The Timber Rattlers are 2-0 to start the 2013 season.  The last time they were 2-0 to start the season was 2010.  

April 5, 2013

Timber Rattlers 2
Peoria Chiefs 1
Boxscore | TimberRattlers.com story

Also, Nathan Baliva has the highlights of Friday’s game. Highlights include Tyrone Taylor being robbed of a hit, Mitch Haniger being picked off second, Damien Magnifico with a nice defensive play on the mound, and the final out of the game.

Here is the celebration after that final out.

Great hang time….Horrible photographer

A few thoughts….because there’s a 9am bus on Saturday morning for a 1pm game on Saturday afternoon. So, this post has to be short.

Both Magnifico and Leonard Lorenzo worked at a good pace, threw strikes, and kept their pitch counts low.  Plus, this is how the tandem is supposed to work.  Starter goes five innings. Reliever goes four innings. Rattlers win.

That Lorenzo tossed four perfect innings is just a bonus.

Situational hitting is something that I talk about on the radio and it’s something that the coaching staff works with the players on every day.  In the fourth, Clint Coulter doubled. Mike Garza moved him over with a grounder to the right side of the infield.  Chris McFarland moved him in with a sacrifice fly.  Haniger did the same thing in the fifth inning with runners on first and third and one out.  Haniger just needed a fly ball to left to drive in the run.  He got it.

Michael Reed scores the go ahead run….I’m going to remember to switch the camera to the action setting tomorrow.  He’s fast. He’s not THAT fast.

One thing that Matt Erickson mentioned a lot last year was getting a good dirtball read.  That means the runner gets a read on a pitch in the dirt and gets a good enough jump to take an extra base on a pitch that doesn’t get that far away from the catcher.  Alfredo Rodriguez did that in the seventh inning when he got to second on a ball in the dirt.  Good dirtball read.

The last time the Rattlers were 3-0 to start the season was 2009.  They swept a three game series from Quad Cities.  Then, they lost the next six games.

Good evening, Rattlers fans.

This is usually where Nine after 9 would go.  And it will again.  I hope to be back doing the more detailed post game posts soon.

However, tonight is not soon.  There are miles to go before I can start getting back into the swing of that post.  I am thinking about switching Nine after 9 to  to a morning post.  It turns into a long, long day on the computer if I keep doing this after games.

For tonight – and probably through the first homestand – here are some quick hits:

Timber Rattlers 5
Peoria Chiefs 4
FINAL – 11 INNINGS
Boxscore | TimberRattlers.com game story

I’m surprised the Cardinals allowed the Chiefs to do on-field PYRO!

If I were a better photographer, this would be an awesome picture of Chris McFarland turning a double play.

1. Yes. It is possible to have a game saving catch for the first out of the sixth inning. Tyrone Taylor made a catch for the ages to take away at least a double from Michael Swinson.  If there were video of that catch I would like the folks that do the Sports Science segment on ESPN to break it down for me in the following order: How much ground he covered.  How fast he was going. How much force he hit the warning track with when he landed after the dive. It was one of the best catches I have seen in a long time.
2. The Rattlers escape acts in the eighth and ninth innings were ridiculous.  Fun. But, ridiculous.
3. This game screamed first game of the season:  A total of six errors, 23 runners left on base, a balk, three wild pitches, 16 strikeouts, and 16 walks.
4. The game time temperature was 59° with a slight breeze.  Can this be the weather in Wisconsin on Monday? Please!

Ten points after the tenth pennant in modern Appleton Professional Baseball History. The ten Championships are:

Three-I League:
1960 (Orioles)

Midwest League:
1964 (Orioles)
1966 (White Sox)
1967 (White Sox)
1969 (White Sox)
1978 (White Sox)
1982 (White Sox)
1983 (White Sox)
1984 (White Sox)
2012 (Brewers)

The 2012 Midwest League Championship Trophy belongs to the Rattlers.

1. Not really sure where to begin so here are some video highlights from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
2. Brandon Macias doubled on the first pitch of the game.  Chadwin Stang followed with a single and the Rattlers were up 1-0.  Macias had two doubles in the game and scored two runs.  It was a great season for the undrafted free agent out of Kansas.  Macias led the team in so many categories and was solid to spectacular at third base.  What a season he had.
   
3. Max Walla blasted a solo homer in the second.  He pulled a fastball and crushed it. His previous home run was on August 22 and he was 3-for-23 in the playoffs before that home run.  But,that home run showed the upside of Max Walla and made it 2-0 lead.
4. Chad Thompson…Do you remember when he got shutdown for a month in mid-July? He came back off that rest and allowed six runs in 33-1/3 innings pitched.   After he gave up the two runs in the third inning, it was shutdown mode.  He retired ten of the last eleven batters he faced in the game.
5. Nick Ramirez of the first half does not drive a double to the wall on the 0-2 pitch he got in the top of the seventh.  The Nick Ramirez of the first half does not even see that 0-2 pitch in the seventh inning.  Fortunately, the Nick Ramirez that improved over the season….oh, I’ll let him take it from here in the MiLB.com story: “He threw a fastball that I fouled off, and since he changed my eye level, I thought he would probably come with something off-speed. He came with a curveball and I got enough of the barrel on it.”  The Ramirez of the first half missed either one of those 0-2 pitches.  But, not this Nick Ramirez. Not this day.  He drove in ten runs during the playoffs, including four RBI in the Championship Series.  His two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Rattlers in front 4-2 were the biggest of the year.
   
6. After they took the lead, Brent Suter took over. 9-up, 9-down over the last three innings for the Harvard pitcher.  If you see the highlight shot by the Journal-Gazette, he froze Lee Orr on strike three to end the game.  Then, it looked like he wasn’t sure what to do as the rest of the team charged the mound.  (To tell you the truth, neither did I)
7. There were so many hugs and handshakes and smiles after the game that I can’t relate all of them.  Every player in Fort Wayne and every player on the roster that has moved on had something to do with bringing the a Midwest League pennant to Appleton for the first time since 1984.  That is a long time.  But, this team was so much fun they are definitely heirs to the Foxes of the 60′s and the 80′s.  If old Goodland Field could react, I would like to think that it would be smiling and thinking about a Rattler Brau right now.
   
8. I have been fortunate to have called four different championship teams before this season.  The 1991 UW-Platteville Men’s Basketball team that won the NCAA Division III Title, the 1997 UW-Superior Men’s Hockey Team that won the Peters Cup, the 1997 Duluth Superior Dukes that won the Northern League Pennant, and the 2000 Green Bay Gamblers that won the Clark Cup Championship.  People that followed those teams would ask me if there was a particular game that stands out and pointed to a championship for that particular team.  I could probably pick out one or two for each of those teams.  But, this Rattlers team had so many games where you could tell they were special that I couldn’t pick just one out.  From win number one of the season – which happened to be their first of eleven walkoff wins of the year – the team stayed on point with the trophy up top as the lodestone.  They didn’t finish the year with the best record.  They didn’t bash teams into submission.  They didn’t dazzle with flashy numbers.  But, they won.  They won and they were the last team standing.
9. What a job by the Timber Rattlers coaching staff in 2o12.  They worked with everyone every day and taught them how to get better as a professional baseball player.  That is the key of player development. Winning is just a side benefit or in the case of this season a big perk with some jewelery that comes along with it.  Kudos to Matt Erickson, David Chavarria, Dusty Rhodes, Jeff Paxson, Christian Polega, and Matt Virden.
10. I wrote a little something for my facebook friends after so many of them had posted congratulations to me after the final out of the season and the pennant was won.  I have changed a few things to take some of the wiseacre out of it:Thank you to everyone for posting congratulations to me on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers winning the MWL Championship. Be clear about it, they won the championship. I was just fortunate to be along for the ride.At this moment, I feel….oh, what are those words…. Happy? and Blessed? Yes. My programming tells me that those are the the correct feelings. Happy and Blessed.

    I have loved baseball since I was about 4 years old. I thank God every day I get to be around it and that I have met so many of you through this great and beautiful game.

    Have an incredible off season. 

Manzanillo gets the second out in the ninth.

Wisconsin 10
Fort Wayne 8
Boxscore

Game Stories:
TimberRattlers.com
TinCaps.com
MiLB.com

Ten after ten for Ten Runs!

1. During batting practice, Nick Ramirez hit some high towering home runs to right field that were impressive.  He almost put one into a trashcan at the base of the building in right field.  He said something along the lines of wanting to put one on those seats by the video board.  Someone chimed in with, “Opposite field would be okay, too.” Nick responded with: “Opposite field homers are mistakes accidents. (Note: Corrected this because Nick mentioned the correct word to me in the hotel lobby.  Accidents does make it sound funnier, too.)  Nice mistake accident.  His homer to left on a line drive gave him two in the MWLCS, four in the postseason, and – adding the regular season and the playoffs together – 20 on the season.
2. Brandon Macias last hit a home run on August 6 in Beloit.  He cleared the 376′ sign where the wall gets a bit taller.  It was a laser and there was never a doubt.
3. In Game One & Game Two, the top three hitters in the order: Macias, Chadwin Stang, & Ben McMahan were are combined 1-for-22.  In Game Three, those three were 7-for-13 with eight RBI.  McMahan in particular broke out.  McMahan had been 0-for-16 with eight strikeouts.  Then, he hit an RBI double to right-center in the seventh inning.  It was awesome.  Also, awesome: The Rattlers were 6-for-60 (.100) in the first two games of the Championship Series.  They were 13-for-35 in Game Three to boost the series average to .200 and playoff average to .211. (Small Sample Size should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyways).
4. Backtracking a bit.  It’s 3-2 in the top of the fourth inning.  Rafael Neda at second and Lance Roenicke at first.  Adrian Williams singles to left and Matt Erickson didn’t bother with the stop sign for the Rattlers catcher.  Neda, who was bowled over and hung of to the ball for a big out in the first inning, got a great jump on the hit by Williams and beat the throw to the plate to tie the game moments before the homer by Macias.
5. To expand on that, the top of the order doesn’t get a chance to do what they did without contributions from the bottom of the order.  Macias singles out Williams with a quote from the MiLB.com story that is linked at the top of this  post: “[My home run] was a big part, but Adrian came up big with that hit with two outs, tied the game up,” said Macias, a non-drafted free agent who signed with the Brewers in June 2011. “Everything after that fell into place. It definitely changed the momentum.
6. Williams went 2-for-4 with an RBI and scored three runs.  If you remember back to the game against Clinton on Sunday, it was Williams who came through with a big two out hit in that put the Rattlers ahead of Clinton to stay in Game Two.  Big hits!…Championship Hits! (Here endeth my Peter King riff)
7. Ten runs wasn’t the only ten in the game.  David Goforth scuffled a bit, but had ten strikeouts to set a new single game high as a professional.  One stood out more than any other.  Fort Wayne had just taken a 3-1 lead on the one-out triple by Yeison Asencio.  Lee Orr was at the plate and Goforth struck him out to keep Asencio at third base.  He got the final out of the inning on a grounder.  The Rattlers scored five in the top of the fourth.  In the bottom of the foruth, he struck out the side in order on eleven pitches – 10 strikes.  Off to the races after that.
8. Goforth’s playoff stats: 15 innings, 10 hits, 4 runs, five walks, 19 strikeouts….and 2-0, if you’re into that stat, too.
9. The bullpen got extended action on Saturday.  Mike Strong with a solid seventh inning, his first action since September 2.  Stosh deserved a better fate, but two out walks and seeing-eye singles in the eighth and two errors in the ninth wrecked his line.  Santo Manzanillo….Just keep bringing it, Manzo.
10. The Rattlers quality start streak ended at seven tonight, but….big deal.  Goforth speaks: “This team is one of the better teams that I’ve ever been a part of, the character is incredible,” he said. “The whole season — we get down in games or lose a game and we always bounce back. I would say we’ve been confident the whole time.”

One more win to get. Game time on Sunday is 4:05pm CDT. Let’s go, Rattlers!