The good, the bad & the ugly

The Wild Things' bus pulled out of Consol Energy Park Monday afternoon headed for a six-game trip to the St. Louis area. The bus was carrying plenty of baggage. Much of that was emotional baggage from a season-opening three-game series against the Lake Erie Crushers that could be best described as ugly. In terms of quality of play, it was one of the worst series the Wild Things have ever played. And Lake Erie wasn't much better.

The Wild Things can look back on the series and say they should have won two games instead of one. They gave away a win Sunday. Of course, you can just as easily say that Lake Erie should have swept the series had its defense not gift-wrapped a win for Washington on Saturday night.

Amid all the walks, hit batsmen and fly balls that were dropped or lost in the lights, there were some positives signs for Washington. So let's look at what we've learned about this team from three games:

The Good:
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- Grant Psomas can flat-out hit. The ball jumps off his bat like no Washington hitter I've seen since Josh Loggins. If he continues hitting like this, manager Mark Mason will have to move him up in the lineup to either the No. 3 or No. 4 spot.

- Amid all the walks, there were a few pitchers whose performances might have gotten overlooked. Opening night starter Craig Snipp was impressive the first time through the Lake Erie batting order and had eight strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. Reliever Matt Maradeo looked more like the guy who put up good numbers in the Chicago Cubs' system than the one who struggled with the Wild Things last year. Kedrick Martin tossed two shutout innings to get a win Saturday. Even Saturday starter Sean Heimpel and reliever Justin Edwards showed flashes that they could be very good.

- Catcher Kris Rochelle, coming off elbow surgery, had a very good series with three hits in two games and throwing out two basestealers in as many attempts. Rochelle gunned down the Crushers' Jodam Rivera each time. In the Sunday game, Rivera had a huge walking lead and jump at second base with a right-handed batter at the plate. Rochelle's throw was perfect and got to the base well ahead of Rivera.

The Bad:
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- The fielding. Three dropped fly balls of various degrees of difficulty. No excuse. By the way, whatever happened to catching fly balls with two hands?

- The baserunning mistake by Michael Parker that led the Wild Things not scoring on a sacrifice fly to deep center field. Sure, Chris Sidick could have been running faster to home plate, but he should not have needed to sprint like it was an Olympic 100-meter dash final. Parker trying to advance to second base wasn't wise. At least it was a mistake of aggression, which can often be overlooked.

The Ugly:
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- The pitching.

Here are the ugly numbers:

Washington pitchers walked 22 batters in 21 innings. They also hit five batters.

Lake Erie scored 21 runs in the series and 10 of those were batters who reached base via walks.

Nine times in the series, including five times Sunday, Washington pitchers walked the leadoff hitter in an inning.

Almost every pitcher worked from behind in the count. Someone told me Sunday that starter Eric Evans fell behind in the count to all but two of the 17 batters he faced. It wouldn't surprise me if that was true, even when you factor in Evans' six-pitch first inning.

Washington leads the league with its 22 walks allowed. Windy City's pitchers have issued only six walks in four games.

"Pitching-wise, we've got to get better," Mason said Sunday. "We were behind in the count all night. ... That means our pitchers are trying to be too fine and not pitching to contact. Either we're not comfortable with our stuff or we're trying to embarrass every hitter. If we do that at Gateway, in that park, we'll give up 20 runs."

One thing Mason said he saw too much of was breaking balls thrown on 1-0 and 2-1 counts.

Lake Erie also had its pitching problems, giving up 16 walks.

"Both clubs have entirely new pitching staffs," Lake Erie manager John Massarelli pointed out. "One year, when I managed with Mace as my pitching coach, we had the same situation and the first few games of the season were just like that. You're basically just running guys out there until you figure out what roles to put them in."

Roster musings

Some thoughts and notes after watching two exhibition games Friday against Lake Erie, the latter of which ended in a 3-3 tie after 10 innings:

- The Friday games did little to help manager Mark Mason figure out who to keep in his bullpen. For example, lefty Dan Horvath was the only consistent reliever on the team last year (with the exception of one puzzling outing against Traverse City) but he gave up six hits, two walks and hit a batter in one inning of the day game. Do you judge Horvath on what he did last year or do you write off Friday's outing as just one of those days?

- Sidearmer Kyle Heyne gave up a home run but it was a swing-late fly ball down the left-field line by a left-handed hitter that ended up in the visitors' bullpen. More of a wall-scraper than a blast. Otherwise, Heyne threw strikes. He also has a track record of pitching well in tight situations - he's the all-time saves leader in the Mid-American Conference.

Kedrick Martin walked three over 2 1/3 innings but retired five in a row (two on strikeouts) at one point.

Josh Eachues, Kalen Gearhart and Michael Lucas combined for four scoreless innings (two hits and one walk allowed) in the opener. Each helped his case for a roster spot. My guess is that only Kris Rochelle and Alan Wiggins will make the team as catchers, so does Eachues' value increase because he can be a third catcher? I don't know because I haven't seen him catch this spring. I guess that means no.

- Second baseman Michael Parker went 3-for-4 with a walk in the night game. It looks like he will be an impact newcomer.

- Rob Hedrick is creating another difficult decision for the coaching staff. They like the former California University player's arm strangth as a pitcher, which was not his primary position with the Vulcans. Hedrick played second base in the day game, then pitched a perfect 10th inning in the night game, retiring Lake Erie's 3-4-5 hitters. If Hedrick makes the team it will be as the 24th man, a utility guy who can be worked with all year to refine his pitching mechanics.

- Heyne probably made the team Friday night and Horvath lost a spot on the roster.

- It seems that three pitchers who have locked up spots in the starting rotation are Rick Austin, Craig Snipp and Eric Evans.

- The three pitchers with no pro experience (Michael Mondesir, Brian Honeyman and Hedrick) began the spring at the bottom of the depth chart but tossed a combined eight scoreless innings against Lake Erie.

- Right-hander Jace Smith arrived in Washington Friday night, which brings the number of pitchers in camp to 21. Smith will pitch in tonight's exhibition game.

- Mason has said he wants to trim the roster to 24 or 25 players by the end of the weekend.