By Aaron Morse
The Huntsville Stars (32-33, 65-70) rallied from two runs down to tie the game in the seventh, but some bad defense and some bad luck cost them in the eighth as they fell to the Montgomery Biscuits (33-33, 71-63) by a final score of 6-3 Thursday night.
With the defeat, Huntsville finds themselves four games out of the Wild Card race with only five games remaining in the regular season. They must win the remainder of their games and the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx must lose the remainder of their games in order for Huntsville to make the play-offs.
The Stars jumped out to the early lead in the second inning, but it would not last long. Drew T. Anderson lined a single into right field to start things off. After Chris Nowak was hit by a pitch, Taylor Green crushed a ball to deep right field. Unfortunately it was not quite deep enough as John Matulia reeled it in on the warning track. On the play Anderson advanced to third. That’s when Andy Machado delivered a clutch single up the middle to make the score 1-0. Huntsville nearly got another run when Lee Haydel hit a liner to right; Nowak tried to score on the play and Matulia threw him out to end the inning.
The Biscuits came roaring back in the bottom of the frame. Matulia led-off with a triple to right. One out later, Matt Fields delivered a sacrifice fly to center. Caleb Gindl’s throw barely was not in time as Matulia slid around the tag of Anderson De La Rosa. Stars’ starter Amaury Rivas had some uncharacteristic control problems in the game, and they were on full display in the second as he hit Matt Spring and Shawn O’Malley to put runners on first and second with two outs. Rashad Eldridge singled up the middle to drive in the second run of the inning.
Huntsville trailed 3-1 until the seventh inning when Nowak was hit by yet another pitch. Green found a hole on the right side as he singled. But it appeared the rally might be stunted when a sacrifice bunt attempt ended up getting Nowak thrown out at third base. De La Rosa made sure that was not the case as he singled to left to drive in Green and cut the Biscuits’ lead to one. Brett Lawrie beat out an infield single to drive in the second run of the inning and knot the game at three.
Reliever Robert Hinton ran into some bad luck in the eighth. After Matt Spring singled to start the inning, the Biscuits tried to bunt him over. The ball went to first baseman Chris Nowak who fired to Machado covering second. It deflected off his glove and into shallow right field, putting runners at first and second with nobody out. An intentional walk loaded the bases, and one out later things got interesting. Hinton and the Stars clearly felt he was getting squeezed with Jose Ruiz at the plate. Ruiz eventually walked to drive in the go-ahead run. Then Henry Wrigley hit a grounder to Green who threw home to try and get the lead runner. But the home plate umpire ruled that De La Rosa’s foot came off the plate and another run was in. Once again the Stars were displeased with the call. Yet another walk drove in the third run of the inning. Hinton was visibly upset as he shouted at the home plate umpire. Chris Nowak must have said something wrong over at first because the first base umpire ejected him from the game. A ground-out ended the inning but the damage was done as the Stars found themselves down 6-3.
They were unable to push across any runs in the ninth despite a Brett Lawrie two-out triple as they dropped the rubber match in the series.
Huntsville returns to “The Joe” for five must-win games against Mobile starting Friday night at 7:00 p.m. central time. Wily Peralta (1-3, 4.10 ERA) will be on the mound. You can catch all the action on www.huntsvillestars.com.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Tools of Ignorance
By Aaron Morse
Anderson De La Rosa squats behind the plate as he awaits a 98 mph fast ball from former first round draft pick Mark Rogers. The ball will arrive at home plate in about four tenths of a second. That’s literally in a blink of an eye. It doesn’t go straight into De La Rosa’s glove. Instead the batter fouls the ball off the 26-year old catcher’s foot. Catchers wear lots of protective gear. A mask, a chest protector, and shin guards make up what’s known in baseball parlance as the “tools of ignorance.” Unfortunately, those protective measures don’t include one’s foot. All De La Rosa has there are his shoes. He hops up and down in pain and bends at the waist to try to will the pain away.
There’s no more physically demanding position in the game of baseball than catcher. No one knows that better than the Stars’ oldest player, nine-year veteran Patrick Arlis. At 29 years of age, Arlis has spent most of his career with the Florida Marlins’ organization. He’s had two stints in independent ball and came to the Brewers’ organization in 2009.
“The main thing people don’t realize is you can’t take a great hitter and turn him in to a catcher just because of the fact that the grind on your legs is unbelievable,” Arlis said. “You can catch nine innings and be not gassed one night. And the next night you catch three innings and you don’t have anything left in the tank.”
That makes hitting rather difficult.
“You’re supposed to go up there and try to turn on a pitch in a situation; it’s tough to do because you don’t have any legs,” Arlis said. “So you have to take care of yourself day in and day out. During the day, at night, during the game, everything, your legs are your most important asset.”
Arlis is the Crash Davis of the Huntsville Stars. He’s been around the game for many years and loves it with a passion. But he realizes that nothing lasts forever.
“Baseball, you want it to be life,” Arlis said. “In the end it’s not always that way. A plan is something not a lot of these guys have. I’ve been released, not like a lot of these guys that I’m playing with now.”
Arlis has a plan. He’s been working the past two years to earn his Master’s Degree in Elementary Education through the University of Phoenix, an online school. He wants to be a middle school Physical Education teacher when his playing days end. When speaking of his younger colleagues in the game of baseball, he emphasizes the need to have a plan of action if baseball does not work out.
“They don’t understand that it’s not that easy to get another job,” Arlis said. “When the game is over, you know, it’s over. If you don’t have anything to do, you’re in trouble. I had a coach my first year tell me, baseball is a suspended state of adolescence. And when it’s over, you wake up, you’re 25 years old, and you don’t have anything.”
Dayton Buller, 29, describes Arlis as the hardest working player on the team. Buller started playing professional ball the same year as his fellow catcher and has also had a stint where he was out of affiliated baseball. The Brewers purchased his contract from Camden of the Atlantic League this year after Martin Maldonado earned a promotion to Triple-A Nashville. He came to the Stars and smashed a home run in only his second game. But hitting is not the primary focus when you’re serving as the captain of the infield.
“Calling a game and handling a staff and just controlling the game; you get so many good things out of it,” Buller said. “When you win you really feel like you did something even if you go 0-4.”
Every detail matters. Fans tend to notice the big events in a game. The 450-foot grand slam, the dominating pitching performance, the spectacular catch, those are the things that make Sports Center. Buller even had a “big moment” this year when he hit a walk-off home run against the Carolina Mudcats. However the catcher is responsible for the stuff that does not necessarily show up in the box score.
“Controlling everything, making sure the infielders know when a bunt situation is on and who bunts, who’s fast, and stuff like that [is important],” Buller said. “Making sure the pitcher knows exactly what the situation is; and who’s on deck and everything. You’ve got to know every single thing that’s going on in the game; you cannot take any pitches off or that one pitch could be the game.”
Not only that, but you have to also manage some pretty interesting personalities when it comes to working with the pitchers. Arlis says the key for the men wearing the tools of ignorance is…knowledge.
“You just learn about everybody,” Arlis said. “You get thrown into the fire; you start talking to a lot of guys, you learn their personality. What they can take, what they can’t. You’ve got to know what guys you have to go out [to the mound] and talk nice to and what guys you go out and be a real jerk to. What’s going to fire them up and make them more successful? The more successful they are the less work you have to do in the end.”
Work is not something the Stars’ catchers are afraid of, that’s for sure. They don’t really get days off. If one guy is not catching a certain day, he’s down in the bullpen helping the relievers warm-up. There’s no such thing as a designated “bullpen catcher” at the Double-A level.
However the Stars are lucky they have three catchers (Buller is currently on the DL, but all three have been active at the same time in previous weeks), instead of the normal two. That brings us to the aforementioned De La Rosa. The 26-year old out of Venezuela has a cannon for an arm. He has thrown out 41 percent of would-be base-runners during his six years as a backstop in the Brewers’ organization.
“[This year] I am focusing more on my defense and blocking everything, working for the pitcher, throwing guys out at the bases,” De La Rosa said. “I feel really good when I throw guys out at second base.”
De La Rosa smiles as he talks about his ability to play a bunch of positions. He says before he signed with the Brewers in 2003 he played a lot of outfield and some corner infield as well. In 2005, Milwaukee asked him if he’d want to try out catcher. De La Rosa had played the position as a young kid so he was very receptive to the idea. But he says it hasn’t been a cakewalk.
“Everything’s hard, when you play catcher, everything’s hard,” De La Rosa said. “You want to be focused on the game so you can call good pitches. You need to study every hitter. Every at bat is different. The pitchers are top prospects so you have to work really hard to help them do well.”
Talking to De La Rosa, one gets the sense that he takes more pride in helping the pitching staff succeed than his own personal accomplishments. This self-less attitude is a quality Arlis and Buller have as well. None of these men are considered prospects to play in “the show”, nor do they put up big offensive numbers at the Double-A level.
But the Stars would be a lesser team without them.
“Too many guys in pro ball are just here because they think they’re going to make it to the big leagues,” Arlis said. “They don’t want to play the game and they don’t play the game properly. Personally, I’ve had a great time.”
De La Rosa shakes off the pain of the foul ball. He gets back behind home plate and gets ready for some more Rogers heat. There are still seven more innings to catch.
Anderson De La Rosa squats behind the plate as he awaits a 98 mph fast ball from former first round draft pick Mark Rogers. The ball will arrive at home plate in about four tenths of a second. That’s literally in a blink of an eye. It doesn’t go straight into De La Rosa’s glove. Instead the batter fouls the ball off the 26-year old catcher’s foot. Catchers wear lots of protective gear. A mask, a chest protector, and shin guards make up what’s known in baseball parlance as the “tools of ignorance.” Unfortunately, those protective measures don’t include one’s foot. All De La Rosa has there are his shoes. He hops up and down in pain and bends at the waist to try to will the pain away.
There’s no more physically demanding position in the game of baseball than catcher. No one knows that better than the Stars’ oldest player, nine-year veteran Patrick Arlis. At 29 years of age, Arlis has spent most of his career with the Florida Marlins’ organization. He’s had two stints in independent ball and came to the Brewers’ organization in 2009.
“The main thing people don’t realize is you can’t take a great hitter and turn him in to a catcher just because of the fact that the grind on your legs is unbelievable,” Arlis said. “You can catch nine innings and be not gassed one night. And the next night you catch three innings and you don’t have anything left in the tank.”
That makes hitting rather difficult.
“You’re supposed to go up there and try to turn on a pitch in a situation; it’s tough to do because you don’t have any legs,” Arlis said. “So you have to take care of yourself day in and day out. During the day, at night, during the game, everything, your legs are your most important asset.”
Arlis is the Crash Davis of the Huntsville Stars. He’s been around the game for many years and loves it with a passion. But he realizes that nothing lasts forever.
“Baseball, you want it to be life,” Arlis said. “In the end it’s not always that way. A plan is something not a lot of these guys have. I’ve been released, not like a lot of these guys that I’m playing with now.”
Arlis has a plan. He’s been working the past two years to earn his Master’s Degree in Elementary Education through the University of Phoenix, an online school. He wants to be a middle school Physical Education teacher when his playing days end. When speaking of his younger colleagues in the game of baseball, he emphasizes the need to have a plan of action if baseball does not work out.
“They don’t understand that it’s not that easy to get another job,” Arlis said. “When the game is over, you know, it’s over. If you don’t have anything to do, you’re in trouble. I had a coach my first year tell me, baseball is a suspended state of adolescence. And when it’s over, you wake up, you’re 25 years old, and you don’t have anything.”
Dayton Buller, 29, describes Arlis as the hardest working player on the team. Buller started playing professional ball the same year as his fellow catcher and has also had a stint where he was out of affiliated baseball. The Brewers purchased his contract from Camden of the Atlantic League this year after Martin Maldonado earned a promotion to Triple-A Nashville. He came to the Stars and smashed a home run in only his second game. But hitting is not the primary focus when you’re serving as the captain of the infield.
“Calling a game and handling a staff and just controlling the game; you get so many good things out of it,” Buller said. “When you win you really feel like you did something even if you go 0-4.”
Every detail matters. Fans tend to notice the big events in a game. The 450-foot grand slam, the dominating pitching performance, the spectacular catch, those are the things that make Sports Center. Buller even had a “big moment” this year when he hit a walk-off home run against the Carolina Mudcats. However the catcher is responsible for the stuff that does not necessarily show up in the box score.
“Controlling everything, making sure the infielders know when a bunt situation is on and who bunts, who’s fast, and stuff like that [is important],” Buller said. “Making sure the pitcher knows exactly what the situation is; and who’s on deck and everything. You’ve got to know every single thing that’s going on in the game; you cannot take any pitches off or that one pitch could be the game.”
Not only that, but you have to also manage some pretty interesting personalities when it comes to working with the pitchers. Arlis says the key for the men wearing the tools of ignorance is…knowledge.
“You just learn about everybody,” Arlis said. “You get thrown into the fire; you start talking to a lot of guys, you learn their personality. What they can take, what they can’t. You’ve got to know what guys you have to go out [to the mound] and talk nice to and what guys you go out and be a real jerk to. What’s going to fire them up and make them more successful? The more successful they are the less work you have to do in the end.”
Work is not something the Stars’ catchers are afraid of, that’s for sure. They don’t really get days off. If one guy is not catching a certain day, he’s down in the bullpen helping the relievers warm-up. There’s no such thing as a designated “bullpen catcher” at the Double-A level.
However the Stars are lucky they have three catchers (Buller is currently on the DL, but all three have been active at the same time in previous weeks), instead of the normal two. That brings us to the aforementioned De La Rosa. The 26-year old out of Venezuela has a cannon for an arm. He has thrown out 41 percent of would-be base-runners during his six years as a backstop in the Brewers’ organization.
“[This year] I am focusing more on my defense and blocking everything, working for the pitcher, throwing guys out at the bases,” De La Rosa said. “I feel really good when I throw guys out at second base.”
De La Rosa smiles as he talks about his ability to play a bunch of positions. He says before he signed with the Brewers in 2003 he played a lot of outfield and some corner infield as well. In 2005, Milwaukee asked him if he’d want to try out catcher. De La Rosa had played the position as a young kid so he was very receptive to the idea. But he says it hasn’t been a cakewalk.
“Everything’s hard, when you play catcher, everything’s hard,” De La Rosa said. “You want to be focused on the game so you can call good pitches. You need to study every hitter. Every at bat is different. The pitchers are top prospects so you have to work really hard to help them do well.”
Talking to De La Rosa, one gets the sense that he takes more pride in helping the pitching staff succeed than his own personal accomplishments. This self-less attitude is a quality Arlis and Buller have as well. None of these men are considered prospects to play in “the show”, nor do they put up big offensive numbers at the Double-A level.
But the Stars would be a lesser team without them.
“Too many guys in pro ball are just here because they think they’re going to make it to the big leagues,” Arlis said. “They don’t want to play the game and they don’t play the game properly. Personally, I’ve had a great time.”
De La Rosa shakes off the pain of the foul ball. He gets back behind home plate and gets ready for some more Rogers heat. There are still seven more innings to catch.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Stars Hit Double Digits To Even Series
Connor Shreve
The Huntsville Stars turned in a dominating performance on Wednesday night to get back to within striking distance of the wild card race. The 10-4 win at Montgomery placed Huntsville 3.5 games back of the Diamond Jaxx in the battle to determine the final playoff team that will represent the Northern Division in the 2010 Southern League post season.
Huntsville started early with five second inning hits, four doubles, all of which came with two outs in the inning. The Stars led by four runs after two innings, tacked on one in the fifth and put the contest out of reach with a five spot in the sixth inning. Zelous Wheeler and Chris Nowak teamed up to knock back to back blasts in the sixth. Nowak’s shot was the first against his former squad, sailing out of the ballpark beyond left field and disappearing in to the forest backdrop beyond the train tracks that skirt the state Capitals downtown stadium.
Mark Rogers turned in his second strong outing against the biscuits in as many tries. The only run Rogers allowed came in the fifth thanks to Shawn O’Malley. O’Malley picked up an RBI on his single but the Biscuits stumbled with men on and nobody out. O’Malley was joined by Emeel Salem on base when Rogers struck out Rashaad Eldridge and induced an inning ending double play ball from Jose Ruiz.
With a chance to make Huntsville’s playoff chances slim to none, West Tenn came up short against Mississippi, 10-1. The Diamond Jaxx have led the wildcard chase most of the way but left the door open for the Stars having lost six of the last ten games. West Tennessee finishes the season with four games against Chattanooga in a series running from Sep 3-6.
Huntsville tries for a series victory in the finale Thursday night at 7:05 (CDT).
The Huntsville Stars turned in a dominating performance on Wednesday night to get back to within striking distance of the wild card race. The 10-4 win at Montgomery placed Huntsville 3.5 games back of the Diamond Jaxx in the battle to determine the final playoff team that will represent the Northern Division in the 2010 Southern League post season.
Huntsville started early with five second inning hits, four doubles, all of which came with two outs in the inning. The Stars led by four runs after two innings, tacked on one in the fifth and put the contest out of reach with a five spot in the sixth inning. Zelous Wheeler and Chris Nowak teamed up to knock back to back blasts in the sixth. Nowak’s shot was the first against his former squad, sailing out of the ballpark beyond left field and disappearing in to the forest backdrop beyond the train tracks that skirt the state Capitals downtown stadium.
Mark Rogers turned in his second strong outing against the biscuits in as many tries. The only run Rogers allowed came in the fifth thanks to Shawn O’Malley. O’Malley picked up an RBI on his single but the Biscuits stumbled with men on and nobody out. O’Malley was joined by Emeel Salem on base when Rogers struck out Rashaad Eldridge and induced an inning ending double play ball from Jose Ruiz.
With a chance to make Huntsville’s playoff chances slim to none, West Tenn came up short against Mississippi, 10-1. The Diamond Jaxx have led the wildcard chase most of the way but left the door open for the Stars having lost six of the last ten games. West Tennessee finishes the season with four games against Chattanooga in a series running from Sep 3-6.
Huntsville tries for a series victory in the finale Thursday night at 7:05 (CDT).
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