Mrs. WW and I took a day trip to Fort Wayne on Wednesday. We did a 26 mile bike ride along the St. Joseph and Maumee Rivers, had dinner at Portillos, and then spent the evening at Parkview Field. A small crowd was there to see the Tincaps take on the visiting South Bend Cubs.
We were able to get some great seats.
we also had a direct look into the Cubs dugout. I have never been that close to any dugout before. There was a problem with the seats, however.
When the Cubs were hitting, players in the on deck circle would sometimes block our view of the plate.
The Cubs starting pitcher was Cade Horton, their #1 pick in the 2022 draft. He pitched four innings and struck out a career-high nine Tincaps. Unfortunately, sloppy defense and a mediocre bullpen led to a 5-3 loss.
The Cubs seemed to be very protective of their #1 pick. I guess you do that when you invests $4.45 million in a player. He went just four innings. That looked to be the plan since the Cubs had a reliever up even though Horton wasn’t in any trouble.
The manager was also calling all the pitches. I could see him signaling the catcher before each pitch. That stopped once Horton was out of the game. When Horton came out, he was accompanied to the clubhouse by two coaches, the trainer, and the strength coach. Two innings later, the Cubs first reliever was taken out and he went to the clubhouse by himself.
It was quite interesting to see some of those behind the scene things.
Great seats even with the "obstructed" view!
ReplyDeleteI managed a sophomore this spring who was to throw between 50 & 70 pitches each start, and only one start every seven days. He was also the only pitcher I called pitches for all season long. I was instructed to baby his arm (thus the lower pitch counts) and to improve the command of his secondary offerings (sprinkle them in more often).
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there's sound reasoning to the Cubs' treatment of Horton.