Slow Starters, Fast Finishers: Inside Hatfish's 4–1 Midseason

By Trent Crimm

RICHARDSON, Texas — Five games into an eight-game regular season, Hatfish Softball is 4–1. The record alone does not explain this team, so I went through the numbers.

The club's only loss came on opening night, 3–1, to the DBC Padres. Since then it has beaten the Battle Unicorns 10–8, Zion Lutheran 18–2, the DBC Angels and, on Oct. 12, the Padres again, 13–12. Through the four games posted on QuickScores, Hatfish has scored 45 runs and allowed 21. That is a +24 run differential, the best in the league. The next best is the Padres at +11. With the Padres game from the team scorebook, Hatfish's season line is 59 runs for and 33 against.

The pattern

Every game with a line score has gone the same way. The opponent scored first, and Hatfish has trailed at some point in all of them.

Opponents have scored 25 of their 31 tracked runs in the first three innings, 81 percent. From the fourth inning on, the tracked innings read Hatfish 20, opponents 6. No opponent has scored in the fifth inning all season. Hatfish has outscored its opponents in innings three through six combined.

That produced three comebacks. Hatfish was down 8–0 to the Battle Unicorns in the second inning of Game 2 and won 10–8. It trailed the Angels 8–1 in the second inning of Game 4 and won. In Game 5 it trailed the Padres 12–8 going to the bottom of the sixth, scored five and won 13–12.

Game 4's final needs a footnote. The league posted it as 16–8, and that is the official score. The team scorebook has 17–8. The midseason evaluation recommends confirming it with the league. This report uses the league's number.

The comebacks are the good news and the warning. The games run 50 minutes. A rally needs time, and the playoffs are single elimination.

The bats

Taylor Rabalais leads. He is hitting .688 with a 1.313 slugging percentage, 10 RBI in four games, and a cycle in Game 4. He missed Game 1, the one game Hatfish lost. The team is 4–0 with him and 0–1 without him. That is a sample of one, and the gap is wide enough to mention.

Ty Martinez is hitting .688, Robert Bitten .688 and Alex Fisher .588. Ryan Winter is 7-for-8 in the three games he has played. Those five hitters have 50 of the team's 93 hits and 31 of its 57 RBI. The club as a whole is hitting .560 for the season.

Offense is not the problem. Since the opener, Hatfish has scored at least 10 runs every game, with an average of 14.5 a game. Opening night is the exception, with eight hits and one run, and two of the team's three NUKEs came in that game. A NUKE is an out hit over the fence. It counts as an at-bat and not a hit, and under the house rule it is not a home run.

The middle of the order is the soft spot in the numbers. Batting slots four through six are hitting .469. Slots seven through eleven are hitting .600. Slots one through three are at .596. The hitters at the bottom of the card have been doing more than the card expected of them.

The arm

Bitten has been the primary pitcher. He is 11-for-13 at the plate since an 0-for-3 opener. The scorebook does not track pitching, fielding or errors, so I can say what the runs show and no more. Hatfish has allowed 5.25 runs a game through Week 4, the fewest in the league, and has held opponents scoreless in 13 of 24 tracked half-innings. When an inning goes bad, it goes very bad: the Angels scored seven in the second, and the Padres scored four, three and three in Game 5. Whether that comes from walks, errors or hard contact is not in the book, and I won't guess.

The standings

Hatfish and the Padres are both 4–1, but the tiebreaker is not even. If they finish level, the Padres win it on head-to-head run margin, 15 runs to 14. That means a tie for first is not enough for the top seed. The top seed bats last in every playoff game. Hatfish needs the Padres to lose once, and needs to win out itself.

The schedule is manageable. Two of the three remaining opponents are 2–3 and the other is 3–2. Boas, at 2–3, is next on Monday, Oct. 19 at 7:55 p.m. at Huffhines #2. The Battle Unicorns, the league's highest-scoring team, follow on Oct. 26. Zion Lutheran closes the regular season on Nov. 2. The top four of six teams make the playoffs. The date has not been posted.

What it means

On the numbers, Hatfish is the best team in the league. It is not first outright, because the Padres have the tiebreaker, and it keeps spotting teams runs in the early innings. A club that can win from behind can also lose from behind, and in a single-elimination game it only gets one try.

The midseason evaluation's fix is also the cheapest one: have the defense warmed up and the pitcher loose before first pitch, and keep the first three innings quiet.