Short Hops
May 2, 2005 | Baseball
May. 2, 2005
NEW ORLEANS, La. - Well it's been a grueling span of baseball these past two weeks. We've played eight tough games, seven of which were played away from the friendly confines of Turchin Stadium. Despite being on the road, I think we played well, winning two big conference series at Southern Miss and USF. Don't get me wrong, though; it feels good to be returning to Turchin.
We started off the stretch with some heaving hitting, with three big wins over LSU and Southern Miss. Then, we bounced back from a bad outing in the series finale against Southern Miss to pick up a no-hitter in the win over Nicholls State in the midweek game. That was the first time that I was apart of something like that. It was an amazing feeling to play behind that kind of effort from our pitchers. It's a great achievement for our pitching staff as a whole, especially the three guys who were in there that particular night. It didn't surprise me that it happened against Nicholls, though. Strange things are always happening whenever we play those guys. Just this season, we've seen reversed calls, coach ejections, power failures, and no-hitters - definitely not the ballgames you want to miss.
This past weekend we won two close games in extra innings before dropping the last game on Saturday night. We came away with a series win and sole leadership of first place in conference, but I know the whole team left the ballpark yesterday with a bitter taste in our mouths. It's tough to play doubleheaders like that though, especially in the Florida heat after playing 12 innings the night before, not to mention the fact that the morning game went past nine innings as well. The other team was in the same scenario, though, so we can't use any excuses about the physical nature of the games. Vince Lombardi said, though, that if you can't win if you can't accept losing. With this in mind, I hope that these last two "series finale" loses will benefit our team mentally as we get closer to post season play.
Right now, we're sitting in the Tampa airport, awaiting our returning flight back to New Orleans. Today's rest day was much needed. It gave some people time to relax their bodies and get their minds off of baseball for a couple hours. As it turned out, though, it didn't rain much at all today, which means we could have played the games on three separate days. Either way, ultimately, I feel comfortable heading home with a one game lead in the conference race.
Well, I hope you guys are just as excited about us returning home as we are. I hope we can pack the house against Memphis this weekend and help us to stretch our lead in the conference standings. Before then, though, I hope you can all make it out to Zephyr Field for Tuesday's game vs. UNO. It will be a very special night for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, an institution that I have been educated under for all of my 12 years of schooling before attending Tulane University. It will be a special night and I hope you can all be a part of it. Thanks for reading and I'll see you at the ballpark. Until next time...
Roll Wave,
Tommy
