Visiting GSU: Day 3

Day 3: Practice

For the coaches the day started in the office. With a long away trip  looming,  the talk is about meal money fort he players, restaurant bookings as well as scouting reports and getting the right pitching matchups against the teams coming up.

I left the coaches office to head down to the weight room, where the players were scheduled to work out for about 45 minutes. The in-season lifting session consists of a whole body workout, that involves some heavier weight for lower body (squats), some band exercises, core/stabilty exercises as well as dumbbell and light shoulder sets. Pitchers and position players go through the same routine.

Players get worked pretty good as the session kicks off with a series of footwork exercises that  have a slight cardio effect also. Right after practice the team heads over to the baseball complex, where Nick Hogan has provided a quality meal through one of the the University´s food partners because during spring break the meal service is limited.

When a practice is scheduled for 1 pm, players
will start doing extra work at 12:30 pm. It s not mandatory, yet everybody does it. Pitchers will have PFP’s while position players will hit or bunt extra. The coaches are out there hitting fungoes to the pitchers or work somebody at his second position to keep him fresh there.

As a group the team warms up and stretches before all position players have to do a few sprints to keep their legs fresh and work on improving their stride lengths.

As coach Frady likes to work on all aspects of the game in every practice, the position players next go through some baserunning drills. Afterwards they split up according to their defensive positions and get some drills, working only on a specific aspect of the game.

After a while the pitchers join in and practice a bunt defense play. That´s it for defense for the day as the team sets up for BP. Of course all outfielders need to play the balls „live off the bat“ rather than just shagging. That’s the pitchers job who are told not to interfere with the Outfielders working. Infielders take grounders off the bat and hit by the two fungoe hitters on each side of the home plate batting cage. After 2 hours the day´s work is done.