07 April 2001
UH Baseball
This has been a weird week of baseball. We blew out of Enron after sitting through 11 innings earlier in the week, only to have Houston win in the 12th. So Friday night, after the game went 11 scoreless innings, we bolted because of a brisk wind that got chilly -- and UH won on a suicide squeeze (set up by sloppy UAB fielding) in the 12th. And today, for the second straight game, a UH freshman pitched a shutout, although this time the Cougars pounded out enough hits (combined with UAB's horrible defensive performance -- 5 errors or so, and one more that should have been charged) that our freshman's one-hit complete-game shutout was MORE than enough pitching.
In all, I've been impressed with UH. They have finally gotten their record to .500 (18-18, 10-1 in conference) after being 10 games or so below to start the season (Rayner schedules tough opponents regardless); the young players are starting to gel. Their hitting has fallen off significantly from last year (not surprising, they lost a lot of players from that amazing team), but the defense is really solid, and the pitchers, while young, have a lot of talent. So far, the freshmen (with a little help from the relievers on Friday) have pitched 21 innings of shutout baseball against UAB. I don't think UAB is very talented (and certainly they are not well coached), but that many shutout innings is pretty impressive, especially when it's freshmen doing it. Rayner could have himself a college world series team in a couple of years if the hitting comes around.
It's been a lot of fun getting back out to the ballpark again. I even managed to get a little sunburned today in the balmy 80 degree weather.
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Otherwise, the past few days have not been very productive. But they have been restful and relaxing, and sometimes that's a necessary investment in future productivity. Plus the stress of apt hunting is gone now, although it won't be 100% gone until I get a lease signed in the next few days. The only drawback is I got sunburned today, and may skip out on baseball tomorrow to give my poor body a break.
[Posted @ 11:36 PM CST]
