Streaks

They may involve winning, losing, hitting, fielding, or pitching, and occur on both an individual and team level. Often, they are unexplained and no one can pinpoint their exact causes. Streaks have their place in the games just as all of the mechanics do, as players and teams seek to minimize the bad streaks (slumps), and make the good streaks last as long as possible.

Every athlete has encountered streaks and slumps, hopefully more of the former than the latter. Sometimes, things are just going your way; the ball looks bigger and is moving more slowly when you are hitting and the fielders look like little specs across the diamond. Other times, however, the ball looks like a pea and the entire field looks like a big glove.

As individualistic of a game that baseball is, the compilation of these efforts comprises the team’s results. Similarly, these good and bad streaks seem to guide a team during stretches of a season. Currently, we have been struggling as a team and at times, it seems that almost nothing can go right, all of the breaks go to the opposing teams, and we cannot get enough big hits or plays to secure a win.

Our struggles continued in this last series against Clinton (Texas Rangers affiliate) as we were swept, losing two one-run games in the process. We battled through the entire series but just did not have any wins to show for it. However, our bats have come around from a dry spell at Kane County and things are looking up.

What can be done to overcome this bad streak? The biggest thing is to stay positive and keep grinding through the days. It is a long season, destined to be filled with ups and downs. The law of averages is in our favor and we know that we will soon be winning more games than we are losing, just as we were at the beginning of the year.

KJ left us to think about something Saturday night after the game by telling us that ‘you are never as bad as you think you are, and you are never as good as you think you are.’ When you take time to think about it, this relates back to the “even keel” thinking that I discussed in my May 6 post. Minimizing the extremes and removing emotions from the game where possible is critical to keeping a clear head through the streaks.