No baseball team should win 34 straight games.
The Pocatello Razorbacks have done a lot of things six weeks into the 2014 American Legion season. Chief among them: winning every single game on their schedule.
With his mantra “Just win baby,” Al Davis would have approved.
The Razorbacks have won three separate tournaments. One of them was their own and they were up against stiff Boise competition in the other two.
The Razorbacks have won blowouts, shellackings where their lineup jumped all over the opposing team’s pitcher and Pocatello’s pitching staff smothered hitters.
And the Razorbacks have won tight games, contests that lasted into extra innings and a kid with guts steps into the limelight to deliver a timely hit, a crucial fielding play or a wicked set of pitches to sit a batter down.
More than anything, and this is apparent, the Razorbacks have just won.
They’ve beaten the tar out of competition they should beat the tar out of and when the Razorbacks have slammed up against some of Idaho’s toughest squads, they’ve played their best baseball.
The Razorbacks have won their first 34 games for a lot of reasons but the most obvious is that they’re stacked with talent.
Trevor Bowers is one of the premier pitchers in the state — regardless of classification. The Marsh Valley to-be-senior has a rubber arm, a steely constitution and a nasty basket of pitches.
And Bowers is just the start. Pitching wise, Bowers is the ace but Mason Foltz, who will be a junior at Highland, has been unbelievable for the Razorbacks on the bump with a team-high 10 wins. So have Saben Rodriguez (a Century guy) and Braedon Boyer (Highland).
Offensively, Kam Farnsworth is the first kid that comes to mind, but only because of the way he obliterated the ball this past weekend. In the 2014 Firecracker Invitational, Farnsworth hit seven doubles and knocked in nine RBIs while batting .526 in six games.
Like Bowers on the mound, Farnsworth is just the start of the Razorbacks’ lineup. Cory Meyer, Ethan Hunt, CC Burrup, Spencer Bray, Conner LaMont — these guys have been on point from day one of the season.
It’s a special group. They show up every day at the park ready to play. That’s a simple thing — showing up. But they get their minds prepped and ready to compete.
No one the team is perfect. They make fielding errors, leave fastballs high right over the middle of the plate and swing at bad pitches. But they’ve come together (kids from three different schools) and bonded, and though Sunday’s championship game in the Firecracker Invitational, they’re perfect together.
The Razorbacks’ head coach, Dan McCaskill, deserves some of the credit. Two years as a head coach of the Legion team and the Razorbacks are a combined 69-11. They were second in the state a year ago and they’re one of the favorites to win state in 2014.
I don’t know if you could ever get McCaskill to admit much of that. He’ll tell you the Razorbacks are good and when they’re on their game, they are the best Single-A Legion team in Idaho.
But McCaskill recognizes the perils of baseball. Like how a leadoff walk in the first inning can lead to an early run for the competition and confidence that they can beat the Razorbacks.
Any team that wins a state championship needs a bit of luck, an invisible helping hand. It doesn’t matter how good the squad is or what kind of mental fortitude it has.
That’s why McCaskill never stops pushing his players to get a little better. But how does a team that’s won every game it has played improve? For starters, don’t give up a four-run lead in the seventh inning of a championship game like they did Sunday. Finish those games off in the top of the seventh so Meyer is never put in a position to have to hit a game-winning double in the bottom of the seventh.
When Meyer did hit that double (because of course he did), the Razorbacks stormed the field and celebrated like a team that had never won anything before. But that’s a good sign. It’s a sign they didn’t wear down in Boise’s 100-degree heat and that winning never gets old.
And hopefully for the Razorbacks the celebration is proof that they’re still enjoying the daily grind of the season. From this point forward, the importance of the games only intensifies.
The Razorbacks have won 34 straight games but in reality, they haven’t won a thing. They haven’t won a district championship or a single game at the state tournament. And if any one of the 14 players on the roster starts to assume either of those results is a given, they’re doomed to failure.
But all of that is in the future. Ultimately, if the Razorbacks don’t win a state championship, their 34-game winning streak isn’t invalidated.
When it’s over — and, believe me, they don’t plan on losing any time soon — the streak is an achievement that stands all on its own.
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