I didn't do it after every game, but after several of La Jolla High's baseball games this season, I made sure to print out the statistics posted on MaxPreps.com. My idea was to be able to track trends during and after the season.
Looking at those statistics, and these phenomena have already been mentioned multiple times, one, the Vikings' two starting pitchers carried the team through the first half of the season. Two, the Vikings' bats woke up the second half of the season after slumbering through the first portion.
Noah Strohl, at first base, is a case in point. With the team 11-4 on April 9, the 6' 6 1/2" giant was hitting a paltry .222, with only eight hits and seven RBI's. I remember asking Coach Gary Frank before a game at Patrick Henry High about coaxing and cajoling his slumping hitters. His relaxed reply: "We tell them not to focus on individual statistics. Their numbers will even out over the season."
Strohl was carrying a miserable .182 batting average as late as April 21. His slugging percentage was .227.
As Frank said, numbers did balance out over the season for several of the hitters. Strohl, in his senior season, was carrying lumber at a .325 clip for the season going into the CIF final at USD Fowler Park, with 26 hits, 24 RBI's, and a home run. (He had the Vikings' only home run of the season. It came on a shot into the fence at Muirlands Middle School, just above the home run line, then ricocheted straight back down onto the field.) His slugging percentage escalated to .445.
He was rewarded for his efforts by being named to the All Western League Second Team.
Weston Clark and Timmy Holdgrafer continued their dominating ways through the second half of the season as the Vikings' stellar starting pitchers. Both ended up with All Western League First Team recognition.
Strohl is the most extreme example, but another bat that woke up was Luke Bucon's. The left-fielder, no longer in the pitching rotation as he was during his junior year, instead invested his energies into pounding the ball at the plate. He went from a mediocre .250 after 15 games, to .314 on championship day.
Sean Hofmann, especially, was struggling at the plate without a set position in the field with a number of players in Gary Frank's rotation. Hoffy was struggling at .208 after the first 15 games. This cut LJHS's opportunities to use his speed on the basepaths as well. He was 4 for 4 in that category.
He dipped down to the Mendoza line, .200, on April 16.
On June 5, the senior--one of 10 on the squad--had improved his batting average to .261. He was 7 for 9 on the bases, not really an improvement, but consistent.
James Whelan went from .263 to .306 in the same period, holding down center field. Clark upped his average from a sleepy .233 to .276. Holdgrafer himself jumped from .314 to .364 over the second half of the season. Whelan was also named to the All Western League First Team.
Copyright 2015 Ed Piper
No comments:
Post a Comment