Parker added to all-stars

Washington second baseman Michael Parker (pictured) was added Friday to the East Division team for next week's Frontier League All-Star game in Marion, Ill.

Parker was added as an injury replacement for Windy City second baseman Gilberto Mejia, who was named the starter for the East. Parker had the second-highest vote total among second basemen.

Parker, who is batting .254, leads the Wild Things with 26 RBI. He has five doubles, two triples, two home runs and eight stolen bases.

Traverse City's Michael Diaz will start at second base for the East.

Tuesday night leftovers

If Darin Everson has proven anything in his short stint as the Wild Things' manager, it's that he's not afraid to call for a squeeze play, whether the suicide or safety variety. It was the latter that produced the winning run Tuesday night in Washington's 6-5 victory over Gateway.

Billy O'Conner put down a bunt on the first pitch he saw from Grizzlies reliever David Miller to score Luis Rivera from third base and give the Wild Things a 6-5 victory.

It's at least the second time Everson has used the squeeze play in the season's first three weeks. John Massarelli called for a couple of squeeze plays -- I recall one was with Brett Grandstrand batting and beat Kalamazoo -- with success during his four years as the Wild Things' manager. I don't recall any squeeze bunts called by Washington's other managers. I asked one of those managers why he never uses the squeeze and his response was "Scouts want to see hitters drive people in, not bunt them in."

Everson has shown he's playing to win and isn't afraid to try anything to get a victory.

* For the past week, the best job in the world was to be a Gateway Grizzlies relief pitcher. During a six-game homestand, while the Gateway starters toiled just about forever, the Grizzlies' hitters outscored the opponents 73-18 and hit eight home runs in a 25-1 rout Sunday over Lake Erie. The guys out in Bullpenville had less to do than the night guard at a sewerage treatment plant. David Miller, the Grizzlies' 6-foot-10 reliever, could have visited the family in Fort Worth for a week and nobody would have noticed.

So when Grizzlies were finally locked in a close game Tuesday, you had to excuse reliever Eric Gilliland if he was a little rusty when it came to recognizing the signal to enter a game. While Grizzlies manager Phil Warren held court on the mound during the bottom of the seventh inning, Gilliland trotted into the game from the left-field bullpen at Consol Energy Park.

The only problem was that nobody had called for Gilliland to enter and replace starter John Flanagan. Gilliland nearly made it to the infield before Warren and several Grizzlies began waving frantically for him to get off the field and return to the bullpen.

* One item of concern for the Wild Things has to be left-handed hitting Jacob Dempsey's .059 batting average (1-for-17) against lefty pitching.

* While Washington won in the 10th inning Tuesday, the key frame for the Wild Things was the fourth. That's when they scored two runs after having two outs and nobody on base. O'Conner, the No. 8 hitter, singled to right field and Chris Raniere followed with a line-drive single up the middle. O'Conner made it to third base on the play.

Chris Sidick then chopped a risky two-out bunt past the pitcher's mound for an infield single that scored O'Conner, and Michael Parker hit a sharp single off the glove of sliding Gateway shortstop Tyler Heil to give Washington a 5-3 lead.

Thoughts through 3 games

Some notes, observations and thoughts after the Wild Things' season-opening homestand:

* There were plenty of lasting images from the season's first three games and not many were positive for the Wild Things: Washington's baserunning blunders in the opener, the muddy and water-logged outfield, the empty seats ...

* On the positive side, you have to be impressed with the hitting of Adam Amar and Mark McGonigle. They could be two impact hitters. Chris Sidick is off to a better start than last year, which is a good sign. Michael Parker, who had a 24-game hitting streak last season, seems to be hitting the ball as well, if not better, so far this season.

* The Wild Things have to be concerned about attendance, or the lack of it. The 1,624 on hand for Sunday's game was the second-smallest crowd in franchise history. The 6,311 for the series was the second-smallest attendance for a three-game series. The opener didn't sell out -- for the first time. During the first inning of the opener, there was one section of seating along the third-base line that had four empty rows at the top. The same section had one person seated in the front row. The next section down the line also had one person seated in the front row.

There did, however, seem to be more people in the box seats for the opener than last year.

* The pace/length of games have gotten ridiculously long. And don't blame it on the between-innings promotions. Blame it on the "Moneyball" era and umpires.

Hitters today are taught to work the count like never before, and the umpires help them by refusing to call a strike a strike. The rulebook says the upper end of the strike zone is the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is the hollow beneath the knee. The strike zone, however, has become the bottom of the belt to the top of the kneecap.

I have some video/DVD copies of baseball games played in the 1960s and 1970s. The thing that jumps out to me when watching them is the strike zone. The zone was actually called correctly back then, players had to swing and the game moved at a quicker, more fan-friendly pace.

* Have you ever seen an outfield that was only partially mowed on opening day? I hadn't until Friday.

* This is the best Oakland County/Midwest team. The Cruisers/Sliders have more speed than ever before, Zach Pace is always on base, Joash Brodin and Jimmy Baker can hit, Luis Fernandez looks like a good defensive shortstop and pitchers James Albury and Kevin Asselin have track records of success. Too bad the Cruisers/Sliders are playing 51 of their first 57 games on the road. It's hard to stay in a playoff race with that kind of disadvantage.

* Washington catcher Billy O'Conner probably earned a few more starts by going 4-for-5 Sunday.

* Best line of the weekend came after Sunday's game, when someone brought a plate of alligator from the exotic foods stand into the Wild Things' clubhouse for the players and coaches to try. "We got the alligator from left centerfield," the person said. That might be where they'll find next weekend's entree: shark.

* There was no reason to play the Saturday night game. It should have been postponed. The outfield was a swamp Friday, and all the rain early Saturday made it worse.

* According to the Frontier League website, the Wild Things' July 31 game at Oakland County has been postponed and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader Aug. 1.

Camp notes: Thursday

The Wild Things spent five hours on the field Thursday, which included a four-inning intrasquad game, but the only significant news out of camp was that left-handed pitcher Jason Neitz has been put on the 60-day disabled list because of an arm injury. Neitz had a 7-7 record and 5.61 ERA in 20 games (19 starts) last season.

Four pitchers (18 are in camp) were used in the instrasquad game. The pitching lines were:

Zach Groh 2 2/3-5-5-0-0-3
Tim Smith 3-3-1-1-1-4
Sean Grieve 1-2-1-1-0-1
Kurt Houck 1-2-2-1-0-0

Groh and Smith each threw two shutout innings until the hitters caught on a little the second time through the order. The five runs Groh allowed were unearned because of two errors in the inning that also featured three home runs. First baseman Paul Chmiel and second baseman Michael Parker back-to-back homers, and two batters later shortstop Denny Duron homered.

Smith gave up a two-run homer to shortstop Pat Kinney.

Parker went 2-for-3 with a double and home run.

Other than the home runs, the only things that stood out were three errors by infielders and the pitchers gave up only one walk.

The 25-foot triple

If you weren't at Consol Energy Park last night in the eighth inning, you missed a bizarre play that resulted in the umpires enforcing a rarely applied rule and River City coming away with a triple on a sacrifice bunt.

Here's what happened:

River City, leading 7-4, had runners on first and second with no outs and Andy Reilly at the plate. It's an obvious bunting situation.

Reilly put down a perfect bunt that traveled roughly 25 feet (maybe not even that far) up the third-base line, into the grass. Washington third baseman Michael Parker charged and tried to scoop the ball with his glove. Parker snow-coned the ball and it end up shooting out the top of the glove, back toward the dirt area around home plate, to the right-hand side of Washington catcher Alan Robbins.

Robbins was holding his catcher's mask in his right hand, and in an instinctive move reached down with his mask to stop the ball. It was sorta like a hockey goalie making a quick-reaction glove save. Robbins then scooped the ball up in the mask.

When play was stopped, the umpiring crew of Jeremy Stangelo (plate) and Matt Neador (bases) advanced both runners to home plate and sent Reilly to third base. The rule they were enforcing was 7.05 B:

Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance three bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a fair ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person. The ball is in play and the batter may advance to home base at his peril.

You can make a strong case that Robbins didn't deliberately stop the baseball with his mask, but there was no doubt he intentionally scooped it up with the mask.

So how do you score the play? A check of the rulebook showed it was a triple, based on Rule 10.07 E:

... score a (triple) when the batter-runner is awarded three bases under the provision of Rule 7.05.

So there you have it, a 25-foot triple.

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.

Letter from camp

Thoughts and observations from Thursday, the second day of spring training:

- Only saw the morning session, which was the intrasquad game. There were more relievers than potential starters on the mound. None of the pitchers stood out but none got lit up, either. Josh Eachuses, the converted catcher, and Dan Horvath got the best results. Justin Edwards, the former West Liberty pitcher, seemed to throw the hardest of the group and might be a candidate for a starting spot. Michael Mondesir struck out three of the six batters he faced.

- The story of the day had to be the field conditions, or to be more specific the outfield conditions. Water, water and more water. What a mess. Reminded me of some of those games last year against Midwest. Because W&J's Ross Memorial Park was hosting to the Presidents' Athletic Conference tournament, the Wild Things had little choice but to muddle through the muck at Consol Energy Park. Late in the scrimmage, shortstop Joe Spiers dove for a fly ball in shallow left centerfield and landed in a mud puddle. One batter later, Blake Butler was playing right field when a shallow fly was hit in his direction. Butler tried to make a face-first diving catch. After seeing the water fly, I was tempted to give Butler a 9.8 for his dive into the pool (the Russian judge would have given the dive a 7.5). When he stood up, Butler's uniform was soaked and covered in mud. It looked like he had just played four quarters in the rain at Heinz Field.

- Two rarities did happen during the intsrasquad game: a triple play was turned and Chris Sidick grounded into a double play. The triple play came with runners on second and third and the infield drawn in. The batter grounded out to second base, then Spiers took off late for home and was tagged out in a rundown. The runner on second base was then thrown out. The triple play would have never happened in a game situation. Had it been during a game with a coach at third base, Spiers would have been running on contact or staying put. Sidick's 6-4-3 DP was interesting only because he grounded into just four double plays in 1,096 at-bats the last three years.

- Sidick has changed his uniform number from 12 to 5.

- Second baseman Michael Parker, pictured, made the play of the day. He fielded a ball on the grass behind the bag and, as his momentum carried him toward left field, he threw out the batter. Washington's had some good defensive second basemen, but the only one I've seen make the play Parker did was Ryan Ellis.

- That Butler even attempted to dive into the water and catch the fly ball probably shouldn't come as a surprise. He seems to play full-tilt all the time, even on the basepaths.

_ Kris Rochelle should no longer be considered injured. His arm looks as strong as ever.

Two more signed

The Wild Things announced Tuesday the signings of catcher Steve Pickerell and infielder Michael Parker.

Pickerell will be counted on to do a significant amount of the catching while Kris Rochelle recovers from elbow surgery. Pickerell spent three seasons in the Tampa Bay Rays' system and played last year in the Frontier League with Rockford, hitting .273 in 33 at-bats before breaking a bone in his arm in June. The injury ended his season. Pickerell is classified as a Rookie by FL standards because he has only 134 career at-bats.

Parker comes out of the New York Mets' system. He played multiple positions during his two seasons with the Mets. In 2007, Parker batted .298 in the rookie-level Appalachian league but struggled last year, hitting only .190 between the Class A South Atlantic League and short-season New York-Penn League.

Pickerell is from Cincinnati and played at the University of Cincinnati. Parker is from Newton, Mass., and played at George Washington.

I suspect these will be the last of the newcomers to sign with the Wild Things until after the cuts at minor-league spring training. The next round of signings will be players from the 2008 team.