Q: Has your team’s play on the field met your expectations thus far?
A: I think the big thing, with me being a new coach, has been trust between the players and myself. I’ve been very pleased with how coachable and hungry to win this team has been from top to bottom. They are very united. I’m very excited to see how the rest of the year plays out, since it’s just a matter of time until our offense is clicking on all cylinders and our pitching continues to get stronger.
Q: I wanted to mention the play of Tyler Orr [currently sporting an .846 slugging percentage] and Ernie Steigler [a team high 15 Ks and 21.1 innings pitched]. Though it’s early, what have Orr and Steigler’s contributions meant?
A: Leaps and improvements can happen fast in the game of baseball. So many college players have the aspiration to play professional baseball because they’ve heard the stories, or seen the guys around them boost their game to a new level within a year’s time. In the case of Orr and Stiegler, these guys have been very coachable and have taken advice and ran with it to help increase their success.
Q: Are there other players that you would like to highlight from the season so far?
A: A few other players that I would like to mention are Angelo Kelly, our Freshman lead-off hitter and left fielder, who has been on base 22 out of 32 at bats (getting on by error 5 times due to his speed and ability to put the ball in play). He has done exactly what you look for out of a lead-off hitter by hitting line drives and ground balls and putting pressure on the defense.
Joe Grato, our Freshman clean-up hitter and first baseman, has done a great job at taking chances early in the count, but then having long battles with two strikes, which has confused the pitcher as to what to throw him. Royer has been a nice boost offensively along with DeSarro and Rossi, and I look for them to get better as the weather heats up.
Lastly our starting pitching has been really good, so to not mention Bremerman and his ability to get in on hitters with his fastball and Melendez’s ability to frustrate hitters with his sinker would be an injustice.
Closing thought from Morris: “I do have high expectations for this team, so our record only being 5-6 is not really telling the whole underlying story of how good I think we are.”