Wednesday was a typical spring day for Eugene. There were a few showers. There was some sun, a lot of wind, and a coolness in the air that made you wish it was 20 degrees warmer.
Over at PK Park, the baseball team went through its pre-practice routine, with a few pitchers showing up an hour and a half early to throw bullpen sessions. A group of hitters stood around the batting cage at home plate, taking their hacks with assistant coach Mike Kirby manning the ball machine.
As players continued to saunter in from classes, more and more filtered onto the sidelines. Freshman Jack Marder and junior college transfer Marcus Piazzisi — two of the most fun-loving guys on the team — marched out to second base and took ground balls as their teammates from the dugout yelled catcalls, trying to get them to muff the next grounder.
If I hadn’t been at the Portland game the night before, I wouldn’t have been able to tell they had lost 3-1 and, besides a meaningless home run with one out in the ninth inning, were shut out. It wasn’t like they had blown the game off, but they weren’t letting it affect their preparation and confidence. They lost, took their lessons from it, and now started to focus on the Beavers.
“We’ve got a little bit of some swag, you know?” KC Serna said. “Sure, we might let one slip, but it’s really no thing because we’ll get right back on it. But at the same time, we are still pretty pissed about it. We shouldn’t let those types of games slide. No offense to Portland, they’re a good team, but still.”
Tuesday’s loss felt a lot like the 42 losses the team had last year, so I was pretty interested to see how the team would respond at practice. Sometimes the most telling sign of a good team is how they can balance the frustration of losing without letting it consume them.
“I was talking to coach Kirby after the game and it did feel like last year because we’d be on defense for like 10 minutes, then be on offense for like two minutes, then we’d be like, ‘Let’s go back out there and stand out there for a long time,’” Serna said.
Head coach George Horton said he felt like his team took the loss hard because it was a step back, but he knows the rebound will come because unlike last year, they won’t sulk.
“I think they were sincerely beaten down and disappointed and confused from last night,” Horton said. “Not only because we lost the game, but it got away from us, and we kind of reverted back to our non-cultured days where we kind of played as individuals, didn’t make adjustments, and we didn’t play smart baseball.
“Last year’s team had too short a memory, in my opinion. Right after the game they would be disappointed, then the next day it seemed like they were on a 10-15 game winning streak. Their attention to detail and their response to negative things wasn’t as great as this group’s has been.”
Maybe it was the smiling and joking of Marder and Piazzisi out at second base, throwing behind the back to first base or trying to do flashy moves. Piazzisi, who is a lefty and also a left fielder, looked out of his element a bit, but he was out there with a smile, just having fun playing the game.
Then Marder, right before I talked to him, rushed Horton and playfully attempted to
tackle him. Both were smiling as they let go, the brim of Horton’s hat having been flipped up. It made me smile because I remember back to last year when Horton seemed at his wit’s end, and players wore the losing on their sleeves to the extent that it actually made them press and play worse.
“It’s baseball,” Marder said simply, as if that’s the only explanation anyone needed for the team’s resiliency. “It’s one of the toughest sports to play, if not the toughest, and it’s hard to play baseball if you’re not having fun. It’s hard to move on if you’re thinking about the last pitch. And that’s what our season’s been. We’ve had a lot of rough spots and times when we need to respond, and this is one of those times where we need to respond. You can’t play baseball tentative; you can’t play baseball if you’re not having fun.”
Marder continues to surprise me with his poise and maturity, and yesterday wasn’t any different. As a freshman, he represents the future for Oregon and the changing culture as Horton’s team continues to buy into winning.
Sure, the Ducks lost on Tuesday, but they have swag, as Serna says. They’ll be fine.
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