A Most Unique Off Season

What did I do this off-season? I find this question amusing this year simply because this off-season was more than a little unique compared to all the others. In early November my husband (J.C.) and I welcomed our first child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl named Ariana. So while this off-season ended up meaning time away from baseball, it was by no means an off-season.

The last few months have passed by quickly, and quite honestly it's been a bit of an exhausted blur. The months of September and October were spent touching base with many of our corporate partners as I worked to transition out of the front office for maternity leave. Cue November and our bundle of joy arrived, meaning the next few months were spent elbows deep in diapers, laundry, more diapers, and more laundry, with a few late night feedings thrown in just for fun. I was overwhelmed after the arrival of Ariana by the number of people from the Sweets community who offered congratulations, brought by fresh meals, sent gifts, and overall embraced our growing family. It reminded me how fortunate I am to have met such amazing people and how grateful I am to call so many of you friends.

When I wasn't busy with diapers and sneaking sleep whenever I could manager, my time off was spent visiting with family and adjusting to parenthood. I will continue to be grateful to the Sweets organization for allowing me the time off. Despite Zachary's insistence that I not worry about the Sweets, I have to admit I wasn't really able to turn of the GM mindset entirely. I ventured downtown to check-in and visit more than once, and was excited to get back to work planning for 2016.

The transition back to the office has been relatively smooth, and baby Ariana makes an excellent Assistant GM when she finds herself tucked in behind my desk (even if she sleeps through 50% of the important decisions). It will come as a surprise to no one if her first word is baseball or Sweets, and I'm certain her best friend will be Sweet Lou.

As the season approaches (and it's coming faster than I was prepared for) there is still plenty of work to be done.  Over the next 100 days I'll be working with Frank to finalize the roster, finalizing promotions and in-game entertainment, preparing the menu, transitioning the stadium, hiring our game day staff, and so much more. The entire front office seems to be buzzing with life as we gear up for what is promising to be our best season yet. I truly can't wait to welcome everyone through the gates on Opening Day to celebrate season #7!

The off-season...that never is an off-season

I have become a bit nostalgic as the Sweets prepare for season #7. The fact that we're still here is a bit of a surprise - a pleasant one - to me and to my family. Not necessarily because we thought the Sweets wouldn't succeed, although there has always been that motivating fear. We just never intended Walla Walla to be our landing spot. It is very exciting that we are launching the 2016 and that we have grown roots in the community. 

What didn't I do in the off-season? To this day, I really enjoy the question of "What do you do all winter long?", because I am certain that the vision is that we roll up the carpet at Borleske, sit back, bathe in the money that we've made (aka Scrooge McDuck) and work in our pajamas (when there is work to be done). I'm kidding - I don't really think people think that, but I did want to figure out how to use a picture of Scrooge McDuck in this entry.

A few of the priorities this off-season included:

1. Making sure our manager was signed to a long-term deal. While we didn't have the finish we had hoped for, there were moments where the talent on the field and the direction of the coaching staff lined up well. I wanted to see what Frank could do with a full off-season under his belt and start building the continuity we enjoyed the first five seasons at Borleske. We were able to wrap that up right after the new year. We traveled together to the ABCA's in Nashville, TN and worked to develop the best relationships with college programs in the country. We should have a very, very good year on the field.
2. Re-connecting with our long-time season-ticket holders and corporate partners. A lot of people thought that I had moved, because the last two seasons I've spent primarily in Yakima getting the Pippins started (what a cool experience, by the way...I'll have to write another post on starting a second team and the ups and downs that go along with that commuting 240 miles round trip everyday). I didn't move. I'm still right here in Walla Walla. To prove it, I made sure that if it wasn't a thank you card, it was a phone call, a lunch or a pop-in visit. So many of our fans have become our friends - you've seen our children grow up at Borleske, you've helped us welcome in our baby daughter (who is now 4...seriously), you've grown as our company and roles in the community have grown. It was really, really nice to remind people that we still lived here, play here, work here.
3. Taking a vacation. It has been an exhilarating, and taxing, two years. While I've loved most of it, I've not done a very good job of disconnecting. While I've gone on family trips, I always have my cell phone or tablet within 6 inches, and I don't do anything that would mean I can't be reached. I committed to my family to make sure that this Christmas break, I was disconnected. For the most part, I was successful. I skied for the first time in a decade, I spent meaningful time (sans phone) with lifelong friends from college and our families, and I sat in a hot tub in -10 weather in the middle of a major snowstorm in Salt Lake City. It was awesome. 

I think getting back to my priorities has helped the Sweets and given Katie another person to help carry the load - we are trending to have our best crowds since 2011 (we drew 54K+ that season), our roster is good (GM Katie Biagi and Frank have done a nice job constructing a team to meet the style that our coaching staff will have), and we are really connecting with our sponsors and fans in ways that remind me of the early days. I love it! It is the energy associated with "small town" baseball that is what drives me everyday. The best part of the off-season - Yakima Valley and Walla Walla are no longer in the same division, which means they don't have to beat each other to make the playoffs, which means I can enjoy the season again. 

Like any small business owner, I know there isn't time (or margin) to take it easy. So - with 114 days left until opening day (as of today - check this out: https://days.to/3-june/2016), we keep chopping away at making 2016 the best season we've had. It sounds like a broken record - but that really is what motivates our team every single day.

Zachary

#SweetsCountry

Series Preview: Wenatchee

Wenatchee, Wa- On the outside, this match-up between the Sweets and the Applesox does not muster up the excitement that some might think. It is a series with two teams that are fighting to stay out of last place in the East Division, but it is much more than that. 

It is a series of bragging rights as the Sweets come in with a 4-2 advantage on the season series. After winning the season series last year 6-3, the Sweets just need one win to take the series again. The Sweets actually hold the advantage between the two, taking 22 of 40 games since 2010. 

Wenatchee has found a lot of success over the past few years as they missed the post-season for the first time in their history last year, but it has been a different story this season. They invite Walla Walla in with a 21-27 record this season. The pitching has been a problem this season as the Applesox post a 4.56 Earned Run Average this season as a team which is second to last in the league. 

The Sweets are coming into Applesox country with a five game losing streak and they have also lost seven out of their last eight games. During the losing streak, the Sweets' have struggled on defense, averaging three errors a game. They will turn to Kyle Molnar, fresh off his no-hitter in Kitsap, to try and stop the streak in game one.

-Zach Bigley

Soundboard - Yakima & Bellingham

The roadie has taken a big chunk out of our schedule at this point, and certainly taken me out of rhythm, but it hasn't taken the microphones out from in front of the players and coaches (as you'll see with the Sweet Scoop finally launching this afternoon).

Let's roll all the way back to Saturday, with Micah Gorman on the mound and dominating Yakima Valley for six scoreless innings. What did the young VMI right-hander think of his outing?



Mutz is a big fan of Gorman, and Skipper went into detail about why he likes what Gorman brings to the rotation.



Joe DeMers followed on from Gorman to make his WCL debut and got the side in order for the first two innings. Pretty impressive work for a kid straight out of high school, and Frank Mutz was impressed.



That upcoming start was Tuesday in Bellingham, and the youngster from Northern California didn't disappoint - a quality start, with two runs allowed in six innings and seven strikeouts, a new season-high for a Sweets starter.

How about a little offense before we move forward? The team seems to really be buying into the notion of going back through the box for hits. Here's Skipper:



That was a big part of the four-run fifth inning that gave Walla Walla a win on Wednesday night in Bellingham.

Let's fast-forward to that win in Bellingham, where Easton Lucas got the start. He spoke to us about battling through hitters despite having lower-than-usual velocity and coming back from home runs.



His relief was Chris Tate, who pitched four scoreless innings for the save, Tate talked about his approach in relief of Lucas, and the importance of a lead like the one he had coming in.



Tate might be pitching to contact, but not many guys are making contact against him - Tate leads the West Coast League with 20 strikeouts in 16.1 innings. I'll pause while you guffaw at that number. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Done? Done.

Back to the bats. Parker Coss made his debut with the Sweets on the road trip, and Frank Mutz loves what he's seen from the rising sophomore at UC Irvine so far.



Coss has settled in now, having been with Walla Walla almost a week, and capped the four-run fifth-inning that won the Sweets the game with an RBI single. He talked to us on the importance of those big innings.



Then there's the outtake for this edition of The Soundboard. Before our interview, Frank Mutz patted Tate on the back and said, "Good thing you found your uniform today!" I asked Tate what he meant, and he said this:



We've all been there, forgetting something important somewhere else. Just so long as he doesn't leave his off-speed pitches in the hotel, he should be just fine.

And that's the Soundboard from Bellingham. Rubber match tonight at 7:05!

The Lead-Off - Week 2

So, there were a few technical issues yesterday, which is why this is going up this morning. The chief one is, my computer refused to boot until about two hours before game time, meaning everything was scaled down or pushed back. Hence, The Lead-Off is on Tuesday this week. Everyone cross your fingers that this doesn't happen again.

The first full week of the WCL season is done, and the season feels like it's in the home stretch already. All teams have 1/6th of their schedules behind them now. When they say "short-season baseball," they mean "short season baseball."

Let's start with a clash that started the weekend with first-place implications in the East. After the Sweets won a three-game set of pitcher's duels with Wenatchee with a tenth-inning walk off from ten-day player Clayten Ayres - who has since been picked up for the full season - they headed to Yakima to take on Stanley Pippin and Friends. The Sweets won game one and were well on their way to the second tilt until the seventh. From there on out, the Pippins scored two runs in each of the last three frames, culminating in this number from Reid Martinez:


Ryan Rouillard, Pippins Radio Network

That was Martinez's first home run of the year, and the first Easton Lucas had allowed since April 30, 2014 - as a junior in high school. The Sweets got the better of the Pippins in the rubber match, though. After tying the game in the fifth and falling behind again, the Sweets went ahead in the sixth:


Keith Brake, Sweets Radio Network

That was just the third RBI of the year for Kopach, but it was the one that made the difference. Walla Walla's pitching staff closed the door, and the Sweets took the series from Yakima Valley. They've won three of the four series between the two teams in their combined history.

The Pippins were trying to hold off the Kelowna Falcons for first place in the division, but their half-game lead was eroded by the series loss. Well, that and a Kelowna surge to win four straight to end the week, starting with a win over Yakima Valley in the finale of their set at Elks Stadium and ending with a sweep of the Medford Rogeu. The Falcons have kept the long ball going with two more in the Medford set, one each from Justin Flores and Brandon Grimsley. They're tied for the league lead in home runs with seven total, and are in non-league action against the Okanagan Athletics before going to Yakima to face the Pippins for first place in the division.

Speaking of first place, that's where the reigning champs are. The Bellingham Bells had split their first two games with Klamath Falls after taking two of three from Corvallis in the midweek series. Much like the Falcons, the Bells used a power surge to put away the Gems.


Erik Oas, Bells Radio Network

The back-to-back homers came from Andrew Reichenbach and Bronson Larsen and pushed the Bells to a 9-6 win. Bellingham meets Walla Walla in a set starting tonight at Joe Martin Field.

Kitsap and Victoria both give chase to the Bells as they scrap to get back to .500. The BlueJackets took two of three from Cowlitz with an 8-1 win in a rubber match Sunday, while Victoria dropped two of three to the Bend Elks in their weekend set, then came home and dropped the opener of their set with the Black Bears Monday night.

Bend, meanwhile, is not only atop their division, but atop the lead with a 7-2 record entering today's action. Their pitching staff that led the league in ERA at the end of the first weekend has cooled off, but the Elks still got good outings from Patrick McGuff (2 runs on 3 hits with 5 strikeouts in 5 innings) and Aaron Leasher (1 run on 2  hits with 8 strikeouts in 5 innings). Oh, and their offense gave them a good outing, too: they beat Victoria by an eye-popping scoreline of 24-5 on Friday.

The Elks lead the South Division by two games, with Corvallis back in stride with a sweep of the Wenatchee AppleSox to string together four straight wins, while Medford sits two and a half games back after a rocky week, and Cowlitz brings up the rear in the South.

What will change? Who will rise and fall in the next week? The races will be much more developed when we lead off Week 3 in less than seven days.

Rinks, Diamonds, and Lost Twitter Passwords - The Sporting Life and Times of Jon Hechtner

On a breezy early May afternoon in Fargo, North Dakota, Jon Hechtner stood in against IPFW’s Evan Miller for his third at-bat. Miller was 6.2 innings into a shutout, completely unsuspecting of the two run rally in the eighth that would not only break that shutout, but cost his team the last game of their series at North Dakota State. He delivered a pitch a little too high and a little too tight - and it hit Hechtner square in the face, effectively ending his junior season.

“That was just kinda bad luck,” he said with a smile.

Spoken like a hockey player.

As natural as it seems for someone from Omaha - the epicenter of college baseball - to play the national pastime, Hechtner very much could have gone with skates instead of cleats. He was a winger for the local AAA hockey team - the highest level of youth hockey before a player makes the jump to the junior ranks. He faced off against a number of future draft picks and National Hockey League prospects, including 2013 first overall pick Nathan MacKinnon, now of the Colorado Avalanche, who played his AAA hockey at powerhouse Shattuck St. Mary's.

"I got to the point where I had to decide, do I want to play hockey or baseball?" said Hechtner, now a rising senior at North Dakota State. "I decided baseball because of school, and it's really tough in hockey. If you get hurt, you're left with nothing."

It’s not an unfamiliar path: Nyjer Morgan followed a similar one all the way to the Major Leagues, one that brought him to Walla Walla Community College after a stint with the Regina Pats at the turn of the century. Hechtner, however, was left with plenty of lessons that have carried over from one sport to the other, specifically using the word "determination" to describe what he gained from his time on the ice.

"This is not a guy who's 6'3", 210 pounds," said Sweets manager Frank Mutz. "I'm sure he's had to play his entire career to prove to everybody that he can play with anybody. I'm telling you right now, he can play with anybody at the Division I level. He is determined. He works really hard. He is a guy that will lead us through most of this year in the lead-off spot. The way he grinds out at bats and the way that he approaches the game, it's not too high, not too low."

It’s true smaller athletes like Hechtner, who stands 5’10” and 175 pounds, often find themselves needing to do more to find success when competing for playing time against bigger athletes, but that added challenge has shaped Hechtner into a player who can lead his team without big, boisterous gestures.

"He's not gonna be a guy that talks a lot or is really loud, but he goes on the field, and he makes sure the guys know the right way to do things," said hitting coach Jimmy Milkovich. "When guys see him play, they know that's what they need to do, and that's how they need to follow."

Unfortunately, the outfielder didn’t get many opportunities to set an example in Fargo this year. He dealt with arm injuries for much of the season, taking just two at-bats from March 15 to April 24. When he came back, he hit .476 with eight RBIs in seven games before getting struck by a pitch on May 3 against IPFW.

It’s very much to the benefit of the Sweets that Hechtner was able to fight through the bad luck and nagging injuries to come back at the tail end of NDSU’s season, playing in the final game of the year against IPFW at the Summit League Tournament then coming to Walla Walla less than two weeks later, ready to play and showing no sign of permanent damage from being struck by an errant baseball.

“We have a lot of young guys on this team, a lot of kids coming from high school going to Division I programs” Mutz said. “[Hechtner] is a guy that, when we go on the road, is going to have younger guys rooming with him. That’s a guy in the dugout that’s walking around talking to guys, and he’s a winner. If I'm going to go out and recruit guys to play in my program, I'm going to go watch and look for the guys that come from winning programs. The reason he's such a good leader, is he has learned how to win and do it the right way with the right attitude.”

Hechtner, one of three rising Division I seniors in the field for the Sweets, has found success at every level in some shape or form. At Creighton Prep, he was an All-Nebraska selection in 2012, leading his team to a Class A state title. That summer, he went to the American Legion World Series with an Omaha Post No. 1 team that won 51 games. As a sophomore, he was part of a Summit League championship with the Bison, along with Sweets alumni Jon Skrbec, Michael Leach, and Jay Flaa. Hechtner grabbed a spot on the Summit League’s All-Tournament team en route to the title and the NCAA Regionals.

But the hardware and accolades aren’t the only things that make Hechtner stand out. He has, at times, sported a bold mustache, which added handlebars this year but didn’t make it to the baseball season, and one locked social media account made him into something of an on-campus Twitter celebrity.

It’s quite frequent that high-level coaches, athletes, and other famous people of all sorts end up with fake Twitter accounts parodying them which are generally innocuous and used for humorous ends. Rarely did the target previously have control over the account, but such is the case with Boring Jon Hechtner, the outfielder’s parody handle on Twitter.

Hechtner explained he got locked out of his old Twitter account, but one of his friends had gotten hold of the password. Rather than delete the account, his friend insisted on keeping it and having some fun with it.

“I said, ‘Just don’t do anything to get me in trouble,’” he said. With that, Hechtner had what amounted to a fan-run Twitter account, profiling "his" adventures of walking into Wal-Mart through the out door and other assorted deeds. That account has gone quiet for some time, not tweeting anything since the end of January, but it’s still out there. If he continues to play like he has, Boring Jon Hechtner might be a little more lively.

“If he does have a fan club,” said Mutz, “I want to know what the password is so I can join.”

Sounds like the real Jon Hechtner has some new fans already.

Soundboard: Games 5 & 6 vs. Wenatchee

What a series. Shutouts were traded in a series for just the second time in Sweets history, and it ends with a walk-off from Clayten Ayres, the hero from WWCC's Super Regional final in May. Let's walk it back first, though, and go to Wednesday night, when things weren't so great after a one-hit shutout. Frank Mutz talked about changing the approaches of his hitters but also spent a lot of time praising the efforts of his pitching staff, like Chris Tate, who threw a season-high eight strikeouts in three innings out of the bullpen.



Several players have joined the Sweets over the last 72 hours, starting with Moe Handcox on Tuesday, then Paul Heywood and Matt Whitney before Wednesday's game, and Joe DeMers, Willie MacIver, Trevin Hazeltine, and returner Kyle Nixon yesterday afternoon. Mutz said the extra depth will be valuable, particularly in the outfield.



Hechtner did get the night off, although he came in as a pinch runner when Skipper cleared the bench late in Thursday's game. So let's move forward a night to another tenth inning game that went much differently. Take it away, Frank!



Wenatchee only brought seven pitchers on the road trip, and Colton Loomis, who came in for the excellent C.J. Gettman in the eighth, was the seventh. Cooper Powell was pretty outstanding on the mound for the Sweets, too, and handed in the first quality start for a Sweets pitcher this year after his start last Saturday broke down in the fourth. The Nevada lefty says he's shaking off the rust.



He also kept his team in the contest. Then Alex Fisher came in and threw two very impressive innings, and Cam Richman shut the door in the tenth after giving up a run in the ninth and pitched very well overall. The staff is getting better, and Mutz says it's not just the talent coming in, but also the pitching coach, Jim Ozella.



The pitchers are no doubt excited for him to be here, too, considering he has this guy and this guy on his coaching C.V., just to name a couple. (It's also his birthday

Clayten Ayres was the big hero of the night Thursday, and the Kennewick native said dramatic wins like that keep the juices flowing.



Ayres also said the staff has approached him about sticking around for the long haul, along with Walla Walla CC teammates Jake Simmons and Dylan Wilbert. Mutz confirmed the move.



There it is, straight from the proverbial horse's mouth.

Walla Walla travels to Yakima tomorrow for a 7:05 contest. The Pippins just dropped their first game of the season, a 6-5 defeat in Kelowna at the hands of the Falcons. Micah Gorman gets the start.