Arizona currently has a problem, and it's the worst type of problem a baseball team wants to have. Tuesday night the Wildcats (8-5) dropped a midweek game to Michigan State 9-5 that was made possible by six errors. It's not the first time mistakes have cost UA in recent games as the Wildcats have now had at least four errors in the last three games – 14 errors total in that span.
The defensive lapses reached their peak Tuesday night in the seventh inning when Jay Johnson's team had four errors that completely flipped the game against the Spartans, which had just one win before their win over the Wildcats.
One of the things that makes it scariest for UA is not that freshmen are making the mistakes. Three of Arizona's best players, who are also some of its oldest, accounted for five of the errors. Shortstop Cameron Cannon had three, third baseman Nick Quintana had one and centerfielder Matt Frazier had another.
It's a problem, but it's not one that Johnson plans to address with negativity. The UA head coach met with his team for a good amount of time after Tuesday night's loss. It's still early in the season and coming at his team with fire and brimstone might be a little premature. The solution to fixing the problems right now is to simply get back to work with three games against the College of Charleston coming up this weekend.
"I think it's a mindset thing," Johnson said. "When you're looking at Nick, I mean it's 4-4 and ball goes right through his legs or underneath his glove whatever it was. Cameron struggled the last couple games defensively. Those are good players. Those are the guys you guys all write about all the time.
"They didn't forget how to play baseball. This game will attack you mentally, and I think we have a little bit of that going on. So, we'll address the mindset piece and then fundamentals. We're just gonna keep going to work. They trained their rear end off [Monday], we practiced twice, and it was high quality. I liked the tempo of the game, I liked everything about it, until really that one- whatever it was – seventh inning. I've very rarely been a part of a game where I've seen the wheels spin off like that.
"It's a new day tomorrow and that's the one we're gonna go try and get better at."
Quintana, who spoke with the media after taking extra infield practice after the game Tuesday night, shares the same feeling with his coach when it comes to what needs to be fixed first. Both have focused in on the mental side of the game especially considering who it is making the mistakes right now.
"I don't think it's anything, I think it's just our mentality isn't where it used to be or where it could be," the junior third baseman said. "We have a great infield, I just think sometimes how the inning goes I don't want to say we fall asleep, but I would just say the intent isn't always there 100 percent of the time.
"It is a little frustrating, but when we make an error we have to get over it and get to the next one because baseball is a weird sport and the ball is gonna find you again. I definitely think that all the work we do put in at practice and before games and everything, I do think it'll definitely turn around for us 100 percent. I have no doubt about that."
So, where does that process begin? For Quintana it meant taking a few extra ground balls after the game. For Johnson, it is about keeping his team's outlook upbeat and not dwelling on the last few games.
"It's been as bad a defensive three games as I can remember," Johnson said. "Again, there's nothing you do but continue to go to work on it – which we will do. We are not going to get negative or crush these guys. It is absolute mindset, fundamentals, go to work on it and that's we're gonna do. This is our team that we have right now that's not playing great, and there's only one way that you handle that.
"We're gonna do everything we can to get them in a better frame of mind and then to train them to improve in our practice days."
UA's first game of its series with CoC will take place Friday night with first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. MST.
