It was solely a couple of month into his massive league tenure when Orioles rookie Jordan Westburg acquired a memorable piece of recommendation from 10-year veteran Aaron Hicks.
Westburg had simply rocketed a pitch down the third bottom line within the ninth inning, with the Orioles trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-3 on July 18. For a second, after his ft crossed the bag at first, he contemplated sprinting for second. But he thought higher of it, and stayed put.
With the Orioles up to now behind, the play would show nearly meaningless. The O’s misplaced by that very same rating only a few batters later. But the play meant one thing to Hicks.
“After the sport, Aaron Hicks got here as much as me and he was like, ‘Hey, man, our style of baseball is aggressive here. I think you should have gone for it,’ Westburg mentioned.
For an Orioles crew full of younger massive leaguers, these tidbits of steerage will maybe change into much more necessary — significantly once they come from the few present Orioles with postseason expertise, like Hicks.
With the crew set for its first postseason look since 2016 on Saturday in opposition to the Texas Rangers at Camden Yards, solely six Orioles have any playoff expertise. Hicks, who was launched by the New York Yankees and picked up by the Orioles in May, has essentially the most playoff appearances, with 30 video games underneath his belt and a mixed .216 batting common and .325 on-base proportion.
Backup catcher James McCann and second baseman Adam Frazier, each of whom had been signed this previous offseason, are the one different Orioles place gamers to have seen playoff motion, with a mixed eight video games.
“I’m very grateful for guys like him and McCann and Frazier to show us the ropes as position players who have been there, done that,” mentioned Westburg, who made his main league debut June 26.
In sports activities psychology, there are two faculties of thought with regards to the easiest way to prepare for a giant sport, mentioned Dr. Mark Aoyagi, a psychology advisor to MLB and NFL groups.
The first faculty? Treat a playoff sport like another. Avoid stressing your self out by pondering of how necessary it’s.
“The bases are still 90 feet, the mound is still 60 feet, 6 inches,” Aoyagi mentioned. “It’s all the same, and so you just approach it the same.”
But Aoyagi finds himself extra persuaded by the second faculty.
”The different method says: Basically, there’s no method to put together for the large sport. And so fairly than making an attempt to have all the things be the identical, you simply practice for any eventuality,” Aoyagi mentioned. “You may really feel effective, however you would additionally really feel chaotic. Or you would really feel drained or you would be sick.
“The idea is to train in such a way that regardless of how you end up feeling, thinking, how your body is on that particular day, you’re still going to be able to perform to the best of your capabilities,” mentioned Aoyagi, who can be a professor and co-director of sport and efficiency psychology on the University of Denver.
Stephany Coakley, a licensed psychological efficiency advisor who has labored with skilled and Olympic-level athletes, recommends athletes put together a form of ritual to floor themselves within the current, fairly than worrying concerning the end result of a sport.
“It’s imperative that they use whatever techniques that they have to come back to the present moment, whether it’s like tapping into their breath, taking a deep breath or doing their reset: taking their hat off or flipping their glove,” mentioned Coakley, who additionally serves as senior affiliate athletic director for psychological well being efficiency and wellness at Temple University.
There can be one other noteworthy treatment to emphasize in sports activities, mentioned Dr. Brad Hatfield, a professor of kinesiology on the University of Maryland, who has centered his analysis on sports activities psychology.
Laughter.
Hatfield mentioned he remembers talking with a gaggle of highschool baseball coaches, and one in all their commonest questions was what to say to a younger pitcher struggling on the mound.
“And I told them to keep it very simple — and even to tell a joke,” Hatfield mentioned.
Across the Orioles clubhouse, everybody has their very own technique for staying cool. For outfielder Anthony Santander, it’s taking a second to hope earlier than video games. For reliever Jacob Webb, one other current addition to the roster with a number of video games of playoff expertise, it’s specializing in his respiratory throughout anxious conditions.
For 25-year-old rookie reliever DL Hall, it comes within the type of a mantra, of types.
”It’s all about — I all the time say — not operating away from the storm. Everything is a storm — all the additional, exterior noise,” Hall mentioned. “Instead of trying to run from it, you just kind of embrace the storm. It’s going to come either way.”
With a median age of 27.9 years, in keeping with ESPN, the Orioles’ present roster sits near the center of the MLB pack.
But just one crew remaining within the playoffs is youthful: the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Rangers are the second oldest, with a median age of 30. The Dodgers are first with a median age of 30.5.
Several of the Orioles’ finest gamers are of their early 20s and set to make their postseason debuts.
That consists of 22-year-old infielder Gunnar Henderson, a number one candidate for the American League Rookie of the Year, who can be the one participant on the roster born within the 2000s.
It additionally consists of 23-year-old pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, who cruised to a 1.80 ERA in his ultimate six begins of the season, following a short demotion to the minor leagues after starting the 12 months with an ERA above 7.00.
Some younger Orioles, like Henderson and Rodriguez, bypassed faculty ball to signal with the crew, however others gained postseason expertise there, together with 25-year-old star catcher Adley Rutschman.
In the 2018 College World Series — as a sophomore — Rutschman helped lead the Oregon State Beavers to the championship, setting a report for essentially the most hits within the sequence with 17.
To win the championship that 12 months, the Beavers defeated the University of Arkansas, the place Orioles rookie Heston Kjerstad, now 24, performed outfield. Kjerstad was named to the All-Tournament Team as a freshman.
But postseason video games within the majors are totally different.
And veteran Kyle Gibson, one in all three Orioles pitchers with a postseason resume, mentioned the conversations about the right way to put together for key moments have begun already.
Before the Orioles performed the Tampa Bay Rays, their closest division rival, at Camden Yards in mid-September, Gibson reminded his teammates to not overemphasize the second.
”We sat down, and I mentioned: ‘Listen, everybody is going to come in here and make this to be the biggest series of the year,’ Gibson mentioned. “The biggest series for us is going to be the first game in the playoffs that we play.”
Yet, when these video games lastly arrive, the message would possibly change.
”As these younger guys get nearer to it, and get within the second, I do know the opposite veteran gamers are simply going to be telling them: ‘Hey, sure there [are] extra penalties for losses, however on the similar time, the sport continues to be the identical. And should you make extra of it, it actually form of provides you simply the prospect to place an excessive amount of strain on your self.”
On the benefits of age in baseball, at the least one mathematician has run the numbers.
In 2017, Kennesaw State University professor Joe DeMaio printed a paper that tracked the typical age of World Series-winning groups, in contrast with the main league common. The outcomes don’t precisely bode nicely for the Orioles.
DeMaio studied the latest 39 World Series-winning groups, separating them into two classes: batters and pitchers.
Twenty-eight of the 39 groups had a median batters’ age that was older than the remainder of the majors. When it got here to pitching, 30 of the groups had been older than the league common.
And not solely had been World Series-winning groups older than the typical — they had been typically considerably older, rating within the prime 25% of the league.
But DeMaio has a message for hopeful Orioles followers in Baltimore:
“For the Orioles fans out there: Don’t hate me. Don’t send me hate mail,” he joked. “That’s why we play the games.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com