We have a new Coach for HS this year. Don't know a ton about her background other than that she played softball in high school (pretty sure not in college) and that she has helped with coaching other teams in the past. But she has a very baseball mindset (I think maybe she assistant coached boys' baseball and she says she and her Dad are big baseball fans). So, not a lot of experience with coaching softball.
Thus far this year (we play fall HS softball in GA), she's made some decisions that were head-scratchers. Things like seeming to not understand how to take advantage of the DP/Flex rule, aggressive base stealing that seemed really ill-advised, etc... We have very young pitching. One good freshman pitcher and two not-so-good freshman pitchers. The way she has managed that has not seemed optimal (e.g., leaving in one of the not-so-good pitchers and allowing her to walk seven batters and wind up losing the game instead of placing the good pitcher somewhere in the field and bringing her back in to save a disastrous inning).
But yesterday, we played a region opponent. It was a must win. Because of COVID restrictions, parents weren't allowed to go. I watched on GameChanger. It was 11-1 when I started watching in the top of the third inning. It was 21-1 before those poor girls could get three outs on us. Here's what I have a question about. In a game where ONLY the win matters and NOT the score, WHY would you keep stealing bases aggressively, including stealing home 3 or 4 times? This poor catcher could not hold onto the ball and there were passed balls practically every other pitch. Why couldn't our coach have just let one of our girls step off the base and make the inning end (there were two outs for like eternity)?
Now, she did allow literally every girl on our 17-man roster play during that inning. But why not just quit stealing bases and running up the score? Like I said, the score did not matter. Our old coach would have stopped attempting to score once we'd hit the run rule number (maybe the run rule number plus one insurance run). We went way past that. Am I the only one who thinks our coach's decision was kind of bush league?
Thus far this year (we play fall HS softball in GA), she's made some decisions that were head-scratchers. Things like seeming to not understand how to take advantage of the DP/Flex rule, aggressive base stealing that seemed really ill-advised, etc... We have very young pitching. One good freshman pitcher and two not-so-good freshman pitchers. The way she has managed that has not seemed optimal (e.g., leaving in one of the not-so-good pitchers and allowing her to walk seven batters and wind up losing the game instead of placing the good pitcher somewhere in the field and bringing her back in to save a disastrous inning).
But yesterday, we played a region opponent. It was a must win. Because of COVID restrictions, parents weren't allowed to go. I watched on GameChanger. It was 11-1 when I started watching in the top of the third inning. It was 21-1 before those poor girls could get three outs on us. Here's what I have a question about. In a game where ONLY the win matters and NOT the score, WHY would you keep stealing bases aggressively, including stealing home 3 or 4 times? This poor catcher could not hold onto the ball and there were passed balls practically every other pitch. Why couldn't our coach have just let one of our girls step off the base and make the inning end (there were two outs for like eternity)?
Now, she did allow literally every girl on our 17-man roster play during that inning. But why not just quit stealing bases and running up the score? Like I said, the score did not matter. Our old coach would have stopped attempting to score once we'd hit the run rule number (maybe the run rule number plus one insurance run). We went way past that. Am I the only one who thinks our coach's decision was kind of bush league?