‘Figures lie and liars figure’ is an old sports canard. Unfortunately, in the case of the Perry baseball team, the numbers do indeed tell the story: even as a sometimes porous defense improved in the second half of the season, a faltering offense crippled any chance to finish near the 23-7 mark of 2014.
Perry fell to 15-16 this summer in a season that started 7-3 over the first third of the campaign. As the competition toughened and Raccoon River Conference foes began to fill the schedule, the Bluejays fell to 5-5 in the middle stretch of the year before winning just three of their final eight games.
The Jays fell from 10-4 in RRC play to 6-8 this year and clearly missed longtime starter Jeremiah Ellett (27 hits, 24 runs, .461 on base) and pitcher Tyler Thompson, who was 6-2 on the mound. Ellett was 4-1 with three saves, with Cavan Finn 5-4 but tossing 40 important innings that allowed the other members of the staff to take a rest.
“People saw that we had quite a few starting players back and thought we should be just as good, but we were not the same team,” veteran coach Mike Long said. “We missed Jerry (Ellett), both for what he brought on defense and how he set things up on offense.
“I would have given anything to have Tyler back for this year,” he added. “Cavan, too, because we could always give him the ball and give the other arms a break.”
Perry scored 24 fewer runs on 49 fewer hits this year, and although walks earned and strikeouts made were nearly identical to 2014, the team hit just .246, a drop from .306, with the critical OBP falling from .398 to .342.
“We just didn’t hit the ball and that is all there is to it,” Long said. “We had some kids who probably underachieved, but people have to understand how different our season is from, say, professional baseball. In the majors, if you go into a 10-game slump or so, there is still a ton of games to make that up. With our schedule, if you hit a rough patch it is much harder to recover and could end up being for most of the season.
“I don’t think people understand how much emotion plays a role in baseball,” he continued. “A kid might be struggling a little, and he knows he is. Then he tries changing things, and that usually makes it worse, because there just isn’t enough time playing for two months instead of five or more.”
A lack of consistent depth in the pitching staff hurt as well. Although Perry pitchers struck out 159 batters, they issued 142 walks and allowed 192 hits in 196-1/3 total innings.
“We got to the point where we struggled to throw first-pitch strikes and that gets you into trouble right away,” Long said. “We couldn’t waste pitches in situations, either, because we might end up walking a guy, so the batters just sat on fastballs.”
A defense that committed a bevy of errors — Perry made 32 miscues in 37 innings at one point — hurt as well, although the defense improved noticeably down the stretch.
“It is real easy to point to things and say ‘well, this went wrong’ or ‘this was not good’ but that would overlook some of the good things we did,” Long said. “Several guys had good seasons, and we are really going to miss our seniors, not only for what they did as players but for the kind of young men they were.”
Departing for Perry is multi-time all-stater Will Whiton, who led the team in hits (30), runs (32), doubles (7), RBIs (24) and steals (32-of-34). He hit .371 and was 6-2 on the mound with a 1.43 ERA.
Also departing is longtime starting catcher Zach Roberts (.268, 22 hits, 22 RBIs, one home run) and second baseman Nic Wilhelmi.
“These guys were five-year players for us and started from early on,” Long said. “That kind of experience is hard to replace.”
Sophomore Kyle Nevitt hit .322 with 29 hits and five doubles while finishing 3-4 on the hill, with sophomore Janier Puente batting .294 with six doubles and 18 RBIs. He tied Whiton for the team lead with three home runs.
“We still won 15 games, won our first-round game and had some nice wins along the way,” said Long, who is now 693-370 (.652) after 38 years, all at Perry. “Yes, it was disappointing compared to last year, but that was one of our better years, so the comparison is not that fair.
“In the end, yes, we wanted to do better, but we had a few guys who slumped at the same time, and that is going to happen sometimes,” he said. “I have been doing this a long time and sometimes you have years were you catch every break and balls drop in and plays get made and sometimes you hit it right at people and things never quite seem to go your way and that is how this year was — but that doesn’t mean next year has to be like that.”
