Streamwood returning to full strength
The undefeated Streamwood baseball team should soon get stronger.
The Sabres — 12-0 overall, 6-0 in the Upstate Eight Conference — have been handling matters adeptly without their returning starting catcher, Tim Cohen, who underwent preseason surgery to repair a fracture in his foot. Last year Cohen hit .291 with 9 doubles.
Senior Nick Pryor has filled in well behind the plate in Cohen’s absence. Pryor threw out three would-be basestealers in an extra-inning victory over South Elgin last week.
The screw has been removed from Cohen’s foot and he could return to the lineup within two weeks, Streamwood coach Steve Diversey said Tuesday. His return would allow Pryor (.343, 4 RBI, 5 steals) to return to his customary position in center field. That will displace senior Zach Bucher has been making the most of the starts he’s been getting in center while hitting in the No. 9 spot. Bucher is hitting .409 (9-for-22) with a double, a triple, 8 RBI and 4 steals.
“He’s a guy who was not projected to play and he’s produced some big hits for us,” Diversey said of Bucher. “Now, when we go back to our normal lineup I’ve got a quality guy off the bench who can hit, run and field. It only makes us better.”
The Sabres, like most teams in the area, have been idle since last Thursday due to persistent rains. Though the rainouts are creating a hefty backlog of makeup games, the recent dark clouds have had their silver lining from a baseball perspective.
“There’s always the possibility that you could lose some rhythm with your hitters or your pitchers, but the bonus of it is that everybody’s resting,” Diversey said of th layoff. “Instead of the grind of always playing, the pitchers should be fresh again.
“And we’ll need to be fresh because with all these rainouts in our conference, we might need to play every single day the rest of the season. Right now, we’re six games behind. That’s a lot of baseball.”
Because teams could be forced to pitch five starters per week without any additional days off, staffs will be taxed to the limit. Such a compacted schedule would seem to favor a team like Streamwood, which boasts four proven starting pitchers in lefty Josh Harris (3-0, 0.61 ERA), Blake Hunter (2-0, 2.71, save), junior lefty Dalton Lundeen (4-0, 1.77) and Richie Gorski (2-0, 0.91, save).
Get a grip: It felt like the sky was falling on Hampshire baseball coach Steve Ream last week.
In the fourth inning of a game at Genoa-Kingston, the 13-year veteran was preparing to exit the dugout to take his spot in the third-base coaching box when he was struck on top of his head.
“I stopped to talk to somebody for a second and all the sudden I got hit on the head,” Ream said. “It didn’t knock me down, but, man, I tell you that hurt.
“I knew it wasn’t a ball, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe something had fallen off the dugout.”
The object in question was a bat, which slipped out of the hands of a Hampshire player while he was taking practice cuts in the on-deck area. The impact opened a cut that required seven staples to close.
Ream says he’s doing fine, but the incident has left him a bit leery around the diamond since.
“Now every time a ball is coming in from warmups or whatever I’m much more skiddish because I’m much more aware now,” he said. “Everybody gets hit by a baseball at some point or another, but that’s the first time I ever got hit by a bat. Maybe somebody should give us some pine tar.”
Put up the bats signal: Elgin (2-6-1) is looking to awaken its slumbering offense following a slow start, according to Maroons coach David Foerster. The Maroons have been held to 2 runs or less in 5 of their 9 games and have yet to hit a home run in 240 official at-bats.
“We show spurts inning to inning, but as far as a complete game it’s just not there for us yet,” he said of the offense.
The Maroons are led at the plate by senior middle infielders Javier Cardenas (.444) and Lee Jackson (.407) and senior Jake Meyer (.370). Otherwise, only one Elgin hitter is has an average above .250.
“Javier and Lee have been solid all year and Jake’s doing pretty well, but I’m looking for more consistency out of other people,” Foerster said. “We have a few players that will hit for a game or two, then you don’t hear from them for a couple of games. We have to be more consistent.”
Re-(t)rout-ed: Elgin’s home game on Tuesday, April 26 against Upstate Eight River-leading Streamwood will now be played under the lights at Elgin’s Trout Park. First pitch, 7:30 p.m.
Tanner Scott, hitting machine: Burlington Central coach Kyle Nelson said he and his assistant coaches were sitting around after a recent game lamenting what seemed to them like a slow start by junior slugger Tanner Scott.
Then the coaches examined the numbers and got a dose of reality.
“We thought he was struggling, but he was hitting .514 with 5 home runs,” Nelson said. “I don’t know what we want from him.”
Nelson said it seemed as though Scott had been getting under a few pitches, understandably. The junior catcher played last fall for the Cincinnati Reds scout team. The average pitch speed in that elite league is 85-93 mph, whereas good high school pitchers throw 80-85 mph.
“His timing was just a bit off because he was having a hard time adjusting back down,” Nelson explained. “He was out in front of guys. Something tells me he’ll be just fine.”