Coach Stewart believes in his boys’ bats5 min read

Jordan Reece/Larson Newspapers
Third baseman Adan Trahin tags out Josh Schlegel, of Cottonwood, as he slides into the base. Schlegel and head coach Jeff Lynch’s Diamondbacks, of Cottonwood, will host their rematch with Sedona on Friday, May 13.

Mark Stewart believes his Diamondbacks can beat anyone.


Although they lost, 15-1, to Cottonwood head coach Jeff Lynch’s team, the top little league team this spring in the entire Verde Valley, May 4, the Sedona skipper’s new emphasis on offense has him confident heading into the road rematch Friday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m.

“I know they beat us; they just didn’t wipe us out,” Stewart said after his team rebounded from the loss with a 19-3 home win May 6 over another Diamondbacks team from Cottonwood. “If we come out swinging like we did Friday, we have a shot.”

Although Stewart went with no bench May 6 for the first time in his seven years as a little league head coach, all of Sedona’s nine remaining players pummeled Cottonwood head coach Nick Garcia’s team from the first pitch.

Third baseman Adan Trahin knocked that pitch back over the Posse Grounds Park fence for his first home run of the season.

“So that was kind of fun,” Stewart said. “All the [games] we’ve won have been high scores with slower pitchers.

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“Their first pitcher was pretty weak, but the second pitcher was pretty good: He had a little more control.”

But the hits just kept on coming until the 10-run mercy rule kicked in after the fourth inning.

Local seventh-grader Dakota Farrar added a home run of his own, and even diminutive Connor Strubbe, 11, got in on the parade with a single, double and a triple in his first three-hit game of the season.

“It didn’t intimidate him,” Stewart said. “It was like he turned on a switch.

“Everyone else hit doubles and triples all night long. It was pretty exciting.”

Stewart has been resting the Diamondbacks since the win.

In fact, they haven’t even practiced, but Stewart’s second Majors team shouldn’t be affected after all the preseason work it put in at the plate, he said.

“Our team practiced batting most of the preseason, and the hard work they put in learning their technique is showing up almost every game,” Stewart said. “They’ve been going so hard.

“I’ve worked more on defense because usually, with the [team] you’re dealt, you’re coaching basics — catching and throwing the ball. Batting just kind of comes down to how aggressive, how brave the player is.

“But with this team, if they’re better on offense, they’re going to win. It’s the first for me as a coach I’ve worked almost entirely on offense. Seeing their faces come alive — ‘Wow, I hit the ball’ — that’ll be my coaching style from now on.”

Not that the Diamondbacks, even top pitcher Shota Yabuuchi, don’t have growing up to do.

“He doesn’t have a rocket arm, but I tell all the boys that speed’ll come,” Stewart said of his ace, who has started all but three of the Diamondbacks’ games and appeared as a pitcher in all of them. “He’s really accurate, and Shota’s got a pretty wicked knuckleball.”

Carlos Lattanzi and his sidearm delivery came in from second base to close out the final two innings May 6.

“He’s really controlled that from coach-pitch, when I first had him, and he’s a little faster than Shota,” Stewart said. “I usually use Carlos as a closer, as it takes an inning or two for kids to figure out how to hit him.”

Trahin and seventh-grader Jeremiah Parker are Stewart’s fastest pitchers but used less often because they lack Yabuuchi’s accuracy.

Parker and Lattanzi had to relieve Trahin after he walked the first five batters in a 16-15 win at new Cottonwood Majors head coach Preston Buckner’s team April 15.

Unlike Lynch, who has coached the same core of eight players for the past three seasons, Stewart, Buckner and most of the rest of the Verde Valley Majors coaches coach with their sons but are in the first spring together with the rest of their teammates.

Also typical of most Camp Verde and Cottonwood teams is the addition of more experienced players as local middle school seasons have ended.

“I actually have a couple of them: They’re league-aged 12 [years old], but they’re actually 13,” Stewart said after a 13-11 loss April 11 at Camp Verde reversed a 12-2 home win in their opener. “They brought in a middle school pitcher and just cleaned up.”

As did Preston Buckner, who handed Sedona its other loss April 27, 11-1.

“One pitcher had a great curve, but both had great fastballs,” Stewart said. “Our better hitters, for some reason, didn’t hit that night.

“Our kids just froze up. It makes some of them nervous when pitchers are a little bit faster.”

If they can overcome that fear, Stewart believes, anything is possible as the Diamondbacks head into the final three games of the regular season — even against Lynch’s team.

“Their hitting seemed placed: There were several runs in the game they didn’t earn,” he said. “We have people who can hit it over the fence. If they make mistakes fielding, shake it off and we’ll build on the next play.

“If they’ll swing the bat like I’ve told them all year, I don’t care if they strike out — they’ll be in the game. If I can trigger that way of not hitting intimidated, I think we’ll give them a game pretty easily.”

For more photos, please see the Friday, May 13, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.

George Werner

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