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Braves Adjust to Cape League Baseball
Jul 6, 2010
Author: Katie Montgomery
Each summer hundreds of the best college baseball players flock to Cape Cod in hopes of showcasing their talent, but each summer the players find themselves coming up short on an important part of the game, hitting.
In 1985, the Cape Cod Baseball League became the first collegiate summer league to return to the use of wood bats and has since stuck with the tradition.
"Obviously the wood makes a big difference," Mike Nemeth (UConn) said. "Every time you're out there, you're facing a guy from a big school and pitching is still top notch."
Because the pitching speed and types of pitches haven't changed, batters need to relearn and adjust their swings to get on base.
Braves field manager Harvey Shapiro believes that until players realize they need to make adjustments in their swing - because they're failing to hit the ball - they won't be able to progress in the batters box, he said.
Outfielder Scott Woodward (Coastal Carolina) played for the Braves last summer and remembers the hardships of adjusting to wooden bats.
"It's frustrating," Woodward said. "You have some ups and downs but you have to keep grinding the bat away, working the counts and start hitting the ball the other way more - stuff that if you haven't done with a metal bat you have to work out with a wooden bat."
The Braves opened its season with three straight one-run loses before defeating Falmouth 5-0.
Shapiro attributes the loses to hitting.
"We couldn't hit," Shapiro said. "These guys are so called All Stars when they get here but if I come in the first day saying 'you can't do this, you can't do that,' they're going to say 'then why did he bring me here?'"
Two weeks into the season and the Braves have finally seemed to grasp Shapiro's tactics.
Since June 22, the Braves have won 6 of their last seven games. Recently the team picked up two wins in Orleans during Sunday's doubleheader.
Although most of the team is still batting under .250, strong pitching efforts and continuing improvement in the batters box will propel the Braves throughout the season.
As of now, Bourne leads the division 8-6 and will play No. 2 Falmouth June 30.
"I'm not worried about standings," Shapiro said. "It's still early in the season but I think [the Braves are] playing good baseball, I'll take six wins out of seven games any day."
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