Towson’s coach, Matt Tyner, often talks about “the process”. Playing every play, every pitch, every at bat with the same focus, backed by preparation. Playing with awareness, with confidence, that you know what to do and are ready to do it. It’s not just a matter of cliche’d fundamentals, but really being totally committed to every single moment of the game. A matter of mindfulness, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Nearly all coaches, of course, say things like this, but it is a subtle shift in priorities. You look at things top-down or bottom-up. The top-down perspective says, “Do everything possible to win the game (even if it’s outside of your abilities). Play with 110% effort (even if it means doing something you’ve never tried). Leave it all on the field (if you lost you must not have tried hard enough).” The bottom-up perspective says, “Make the right play, every single play (because you don’t want mistakes to snowball). Practice with 100% exact effort (because then you will play that way by default). Visualize every play before it happens (so you don’t leave any opportunities on the field).
As this season has gone on, you can see the process taking hold of the Towson baseball team. Though they dropped two of three games this weekend, the Tigers pushed one of the best teams in their conference to the brink in both losses. One could argue that they lost two innings this entire series. The mistakes that defined the first month of the season are becoming more and more rare.
University of North Carolina Wilmington used fourteen pitchers this weekend. Towson used six, two in each game, and not one threw a wild pitch. Tigers’ pitchers hit a single batter; UNCW hit five. The Seahawks, one of the best offenses in the Colonial Athletic Association, scored 13 runs this series. Towson scored 14 in one game. The Tigers are not one of the big boys, not yet, but this weekend proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they can hang with them. The process is working. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
Positive Pixels
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- Billy Lennox is, as the kids say (at some point, I guess), straight ballin’. The senior is on a twelve game hitting streak, going 6-13 this weekend with two doubles. He scored twice and drove in four. Saturday was probably one of the best games of his career, 4-5, with two RBI and two runs scored.
- Fellow senior Colin Gimblet’s also had hits in each game this weekend, and also matched Lennox’s two doubles. Gimblet was 4-13, scoring and driving in three runs. Since his long on-base streak was snapped, he now has hits in four straight games.
- Mark Grunberg was on base six times, with four hits and two walks, and also stole two bases. The junior is a perfect 10-10 in stolen base attempts this year. He also had a deja vu inducing catch on Saturday.
Mark Grunberg robs the hitter of extra bases with this #SCTop10 diving catch to end the 2nd inning. pic.twitter.com/SXsUmlmvGD
— Towson Baseball (@Towson_BASE) April 21, 2018
- Craig Alleyne only had one hit this weekend, but he reached base five times on the strength of two walks and and two hit by pitches, which allowed him to score three runs. Perhaps more importantly, the junior only struck out once in 11 at bats.
- Matt Watters, Gavin Weyman, and Dean Stramara were absolutely fantastic in relief this weekend, combining for eight innings of one-run ball. Watters, in particular, had the best game of his Towson career, finishing the last four innings of Friday’s game, allowing one hit, walking one, and striking out five.
The Watch List
Richie Palacios, SS – .359↓/.486↓/.621↓, 145 AB, 45 R, 14 2B, 8 HR, 29 RBI, 20-21 SB. Though he was held to two hits by UNCW, it was still a big weekend for Palacios, who became Towson’s all-time stolen base king. His next milestone should come this week, as he needs two hits to reach 200 for his career.
Dirk Masters, 2B – .293/.420/.315, 92 AB, 14 R, 7 RBI, 3-3 SB. Masters did not play this weekend. We will have to wait and see if it is an injury; hopefully we see the second baseman back soon.
David Marriggi, P – 3-4, 3.79 ERA↑, 59.1 IP, 30 BB, 51 K. It was another dynamite seven inning start for Marriggi, who allowed a single earned run while scattering six hits and three walks. The senior struck out four, picking up his third win on the season.
Michael Adams, P – 3-3, 3.92 ERA↓, 62.0 IP, 21 BB, 68 K. Allowing eight hits with zero walks in six innings, striking out seven, will usually get you pretty good results. Unfortunately, three of those hits came from the first three batters of the seventh inning, chasing Adams, and UNCW was able to get a couple of singles off of Dean Stramara to account for three of the four runs the senior gave up. Adams has proven he can go deep into games, so just chalk this one up to sequencing and move on to next weekend.
Up Next
Towson has one game this week, a chance for revenge against University of Maryland Baltimore County. In their game earlier this year, Towson fell apart in the ninth inning to lose a game they were leading 4-1. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m.
Musical Finale
