Michael carried a hitting streak all the way through the season, ending up with hits in all ten games, hitting .500, stealing a bunch of bases, scoring a bunch of runs and driving in a few (I abandoned my hyper-aware stat keeping for the fall). His defense, which was always strong, improved during the season. As the regular shortstop, he struggled at times with runners leaving from second crossing in front of him as he prepared to stop the ball. After we talked it through and analyzed how to handle that situation, he made several outs in that exact situation (they had a lot of runners get to second base against them) late in the season. He made a point of mentioning that he worked hard mentally on that scenario and was pleased that his own work paid off.
Michael's pitching was up and down over the course of the season. It was never terrible, but some days he was a little too hittable because he doesn't yet have the fastball to make big kids swing and miss. Still, the manager liked to use him as a closer because he was one of the pitchers least likely to issue a lot of walks.
The case in point came in the final game of the season. The game was played on the day daylight savings ended, so daylight was suddenly at a premium for a game that started as usual at 3 pm and was scheduled to run two hours and fifteen minutes. Before the sixth inning started, the umpire called the managers together to discuss how much more of the game would be played, since the light was fading fast. It was clear the game would not go a full seven innings, but our boys wanted a last chance to bat in the bottom of the inning (they were losing, but not by much), so the umpire agreed to play the sixth inning. He asked the teams to keep things moving along, though. After another pitcher got into some trouble, retiring only one batter and leaving a runner on second, the manager brought Michael in. Michael had been frustrated by the umpire's wide strike zone as a hitter. As you will see, though, he used that (and the umpire's impatience to get home before dark) to his advantage:
Two batters faced, eight pitches, six strikes, two strikeouts. Pretty efficient work for less than two minutes of real time, and very smart pitching. He explained afterward that he knew the umpire had a wide zone, and worked the first batter outside before striking him out with an inside pitch -- as intended.
All told, it was a pretty nice way to end the season, even one in which the team only won a single game. Michael has a lot of development to do to be a strong player at this level, but he held his own for the most part against much bigger boys, and showed himself to be one of the best of his age group. It will be very interesting to see how he measures up against the rest of the league when the full season gets underway next month. He has always been in the midpack of his age group, but as he has developed strength to go with his generally good technique, he has crept up the leaderboard. He still needs to work on some positioning instincts on defense, and arm strength will come as he grows, but going .500 for the fall season, with a double and a triple, is a major step forward for him.
Astonishingly, evaluation day for the spring season is only a month away. Time to start tossing the ball around again
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