After another 3-1 on this past Thursday, The Swami sits at 23-6. I had a good feeling about McKinney hitting LH's #2, but apparently LH is more than a 1-trick pony. Anyway, here are Tuesday's picks. The Swami says...............
McKinney 12 Plano 2 (Smith will hit 2 bombs today)
East 7 Berkner 1 (Berkner simply undermanned)
Rock 11 West 4 (Rock bats are smoking)
LH 1 Allen 0 (Humphreys over Tolly...again)
I know #1's are probably available since the last district games were on a Thursday, instead of a Friday. I can't wait to go watch Humphreys vs. Tolleson. They will melt the radar guns tonight.

Swami,
Which Smith arer you talking about, Matt or Aaron?

Matt, OF COURSE!

OF COURSE? Have you looked at their offense the past couple of weeks?

Of course I have, a lot of preparation goes into my picks...just a hunch on this one!

Just giving you a hard time Swami. I knew you were talking about Matt, but both are nice ballplayers. Aaron Smith will play D1 ball though. From DMN

Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB AVG
Matt Smith 59 27 25 6 0 6 27 0 .424
Aaron Smith 66 16 25 6 1 4 23 1 .379

Does anyone have the inside scoop on how LH and East are gonna jockey their staff this week? Seems like LH coach has found a way to get KH another start if he throws him today. LH and Berkner play Saturday at the Ballpark. Keep those picks coming Salami- West will rule tonight in Duncanville.

Is it indeed Humphries vs. Tolleson tonight?

Tolleson was on the Friday schedule, but now is the time to make a switch if that works for your team -- they had an extra day rest since they played last Thursday against East. Wroblewski pitched an excellent game -- but you can't win without a run (can you???)........

I think they'll throw Tolleson tonight.

McKinney 6---Plano 0

Wow those stats are great. Definately D1 material.

TexasDad how are things? Hope all is well.

TXDad

Allen 10 LH 3
Humphries started and exited early
Bina the win on the hill for Allen
Look out McKinney- here comes Tolly

same as always

I've yet to see a Berk vs. East score. Anybody got that one? And.............was it Lance or Jake that pitched for Plano East? Meanwhile, The Swami is calling it 3 and 1 on Tuesday (assuming East won) which makes me 26-7 on the year. We all knew that even a good LH team was due to lose- next to impossible to go 14-0 in this district. So LH will be fine and it looks like Allen has a rested Tolly for Friday. I'll be back Thursday morning with Friday picks. A good day to all.

According to DMN:
Plano 9
Berkner 7

All on no hits!!! (lol)

The Plano East/Berkner was 9-7...a bit misleading, a lot of the runs for Berkner came late...Jake pitched...I cant for the life of me figure out why ??? Why waste your #1 ????

berkdad-

You are sooo right...East is out of the playoff race and Collins is doing everything possible to pad the record for future support...The FACT is that he inherited Don English's program, had success last season due to this...have not seen much "coaching" this season...many disgruntled players & parents.

Can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. If the team can't hit, it is hardly the coaches fault. Everyone knew that this years team would struggle with little experience. Don English left him with a team full of seniors and no freshman or soph's in the system. If English would have prepared a couple of the younger players, it may have been different. Remember that Liao, Hughes, Lendermand, and a couple of others were brought up as soph's. We all knew that this year would be a rebuilding year.

Not to toot my own son's horn, but losing what would have been your ace this year as well as one of your top hitters to transfer did not help coach Collins either. Only 2 players returning even had experience that are returning. One of them had no ab's. Wrob and Arieta. Forcht had some experience. Other than that an entirely new crew on hand.

I think that your charachterization is unfair.

As far as pitching is concerned. I told everyone that Wroblewski would have a good year. I don't believe there is much of a drop off with either pitcher. They are both scholarshipped athletes. Just different styles.

Sounds like sour grapes to me.

I think two seasons are too few to judge a coach's ability. In my opinion, last year's team would have been good with Mickey Mouse as the coach -- and yet, they still finished 2nd in the district before making it to the Regional Finals. The squad played together for years and was a tight-knit group. A late season "situation" allowed them to prepare a #3 pitcher for the playoff run. And a #4 guy stepped up as well.

This year's team has a freshman starter, a sophomore starter, and 3-4 juniors that are making contributions. There are a few young kids that may make the team next year. Having said that, you still have to win games in order for a coach to be recognized.

Plano East does miss Eric Ridener, but the pitching is good enough to make the playoffs. I said early that the top-to-bottom offensive lineup would have to step up. As it turns out, the defense has been inconsistent (injuries, inexperience, etc.).

I don't know why Jake pitched last night, other than the fact that it was his turn. He pitched against LH last time and got beat -- so the strategy might be to pitch Lance on Friday against the Wildcats. They may make the switch against Plano West (next Tue) and use Jake against Rockwall (both guys surrendered 1 hit to the Yellow Jackets in their first meeting).

Concerning coaching ability -- and I don't necessarily agree that the comments are sour grapes -- it is easy to reach conclusions based on win/loss record. But good coaches have rebulding years too. Let's judge Coach Collins after 5-6 years by looking at the overall state of the Plano East program.

If we go on wins alone, there will be 2 OTHER varsity coaching vacancies in Plano next year -- anyone interested???

-PD

Plano East Player W L SV IP ..H ER BB SO ERA
Lance Wroblewski 3 0 0 22.1 13 *3 *6 26 0.94
Jake Arrieta.........2 2 0 24.2 11 11 16 26 3.12

DMN...Why is Arrieta concidered no 1? What am I not seeing? Does the team support Wroblewski better? These are sincere questions.