First of all, I wanted to let everyone know that I’m still doing the blog. I know I haven’t posted in awhile, but I’ve actually been busy pretending to be a Major League Baseball player this past week.
This last week I threw a simulated game in Minnesota. Even though it was just a simulated game before batting practice, I was actually nervous about it and had butterflies. After all, I haven’t faced a batter in six or seven weeks.
For those of you that don’t know, a simulated game is basically just a chance to face some live batters. You get some of your teammates in there that want to get some extra at bats and you go at them like a regular game. You have a catcher calling pitches, pitching coach working as the umpire and front office officials checking things out. By the way, pitching coach Guy Hansen calls a better game that some umpires we’ve seen recently and has been WAY more consistent.
But it went very well and I’ll be pitching in Wichita on Monday, July 4 in a rehab game. Hopefully, I’ll be back shortly after the All-Star Break.
As a team, the last couple of weeks have been somewhat of a struggle, but there is still a different feel around the club. Even though we are losing games, it’s not the same way we were losing games before. I know guys are still excited and up on the bench, shouting encouragement to their teammates and showing a lot of life. We’ve just run into some top of the line pitching that has been at the top of their game. But I think it’s just a bump in the road and hopefully we’ll get back on a winning path.