Ups and Downs Highlight Green Devils First Half Season

The St. Petersburg Green Devils, rich with baseball history, aren't exactly happy despite having a winning record of 6-3. The team's history suggests OK isn't good enough.

"We haven't quite found it yet," St. Petersburg coach Dan Breece said recently. Despite a win steak of four games winning by one run, Breece wasn't all that happy. "We leave so many runners on base. When we get the chances, we need to take advantage of that.

"Yeah, it's early in the season, I can see the talent and you have to give it time to let things grow and you keep thinking 'We're going to do it. We're going to do it'

"Well, it's time to start doing it."

Part of the reason the Green Devils may not be blowing opponents away is what Breece terms as a "lull" in the middle innings for the offense, a puzzle Breece hasn't quite solved yet.

"In the middle of the game, we get into a lull every game," Breece said. "We pop it up and pop out, and we need to put pressure on the defense. It happens almost every day. I'd like to think it is just us" that is the problem.

Not a problem is the play of gifted freshman Ricardo Rivera. Despite not having a driver's license yet, Rivera is already a talented hitter, usually batting in the No. 3 slot, often reserved for a team's best hitter. Breece raves about Rivera's play.

"He is fun to watch," Breece said. "I love to watch [Rivera]. When I write down my lineup each game his name is the first one I write down. It seems like he makes a play every game whether it's to produce a run for us or to take a run away from our opponent. He always finds a way to score a run or to stop a run.

"You can look in the book and every time he has done something and in all the one-run games we have won, it's because of him."