must settle my head first

when it comes to softball, at least on my sunday am team, the pitcher apparently influences everyone a lot and if i don't focus and settle my head before i start, i can get distracted, frustrated, and all hell can break loose... so it went during the first inning of the first game... from another perspective, the team has this frustrating habit of not showing up ready to play and so a lot of errors give up a lot of runs in the first inning of a lot of games, especially if i am not totally focused and dominating on the mound... so the first few ground balls that should have set the tone for a 1-2-3 inning went passed infielders who were sluggish and the inning degraded from there... by the time we got up to the plate, we were down 11-0... we answered with 7 runs and shut them down until the sixth when they got one run on an error to go ahead 12-11... we didn't answer in the bottom of the inning and lost as time ran out... frustrating, to say the least...

the second game, i was on... but the arm was really hurting and i was frustrated because i was throwing a whole lot more pitches than i needed to because of the errors... still, i pitched 6 scoreless innings and we had three changes to get a tenth run to run-rule the game (leading by 10 runs after 4 innings is an automatic end of game) but the bats went flat again... so i pitched some more... in the seventh i walked a few and we gave up 3 runs, but we won 9-3...

we should be 5-0 on the season, but we are 3-2 because we lost two haves by 1 run in the last inning, in fact, the first loss was in extra innings... alas, the team does not have a killer instinct, but they are getting a whole lot better when they are awake and focused... and i must remember to expect a blow-out first inning so it does not frustrate me so much that i add to the lack of focus and help the blow out grow bigger...

yup. must settle my head first...