I typed this up yesterday and then realized that I didn't post it. Not wanting my work to go to waste, here it is... with Florida less than 24 hours away, here are some thoughts on a game against The Citadel from two nights ago...
So Tuesday was the first mid-week game that I’ve gotten to in quite awhile. You wouldn’t think that a Tuesday game against The Citadel would be something to anticipate, but I knew for awhile that I would be able to go to this one and was really looking forward to it.
-First, I don’t think we ought to play any more games at SRP Park. For all the college baseball games I’ve been to, Tuesday night was the worst traffic experience I’ve ever seen. Friday night at Arkansas with 10,000 people? No. Friday at Texas A&M? No. Florida? As bad as traffic is in Gainesville, that’s not close to last night. It took about 45 minutes to go the last mile to the stadium. I’m not making that up. I bought a parking pass for the “Blue Lot” which is actually just a parking deck, and traffic was backed up literally a mile for people trying to get in there. So it was the 3rd inning when I finally got into the stadium and to say I was frazzled was an understatement. The fortunate part was that I wound up parking near the exit of the deck, but there were probably 100 cars behind mine and it looked like about 15 spaces left.
Absolutely horrible logistics. I don’t go rolling into Jacksonville 30 minutes before kickoff of the Florida game in the fall, but last night reminded me of that… the absolute gridlock for a mile around the stadium. The real hell of it was that there were “only’ about 3,500 people there last night. There will probably be 100 high school football games this fall in this state that will easily top last night’s attendance, and somehow all these high schools can figure out how to get people parked. And then it was still about a quarter mile to the stadium from the blue “lot”…
It was like SunTrust Park in that respect. Really nice on the inside, but you have to park so far away. At least with SunTrust it’s not THAT much of an issue to get to the lot.
Somewhere in the midst of that gridlock and starting at brake lights, I had to wonder why we were playing this game. Augusta isn’t really close to Athens. It’s finals week, late in the season, etc. Gnat Line pointed this out a few days ago and he’s right. Not smart scheduling.
I had a good time once in the stadium and it was a good night overall. I’m glad I made it over. That whole time from 6:00p to 6:45p soured things for a bit.
-For some reason, we played last night in our batting practice jerseys. I don’t think that we’ve been doing that in the midweek this year. Have we? I mean, I haven’t been to any of them, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen us do that. It looked like full practice uniforms too. The pants and hats looked awfully dingy. If anyone knows why that was, I’d be interested to know.
-Logan Moody has been a real find for us on the mound. We just couldn’t get much going offensively, but Logan kept us in it and really didn’t have to sweat much. I assume that he’ll get the start again next week at Jacksonville State. I hope he does. He’s a guy who can really play a role in June, I think.
-Going into the 8th inning, I made the comment that it felt like we should be up 8-0 given all the base runners that we had (albeit on only 5 hits going into that inning). The Citadel is pretty weak… They’re probably the worst team that we’ve played this year, and while it never really felt like we weren’t going to win, it was just too close to be relaxed in the 8th inning. So it was great to see us finally put it together and have a big inning.
-I made the comment after John Cable’s hit (whose name was listed as “Cable” on the lineup on the scoreboard, but “Cabel” beside his picture when he came up to hit) that we just weren’t going to hit one out. Cable’s ball was absolutely blasted, but stayed in the park. Sullivan hit one way back to the wall and one of the The Citadel hitters did too. I guess the air was really heavy. No sooner than I said that did Cam Shepherd hit one out. I was glad he proved me wrong. It’s temping to say that maybe that’ll be good for Cam’s confidence, etc, but he seems like such an even guy that I don’t know that his confidence is hurting right now. It certainly doesn’t seem to be.
-We looked like a tired team out there. That stood out to me. I know that last week we had the SunTrust game and then Starkville. This weekend we have Florida. It’s finals week. We’re playing a team that was something like 10-32 coming in. So obviously it wasn’t going to be game 7 of the World Series, but we did look tired. Hopefully they’ll take it easy between Tuesday night and Friday night. Every few innings, at a break, our guys who aren’t playing will job down to the OF wall.. just to get the blood going. We didn’t do that last night, any. First game under Stricklin that I can recall where we didn’t.
-On that note, I really didn’t understand why we threw Zac Kritofak in the 9th last night. We’re up 9-0. Jack Gowan had been throwing in the bullpen – would have been nice to get him out there. I mean, you’re playing a team that’s just not very good. You really need to win the game, obviously, but throwing Justin Glover for 2 innings, then Ryan Webb, then Zac Kristofak? Glover and Kristofak have gotten so much work. I wanted to see some other guys.
-Having said that, we did card our fourth one-hitter last night. I don’t care who we’re playing (we also one-hit Vanderbilt), that’s really impressive.
-I had to laugh last night when Shane Marshall got a walk. So Randon Jernigan tries to bunt him over, but Randon ends up walking. So then Tucker Maxwell gets the bunt down and beats the throw to first. Riley King comes up and I said “may as well try to bunt. By God, we’re going to give you an out whether you like it or not.”
-I went to a lot of games in 2010 when we went 16-37. Even for a fan, the losing just wears on you after awhile. I feel for The Citadel in that respect. I know they’re really ready to get this season over with.
-Good win overall. That was the definition of a “soft spot” on the schedule for us, but we handled it. I’m excited about this weekend – I just hope that we manage well the time between now and then. Florida may not be a great matchup for us given our offensive struggles, but they’ve shown, virtually every weekend this season, that they’re very beatable.
So Tuesday was the first mid-week game that I’ve gotten to in quite awhile. You wouldn’t think that a Tuesday game against The Citadel would be something to anticipate, but I knew for awhile that I would be able to go to this one and was really looking forward to it.
-First, I don’t think we ought to play any more games at SRP Park. For all the college baseball games I’ve been to, Tuesday night was the worst traffic experience I’ve ever seen. Friday night at Arkansas with 10,000 people? No. Friday at Texas A&M? No. Florida? As bad as traffic is in Gainesville, that’s not close to last night. It took about 45 minutes to go the last mile to the stadium. I’m not making that up. I bought a parking pass for the “Blue Lot” which is actually just a parking deck, and traffic was backed up literally a mile for people trying to get in there. So it was the 3rd inning when I finally got into the stadium and to say I was frazzled was an understatement. The fortunate part was that I wound up parking near the exit of the deck, but there were probably 100 cars behind mine and it looked like about 15 spaces left.
Absolutely horrible logistics. I don’t go rolling into Jacksonville 30 minutes before kickoff of the Florida game in the fall, but last night reminded me of that… the absolute gridlock for a mile around the stadium. The real hell of it was that there were “only’ about 3,500 people there last night. There will probably be 100 high school football games this fall in this state that will easily top last night’s attendance, and somehow all these high schools can figure out how to get people parked. And then it was still about a quarter mile to the stadium from the blue “lot”…
It was like SunTrust Park in that respect. Really nice on the inside, but you have to park so far away. At least with SunTrust it’s not THAT much of an issue to get to the lot.
Somewhere in the midst of that gridlock and starting at brake lights, I had to wonder why we were playing this game. Augusta isn’t really close to Athens. It’s finals week, late in the season, etc. Gnat Line pointed this out a few days ago and he’s right. Not smart scheduling.
I had a good time once in the stadium and it was a good night overall. I’m glad I made it over. That whole time from 6:00p to 6:45p soured things for a bit.
-For some reason, we played last night in our batting practice jerseys. I don’t think that we’ve been doing that in the midweek this year. Have we? I mean, I haven’t been to any of them, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen us do that. It looked like full practice uniforms too. The pants and hats looked awfully dingy. If anyone knows why that was, I’d be interested to know.
-Logan Moody has been a real find for us on the mound. We just couldn’t get much going offensively, but Logan kept us in it and really didn’t have to sweat much. I assume that he’ll get the start again next week at Jacksonville State. I hope he does. He’s a guy who can really play a role in June, I think.
-Going into the 8th inning, I made the comment that it felt like we should be up 8-0 given all the base runners that we had (albeit on only 5 hits going into that inning). The Citadel is pretty weak… They’re probably the worst team that we’ve played this year, and while it never really felt like we weren’t going to win, it was just too close to be relaxed in the 8th inning. So it was great to see us finally put it together and have a big inning.
-I made the comment after John Cable’s hit (whose name was listed as “Cable” on the lineup on the scoreboard, but “Cabel” beside his picture when he came up to hit) that we just weren’t going to hit one out. Cable’s ball was absolutely blasted, but stayed in the park. Sullivan hit one way back to the wall and one of the The Citadel hitters did too. I guess the air was really heavy. No sooner than I said that did Cam Shepherd hit one out. I was glad he proved me wrong. It’s temping to say that maybe that’ll be good for Cam’s confidence, etc, but he seems like such an even guy that I don’t know that his confidence is hurting right now. It certainly doesn’t seem to be.
-We looked like a tired team out there. That stood out to me. I know that last week we had the SunTrust game and then Starkville. This weekend we have Florida. It’s finals week. We’re playing a team that was something like 10-32 coming in. So obviously it wasn’t going to be game 7 of the World Series, but we did look tired. Hopefully they’ll take it easy between Tuesday night and Friday night. Every few innings, at a break, our guys who aren’t playing will job down to the OF wall.. just to get the blood going. We didn’t do that last night, any. First game under Stricklin that I can recall where we didn’t.
-On that note, I really didn’t understand why we threw Zac Kritofak in the 9th last night. We’re up 9-0. Jack Gowan had been throwing in the bullpen – would have been nice to get him out there. I mean, you’re playing a team that’s just not very good. You really need to win the game, obviously, but throwing Justin Glover for 2 innings, then Ryan Webb, then Zac Kristofak? Glover and Kristofak have gotten so much work. I wanted to see some other guys.
-Having said that, we did card our fourth one-hitter last night. I don’t care who we’re playing (we also one-hit Vanderbilt), that’s really impressive.
-I had to laugh last night when Shane Marshall got a walk. So Randon Jernigan tries to bunt him over, but Randon ends up walking. So then Tucker Maxwell gets the bunt down and beats the throw to first. Riley King comes up and I said “may as well try to bunt. By God, we’re going to give you an out whether you like it or not.”
-I went to a lot of games in 2010 when we went 16-37. Even for a fan, the losing just wears on you after awhile. I feel for The Citadel in that respect. I know they’re really ready to get this season over with.
-Good win overall. That was the definition of a “soft spot” on the schedule for us, but we handled it. I’m excited about this weekend – I just hope that we manage well the time between now and then. Florida may not be a great matchup for us given our offensive struggles, but they’ve shown, virtually every weekend this season, that they’re very beatable.
