Message delivered, Saints baseball gets hyped

Mt. Hood’s baseball team has won each of its last four games, including an 11-inning affair against the Concordia University JV squad. Head coach Bryan Donohue’s club is playing with a level of excitement that has really come on in the last couple of weeks.

“That series felt different, our guys were really jazzed up”, said Donohue.

The Saints start regional play in the NWAC today, and the way the league is set up, the schedule makes it difficult to sweep a series, which is exactly what the Saints will try to do in four games against the Linn-Benton Roadrunners over the weekend.

“There’s more of a buildup, and every team we play now is standing in our way,” said Donohue.

Early on in the season, the Saints had a propensity to shoot themselves in the foot by not getting the big hit they needed, or executing the proper pitch according to the hitter’s count, their coach said. Lately, they’ve tightened the screws a bit.

Donohue said, “The little things that drive coaches nuts have decreased.” Success comes when a team learns to control the controllables, like getting down a bunt or limiting errors in the field, he noted.

“Our Achilles heel has been eliminating the ‘big inning,’ Donohue said. “We’ve been allowing too many crooked numbers.” For instance, the Saints’ team BAA (batting average against, which tracks the number of batted balls in play that go for hits) is a little high, but these things have a tendency to level out over the course of the season.

The schedule now becomes more routine within league play, although there is little-to-no turnaround between weekend games. Friday road games mean the team won’t be back home until after 9 p.m. most nights, and have to be ready at its home park at 9 a.m. for the next doubleheader. “We just have to try and stay sharp, keep fresh,” said Donohue.

The work this ball club has put in is providing dividends, the coach said. In the two victories over Lower Columbia, the Saints “outhit the Red Devils like crazy,” he said. He also has been adamant about the message he’s delivered to his team, telling it “ ‘This is what we need to do if we want to play in a championship game,’ ” he said.

The message has been received. “In big situations, say with two outs, a runner on second and full count at the plate, the dugout just gets pumped for that big out,” Donohue said. The Saints are hyped, with the coach adding, “When we come to play, we mean it.”