Coaches Corner

With us on Coach's Corner on KWBG, going to talk some DMACC baseball today. Nick Mishler joining us. The Bears in, well, going to be busy this weekend. They've got one against NIAC today.

Looks like we'll have a double header on Sunday, which might be a little different from your schedule if you looked earlier in the week, but Nick, kind of like all my other sports, Mother Nature, as always, is undefeated.

And you guys kind of had to pivot a little bit this weekend. Yeah, it's spring baseball in the Midwest, as always. It's a stressful time of year just because you don't know that we need to pull tarps, put tarps on, all that stuff, move games.

So, but you know, we talk about handling adversity well in our program and it's just part of it. So yeah, no, we made some adjustments today and had to last week as well. So just kind of roll, roll with the punches and, and get ready to go when, when they say we can play.

Well, I'll tell you what, Nick, the easiest part when you're, when you're having to switch things around and move things and okay, we can't play here, but we can play here.

When you're on a winning streak, it's easy to do that because you're excited to get to the ballpark each and every day. And you guys have a nice little, a six game winning streak that's going on right now. Heck might've even been a little bit more had a, had a tough one.

I know against the Iowa Western and the second of a double header, but boy, I tell you what, you're getting healthy, Nick, and you can see it on the field. Yeah, no, we've played, we've played good baseball here.

I think over the last few weeks and you know, we, we had a tough schedule early as we always do non-conference. And, and honestly, I thought, I thought, you know, you know, the drill with us, like our goal is to get better each day out.

And I thought we've done a good job of it so far this year. This group shows up ready to work and they've had to handle a lot of adversity. We've had, like you mentioned, a bunch of injuries and some broken bones.

And, but you know what, we, I felt like we had some depth on our team and those guys have really stepped up.

Um, and you know, that maybe weren't seen as much time early and, um, you know, we're starting to get some guys healthy and, and, uh, playing some good baseball and getting some wins and had some, had some good come from behind wins over the last, you know, a few days.

And so that that's been good.

I think the other positive that I was noticing Nick too, is, uh, not just, and I know we love talking offense and you know, you see the t-shirts all over the place about offense and home runs and chicks dig the long ball and this and that, you know what I like, I like a good pitch.

Staff and I'm feeling really good about where this pitching staff is. And I know I'll talk offense here in a little bit, guys, hang on, but let me, let me go pitching first with you, Nick. Cause I feel like the starting rotation, your middle and your relief as well.

Are we getting better? Is it just me, sir? No, no, we are. And, and you know, Wednesday we played with 40 mile an hour winds going straight out, so the, the, the numbers and the RAs probably don't look as good as, as how, how the guys actually pitch.

But, uh, no, I've been very pleased with our pitching staff. Um, they continue to get better each time out. Um, Hunter cook and, and, uh, Isaac is Ross and I can go down a list of starters of all continue to get better.

And then, um, you know, I think we do have some depth, um, in the pen and, and some guys that are able to get extended.

Um, we saw really good outing out of Sebastian for log up who's a guy that, you know, dealt with some injuries before the season started and kind of has had a slow start.

But you see him and Jackson Gwen and, um, some of these guys starting to pick up some momentum and, and have good outings. And, uh, obviously Andrew Pice has been good for us. He started and come out of the pen.

Um, he was, he was good for us a year ago and Keegan Rath has really started to come on and, and been good for us late in games. So, um, I'm very pleased with our pitching staff. We need to continue to get better, continue to protect the strike zone with quality pictures.

I think we've, we've thrown strikes, um, for the most part, but this need to deal with more quality pitches and have started to do that over the last few weeks, I feel like. All right. So I said, I was going to talk offense.

So let, let me talk a little offense now, because that has been really, really good here the last couple of weeks as well, coach. And I really want to start with the Northeast Iowa series first. And I mean, you put up 39 runs.

I don't care what pitching you're going to have in this league. You put up 39 runs in a three game series. That's going to make coach come home and be very, very happy. And then I'm going to make coach even more excited because you put up 26.

And again, in the two game series, the double header against Ellsworth, these bats, man, they coming alive, huh? Yeah, they are.

And, and I feel like, I feel like we've had our hitters have done a good job all year long, I think over the last couple of weeks, we've just been more consistent, cut some of our strikeouts down.

Um, but just had grittier bats, you know, I think that's something that we try to pride ourselves on getting head by pitch and, and all that, but we do have guys that can do damage and try to put pressure on other team. We've executed our buck game a lot better.

Um, we've gone first, a third, a lot better over the last two or three weeks. And so, um, just continuing to play winning baseball, right? People call it small ball or, or whatever. A good buddy of mine that coaches at Washington state. I heard him talk about it's not small ball.

It's just winning baseball. And I think, I think our guys are seeing, Hey, we can, we can beat you a bunch of different ways. Um, we don't just have to be a one trick pony. We can, we can come out, we can bond and steal. We can also hit balls over the fence, right?

And then, and into the gap. So, um, very pleased with, with our offense. Um, very competent and everyone, one of our hitters that we have.

And, um, you know, I think the cool thing is you've seen a lot of different guys, um, and then out of our lineup, partially due to some injuries and whatever, but, um, we're able to play some match-ups and do some things like that, um, and pinch run and, and whatever, um, when, when needed, um, because of the depth that we do have offensively.

Well, Nick, I know you're the one game at a time, guys.

So I'm not going to make you look ahead to Northeast Nebraska or Southeastern coming up, but let's start with Nyack today because it's, it's a big game today because it's the next game and then you've got the double header, uh, coming up on Sunday.

So what do you want to see today? The one gamers are always kind of interesting because there's a little bit more of a grind that can happen instead of the double headers, which you can get out and things can happen pretty good early, but give me Nyack today.

What do you want to see this afternoon from the fellows? Yeah, I just want to see us go out and play, play our brand of baseball. Um, everyone sold out for the pitch at hand, right? We talked about that a lot. I think that's something our team has done.

Well, we've picked each other up a lot better over the last few weeks, obviously leading to some more wins, but, um, I just want to see him go out and play our brand of baseball, which is we're coming after you no matter what the circumstances are.

Um, and we're going to be the best we can be on the pitch at hand and, and see if we can win more pitches than the other guys and, and, uh, um, I'm confident they'll come out ready to play.

And they've had a, they had a late night pulling parps last night and early morning, this morning, they'll be, they'll be ready to go. All right. You know, you don't go out and mop up the field and, um, you know, Nyack's got a good club and, um, can really swing it.

So, uh, we'll have a good challenge ahead of us, uh, here this weekend. So excited to get back to the field and watch the guys perform. Nick, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck this weekend. We'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. Appreciate it. Thank you.

You bet. Nick Mishler again, joining us D Mac baseball here in coaches corner.