Major All-Stars start campaign in regionals

Just a little more than a week has elapsed since the Juniors of the Saipan Little League Baseball Association successfully defended the Commonwealth’s title by advancing to the World Series in Taylor, Michigan, and now it’s time for the islands’ youngest team to follow suit as the Major Leaguers would begin today their campaign in the Asia-Pacific Regional Tournament today in Fukuoka, Japan.

While the Saipan squad scored convincing victories over teams from the neighboring islands of Tinian and Rota, assistant head coach Jo Ann Aldan knows that her boys has to buckle down for the international stage.

“They made a lot of improvements because when we were in Rota we said that when we got back to Saipan, we were gonna work harder and that’s what we’re doing,” she said.

Barely a day had passed when the team returned home before they were back on Tan Ge Field in Oleai, and while team manager Patrick Tenorio trained the players with a sequence of hitting and fielding drills, head coach Elmer Sablan passed along some of the secrets that made him one of the CNMI’s top pitchers.

“Right now we’re trying to show them the proper mechanics of the inside and outside pitches as well as the curve ball. We just teach them two pitches because we don’t want to ruin these young guys’ arms. We’re trying to set them on locations so that when a big batter come in, they can neutralize the batter as much as possible,” he said.

There’s an old adage that goes “Good pitching beats good hitting any day,” and Sablan said that his boys will prosper with the benefit of proficient situational pitching, while a little more attention still had to be paid to the fundamentals.

“There are already improvements. There’s improvement in attitude, fielding and batting, but pitching we still have to wind up so right now we’re teaching them curveballs and proper wind ups. We need these guys to be ready because I was just telling them that Central East in Guam just repeated in the Regionals,” he said.

The coaching staff has already game planned for the pitching rotation, and Sablan said that the team plans on taking great care in monitoring the pitch counts of its starters so that they will have enough rest to go at any time.

“We’ve got four primary starters, middle relievers, and closers, and [during practice] each pitcher throws 40 pitches which is the average. We don’t want them to go over the third inning. We want to keep them below so that they can have one day of rest for every day of the tournament,” he said.

Jonathan Tydingco, John Maratita, Nokkie Lizama, Josh Jones are the starters for the CNMI, while Eric Tenorio and Chris Meyers look to pick up the saves as the closers. If all goes well, the staff will beat good hitting everyday for at least the next eight days.