Sinclair baseball coach Steve Dintaman is never afraid to make bold predictions. As the third-year coach looks ahead, he said the 2010 roster is the best in Sinclair\u2019s storied history.<\/p>\n
After finishing with a 36-12 mark, the Pride finished one game short of the NJCAA World Series and runners-up in the Region 12 Championship game last spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the deepest and the best team we\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201cThe talent level is as good as it has ever been. There are so many strengths that outweigh our negatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plenty of pitching<\/strong><\/p>\n Sinclair boasts an abundance of depth on the mound with the return of Jake Robinson, Erik Lamka, Zach Botjer and Jordan Russell. Russell set a school record with nine saves, while Robinson, Lamka and Botjer combined to go 16-3 as starters.<\/p>\n Dintaman said Sinclair welcomed plenty of talent to its staff for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n University of Cincinnati transfer and potential MLB draft pick Justin Schultheiss will head the rotation. Behind Schultheiss, Dintaman plans to keep the rotation open for competition between newcomer Austin Pressly (drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 23rd round of the 2009 MLB Draft), Botjer, Lamka and Robinson.<\/p>\n Offense-heavy<\/strong><\/p>\n Though Sinclair returns only two offensive starters, Dintaman said the Pride shouldn\u2019t see a decline in offensive production, especially with the move to Athletes in Action in Xenia.<\/p>\n \u201cThis team could break all of Sinclair\u2019s offensive records,\u201d he said. \u201c(Athletes in Action) is a very hitter-friendly field.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophomore outfielder Clay Ragland looks to continue to set the pace for the Pride as an explosive leadoff hitter. Ragland collected 26 stolen bases in 34 starts, while hitting .291 with an on-base percentage of .410.<\/p>\n Robinson, who is vying for a spot in the starting rotation, also spends time in the field. The sophomore hit .341 in 2010.<\/p>\n Dintaman spoke highly of catcher Justin Marrero, who the coach said is the most talented player he has ever coached.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has all the tools \u2014 speed, hit for power, hit for average, defense and arm,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201c(Marrero) has it all.\u201d<\/p>\n Dintaman said Marrero was the best shortstop in Ohio in 2008 and is quickly adjusting to the catcher position.<\/p>\n New goals<\/strong><\/p>\n Dintaman said his team\u2019s main weakness from last year involved academics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re focusing on academics even more now,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they miss a class, they miss a game. It was something that had to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n Dintaman said he\u2019s looking forward to the season-opener and believes the team is very capable of clinching the college\u2019s first NJCAA World Series berth.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goals have been set since last year\u2019s team lost,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to go to the World Series and we want to compete for the national championship. And we\u2019re very, very capable of doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sinclair baseball coach Steve Dintaman is never afraid to make bold predictions. As the third-year coach looks ahead, he said the 2010 roster is the best in Sinclair\u2019s storied history. After finishing with a 36-12 mark, the Pride finished one game short of the NJCAA World Series and runners-up in the Region 12 Championship game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[887,55,1272,377,237,14],"class_list":["post-4253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-887","tag-baseball","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-preview","tag-season","tag-sinclair"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-16B","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4301,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions\/4301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}