In only a few hours the Boise Hawks and the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes will kick off the official start of the season for each team. Both teams are looking to the start the season off with a tally in the win column. With teams newly assembled it is hard to say if one team is a favorite over the other, but this opening series will show which of these teams is gelling as a team the quickest and even to a small extent which team may have the deeper talent level.
Regardless of who wins the first game, or even the first series, there is still a lot of baseball that will need to be played to determine if these teams will have a chance for the playoffs.
The Volcanoes will come into tonight’s game with one game already under their belt as they beat the college All-stars last night thanks to a walk off 2 run home run by Chuckie Jones.
For many of the Hawks players they will get their first experience of a true road trip as they take the long bus ride over from Boise and start the season on the road. Success in baseball includes learning how to adapt and overcome the long bus rides.
Tonight’s pitching matchup pairs up a two young Dominican pitchers. Lorenzo Mendoza returns for his second season with the Volcanoes. Mendoza went 5-5 with a 4.19 era last season. Mendoza had a great strikeout to walk ration (68-16), and will need to keep that up this season to be successful.
Jose Arias will take the mound for the Hawks. Arias started 10 games in the Dominican Summer League in 2011 posting a record of 1-1
with a 2.28 era. Like Mendoza, Arias had a great strikeout to walk ratio (50-8) which will force hitters to be aggressive at the plate.
Keys to the game
*Neither starting pitcher gives up a lot of walks so defense is going to be a key in this game. One error probably won’t hurt a team but three or more will probably equal a loss.
* Wood bat transition. For a few players they will be making the switch from metal to wood tonight and that is a lot harder than most people realize. Batters will need to make solid contact on the sweet spot to get some hits on the board.
*Have fun and relax. It’s easy to get a little nervous for the first game of the season but athletes always perform better when they are relaxed and the best way to do that is to simply have fun.