By JARROD POTTER
SUNDAY was not a fun day for Pakenham Pumas Baseball Club in its inaugural Victorian Summer Baseball League (VSBL) clash.
The Pumas were belted about the diamond by Ormond in a Division 3 season-opening 2-13 loss.
Pakenham’s lead-off hitters impressed as coach Shaun Fahy and import James Mills found the bases consistently – including Fahy finding his way home off a Mills’ double in the third innings.
The other run came from a group effort to get Mills in late in the clash, but outside of those brief glimpses of potential, the roster struggled.
Pakenham’s starting pitcher Martin Kennedy was relieved in the second innings as four runs went into the Ormond ledger in the first. The Pumas’ relief pitcher Simon Ferris stemmed the flow of runs, but as the scores piled on again late in the clash, the coach Fahy came in to finish off the last two innings in the 11-run loss.
Unearned runs, missed opportunities and a number of near-miss double-plays cost Pakenham heavily, with runs piling up after the outs could have ended many of Ormond’s at-bat chances.
The Hunters proved too strong in the end to leave Pakenham to pick up the pieces after a tough start to life in VSBL Division 3 and coach Fahy thought the side’s errors were uncustomary and won’t be repeated.
“Preparations seemed to go pretty good, but unfortunately our mental aptitude on the day wasn’t where I wanted it to be,” Fahy said.
“Our pitching at the start of the game hurt us a fair bit – too many wild pitches, too many walks, which, in turn, scored runs on hits and a lot of their runs were unearned runs.
“With the score being 13-2, it was reflected in the way we play and not by the standard we want to play.”
Mills backed up his solid work with the bat also in the field as the primary pitcher has enjoyed his switch into the in-field, roaming shortstop and second base and affecting a number of outs.
Fahy said Mills’ pitching power will be used in closer contests, but for now his aim was to work.
“The theory with James is that we hope to give him some time trying out with the Aces – if it was a close game coming into the last innings or two James would come in at the end,” Fahy said.
“May get a start in two weeks against Mulgrave – get him some innings in – but the primary use of James throughout the season will be at shortstop and throwing at the last to close out games if we’re ahead.”
Pakenham now gets to roll out the welcome mat to Toomuc Reserve when it hosts St Kilda for its inaugural summer home game and Fahy was clear on the side’s intent to defend the home field.
“I’m expecting a lot better effort – our bats were definitely nowhere near on Sunday, but we’re expecting that to definitely change.” Fahy said.
“Our home turf we’re pretty comfortable there, so I’m expecting pretty much all our home games will be wins as we don’t like losing in our own house.”
The Pumas’ seconds didn’t have it any better against the Hunters; similarly routed 2-16 in a tough debut for the south easterners and the thirds were pummelled 0-20 by Chelsea B in Division 4 South.
Berwick City started its season with a 6-4 win over Malvern in Division 2 and will host Bonbeach on Saturday.
