Coaches proud of their Young Guns

The Young Guns are playing well above all expectations thus far into the Saipan Major League Fall season, and the strong leadership the Junior, Senior, and Big League all-stars are receiving from their coaches has had plenty to do with their success.

Coach Ike Taitano has been manning the first base coach position and said that he thinks the boys have benefited from picking up the signs from the dugout and from their manager Jess Wabol.

“When they execute what calls the manager sends in, but if not, it’s hard for them to get on base,” he said

After the team’s second five-run rally in as many games, Taitano tried to explain why Manhoben finds sporadic strength at the ballpark.

“I think the boys believe in the fifth and eighth innings. They always do that. Since our first game they come back in the fifth and eighth innings,” he said.

Taitano said that he feels good about the team’s success, and Wabol said that he had confidence in them from the start.

“Great. We expected them to produce and that’s why we brought them into the Amateur League despite their age. We believe in them,” he said.

Wabol said that his team cannot quit during the game because anything can happen before the fat lady sings.

“It’s a nine inning game, right, so you need to instill that within them. That it’s the game of baseball. We’ve been down and they’ve come back twice and that’s a tribute to them believing in themselves. We have the confidence in them and they won in spite of almost everybody playing. Only one guy didn’t get to play,” he said.

While it’s early in the season, Wabol said that he is still learning about each of the player’s abilities and that he is building expectations of the kids and helping them to start believing in themselves.

The manager said that his team still needs to improve if they want to run with the big dogs and that he planned to bring them back to the field last Saturday to work on the basics.

“They’re good but it’s a matter of execution. We have some problems but I just called practice for Saturday because there’s a lot of things that we need to work on.

In order for us to advance we need to correct these things. You expect mistakes but you have to minimize those things,” he said.

One of the items that Wabol mentioned was getting his players to master the signals coming in from the coaching staff while they’re at the plate or running bases but that he intends on giving his young players opportunities to develop by keeping them in the lineup.

“When you give those kids opportunities and you let them know that I believe in them then sooner or later they will start to enjoy those situations,” he said.