By Brok Butcher – Arkansas Travelers P
I’m sitting out on the porch of our apartment in Little Rock, Arkansas with my three roommates, Fernando Rodriguez, Michael Collins and Mike Sigmund. We are all extremely excited about the day off so we’re celebrating by cooking some turkey burgers, corn, turkey sausage and some steak while listening to Bob Marley on my I-pod chair I purchased at Wal-Mart, one of the finer investments I’ve made.
On our days off, we usually go to thrift shops or garage sales and ravage through the rough looking for gems. So far I’ve found a painting of a conquistador, a couple candle holders I’ve mounted on the wall and a large golden key that serves absolutely no purpose.. just a few items to liven up the dull apartment in which we call home..
I share a room with Fernando Rodriquez, one of our starting pitches. Our room is small and can only hold our two queen size air beds with barely enough room to walk around.. In order to get to the bathroom, you literally have to jump from air bed to air bed on your way to the door, it was fun at first but became increasingly annoying as the days progressed.
My last outings have been a little rocky, I seem to be having trouble finding my balance point and finishing through my target. My control and sinker are directly impacted resulting in walks and hits. A few minor adjustments in the bullpen, thanks to our pitching coach Ken Patterson, led to a decent outing my last time out.
The time goes by much faster and easier when your pitching well.. but when your not, baseball can become more complicated than it actually is. It seems that the less time you sit worrying about baseball the better and more relaxed you become when on the mound. I always remind myself that this is just a game, a game that I’ve played since I was five years old and how fortunate I am to still have this opportunity.
Many of our starters are going the distance and I believe we lead all the Angels minor league teams in innings pitched. I feel sorry for our bullpen though because they haven’t had many appearances. Our bullpen is unbelievable nonetheless, we have guys that I’m sure will make it to the big leagues in a year or two.
We’ve had a lot of success in our last road trip taking four out of six from Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Corpus was an awesome place to visit, our hotel was overlooking the gulf of Mexico and one of the days we went to the beach, though nothing like California’s beaches but a beach is a beach!
It’s nice to be back in Arkansas and hopefully we will continue putting up runs and shutting teams out. When you’re on a winning team everything seems to be going your way, the attitude in the clubhouse is loose, fun, and everybody gets along! If we keep this up, first place will be a lock.
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