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Baseball team a laughingstock
By David Pollan
dpollan@mscd.edu

I recall a Little League baseball game from my youth where both the center fielder and left fielder on my team were doing everything but playing baseball. If my memory serves me correctly, the left fielder was picking flowers for his mom while the center fielder was doing cartwheels. Granted the outfielders don’t see much action in Little League and the outfield can be extremely boring, it was still no excuse for the gymnastics and botany. The theatrics didn’t go unnoticed because as they were taking place, a ball was hit to left-center and resulted in an in-the-park home run.

Well, Metro’s baseball team might as well be picking flowers and doing cartwheels – can they really play any worse?

Metro ranks last among all-RMAC teams with an atrocious 7-25 overall record and a mere .219 winning percentage. The baseball team also ranks last in batting average at .266 and has a season ERA of 7.45. The ‘Runners allow an average of 8.5 runs per game and only score 5.7.

They have struck out more times than any other RMAC team and hit into more double plays than anyone as well. Not exactly the makings of a championship team, or even a good team at that.

Recently, in a four-game series against Colorado State University at Pueblo, Metro surrendered 63 runs in four games. In one game against CSU-Pueblo, Metro committed eight errors, one by each position player not including the pitcher.

Where is the mercy rule when you need it? I’m sorry, boys, but it’s hard to win baseball games when you give up double-digit runs and everyone is committing errors.

Pitching has proven to be the recurring problem for the ‘Runners throughout the season. “We have tried just about everything to turn the pitching around,” head coach Bobby Pierce was quoted as saying. Obviously, nothing has worked.

Pierce is not to blame for the embarrassing performances game in and game out by the ‘Runners. He can’t go out there and play. And baseball, being a team sport, takes more than three players playing to their potential. Braden Ham, Reece Gorman and Jake Palmer cannot carry this team by themselves.

It takes an effort from all nine players on the diamond. The rest of the ‘Runners team must step it up significantly if they want any chance of not being the laughingstock of the RMAC. With 16 games remaining, the postseason is still attainable. But with the way the ‘Runners are playing, it’s a long shot.

I don’t want to be too hard on the boys of spring, they do lead the RMAC in stolen bases, the only highlight and good statistic of this otherwise dismal season.

Maybe next year ‘Runners, but vast improvements must be made if you want to compete at this level.