player.
Sorry again for the long hiatus, I appreciate anyone that take the time to read my blogs.
Always chasing after dreams.

Taking the Good with the Bad.......October 5, 2010

Today was a bullpen day to get pitchers ready for our double-header scrimmage with St. Cloud State University on Saturday. We were each scheduled to throw one inning or 15 pitches, whatever came first. And today for me, that was the latter.

I was scheduled to throw in the middle of the scrimmage, so I had some time before I had to warm up when we got to the field. After running and stretching I played some light catch with one of the other pitchers just to get my shoulder to feel loose. After that it was time to take pregame infield and outfield while the starting pitcher got warm. During I/O as its called, pitchers take turns covering first base on ground balls hit to the right side of the infield. After going through our complete pregame routine, it was scrimmage time.

The first pitchers took the mound, and everything was flowing smoothly. I stood behind the batting cage and helped with keeping strike percentage and average velocity for fellow pitchers as they threw. As time neared towards my inning I started to get ready to pitch by playing catch with the pitcher that would throw after me. As it came time to start to throw off the mound in the bullpen I could not find a catcher. We have three catchers on our team, and all of them were unavailable. One catcher was catching in the scrimmage, one was on base after getting a hit, and the other was currently playing left field. I felt an almost sense of panic when I realized I would not be able to begin warming up in the bullpen until the next inning started, and if the pitcher before me had a quick 1-2-3 inning, I might not be loose in time to take the mound.

Once I finally found a catcher I started to frantically warm up, and as I feared the pitcher before me had a great inning. I was able to get my arm loose to pitch, but I didn't take the time to get my mind locked in to execute pitches. As someone that has struggled with control in the past, it is key for me to get my mind locked in and focused. Concentration is the biggest key to executing successful pitches.

I took the mound and delivered my warm up pitches trying to get my mind in the right place. As always the warm up pitches go quick, and the first hitter steps in. The first batter I faced is a returning all conference player, one that hit .410 last season from the left side. I know that as a left-handed pitcher, if I do not get one of the starting rotation spots, that I need to prove that I can dominate left-handed hitters as a reliever. My first fastball sailed up and in for ball one. The second pitch was a good down-in-the-zone fastball, which Lippy dropped the barrel on, but could not get enough of it to drive the other way, and became a pop up victim to the left fielder. The second hitter, a right-handed stick,  worked the count to 3-2 before I left a fastball low and away and walked him. I hate walks, instant frustration. One pitch can still get me out of this unscathed. The next hitter also worked the count to 3-2, but couldn't get the bat on a fastball and struck out swinging. The final batter watched a first pitch curve ball over the middle of the plate for strike two, then watched a fastball for ball two. On the 2-2 count I threw what I felt was a great curve ball that the catcher caught in the heart of the plate. But I'm not the umpire, and our collection of coaches overwhelmingly decided that the pitch had curved around the plate. On 3-2 another fastball was lost low and away and the hitter walked. How can you walk two guys in an inning? You need to be battling with a full count. I was frustrated with myself, and to make matters worse I didn't get the opportunity to finish the inning off, that walk came on pitch number 15.

I wanted to finish off the inning, but had to understand that this was simply a bullpen session to get ready to pitch on Saturday. I got my final statistics for the session. 15 pitches, six strikes, nine balls for just a 40% strike percentage. Not good. Now I was really down, but I didn't have much time to be down. My coach called me over and said TK wanted to work with me in the bullpen. (TK is Tom Kelly, former manager of the Minnesota Twins, World Series Champion 1987 and 1991). TK took me to the bullpen and said that I needed to make one minor adjustment to get my consistency in the strike zone back. He said I was rushing a little bit today and not staying on my backside, especially with runners on base. I threw maybe ten pitches in the pen with TK and he had plenty to say about each one. He is a perfectionist, and he had me throw until I had the ball on a downward plane, hitting the glove on the bottom of the zone, and repeat it. Once I did it twice in a row just how he wanted, he told me that now I understand what it is that I am doing and how to fix it. I will definitely be implementing that and working on it before Saturday's outing. Having TK there is awesome, because there are very few people that know as much about baseball as he does, and he is always looking to teach and share what he knows.

So even though I didn't have the outing that I expect of myself, I got to understand things I need to work on and improve myself as a pitcher. Now I just have to put in the work to make the adjustments and put them into action on Saturday against SCSU. I still am throwing 57% strikes this fall through 95 in-game pitches. I really would like to get that number back up to 60% or better, which mean in the three fall outings I have left I need to pound the zone. So that is the goal for the rest of fall, get my total strike percentage to 60%. Anything less will simply not be acceptable as I try and reach my goal as a weekend starter.

Never stop working towards goals and dreams.

Life outside of baseball.....October 3, 2010

Being a collegiate student-athlete is so much more than just sports. Baseball is just a small part of the bigger picture. There is always talk about the word "student-athlete", and how people think they should be called "athlete-students" because athletes put their sport first. But what people need to understand is that student comes first because, if you aren't a student, you don't get to be an athlete. The NCAA enforces strict academic standards for athletes to remain eligible to compete in competition. These standards include GPA and progress towards graduation. If you don't meet them, you don't play, so we are student-athletes.

This means not only do athletes have to get themselves prepared to compete at the highest level of their sport, but also have to excel in the classroom. I have been working hard in the classroom all semester. I am a communications major, and working towards a writing minor as well. As a junior I have completed most of my general education classes, and am really starting to focus in on classes for my major and minor.

This semester I also have the added responsibility of my internship in the Concordia University Sports Information Office. Part of my responsibility for this internship is writing articles for our athletic website, www.cugoldenbears.com, working athletic events, and creating other projects for the athletic department. This Saturday I had to play many different roles. As part of fundraisers for the baseball team we setup for the football games on Saturday mornings. I joined my teammates for work before the game. Once the game started I had to switch roles to intern, where I had to head to the press box to help with keeping stats and player participation. After football I had to finish my role as intern for the football game, and head over to the Gangelhoff Center to be the intern for the volleyball match. It was a long day, I arrived at the football stadium at 9:45 a.m. and left the Gangelhoff Center around 6:00 p.m. I have been gaining valuable experience in the sports media field along the way though.

Being a successful college baseball players involves every aspect of your life. How you play and practice is just a portion. It also includes how you eat, how you sleep, how you study, how you spend your free time. Everything matters and combines to make each person the student-athlete you are.

I hope that I can continue to be successful in and out of the classroom, and on and off the baseball field. We are down to the final two weeks of our fall practices, and getting down to our last chances to make lasting impressions on the coaching staff before we find out where we stand heading into the spring. Saturday will be the coaches best chance to evaluate players as we are playing a double-header scrimmage against St. Cloud State University. Last season we played about 25 innings against SCSU in our fall scrimmage. This year we are scheduling it as two 7-inning games, and seven of our pitchers will each throw two innings, myself included in that group.

As I try to make my last impressions on the coaching staff I will also get to have the joy of having some family watching. My dad is making the trip out from our hometown in Colorado to spend the weekend visiting here in Minnesota. My sister, her husband, and their adorable two-year old daughter live in a suburb nearby in Minnesota, and hopefully all four will be in the stands as I pitch this weekend.

Trying to finish off the fall right, and working towards my goal to be a weekend starter this season.