-First, it goes without saying that today was the most frustrating day that we've had in quite awhile.
I just never felt good during the second game and didn't feel good about things for most of the first game either. It sucks to leave to the stadium for the last time in the season that way.... just irritated and pissed off.
-In a lot of ways, today felt both atypical and familiar. The non foul ball call in the middle of the first game really seemed to linger with us. We only gave up one that inning, as I recall, but it seemed like the whole day was different after that. We seemed a little bit tight before that happened, but afterward we just didn't seem like ourselves at all. We've been so strong mentally all year, overcome so much, but we just couldn't do it today. Bad time for that to show up. But then, on a more objective level, we didn't hit lefties very well all season. I can remember talking about that going all the way back to that Charlotte series. And that's what happened today. Stinson in game one and Stallings in game two. We just couldn't hit those guys... and they had to be running on fumes. Stallings especially... I mean, that guy threw like 70 pitches on Saturday... we struggled with lefties all year long, and we struggled with our offense going into the tank for several innings in a row, also. A lot of those issues, which had been there all year, came back to roost today.
-This was a terrible weekend pitching wise. There is no other way around it. It makes you wonder how we were so effective all year and how we could look like that this weekend. We pitched to Duke 17 innings today. How many of those did they score on us? I think it was 11.
-LJ Talley had a great day. Really happy for him. And he made some defensive plays today that he wouldn't have had a prayer of making two years ago. It's neat to see that, to see him grabbing a ball in shallow RF and gunning the guy out at 1st, and thinking about how far he's come defensively. Offensively too. He turned into a guy this season.
-We need to rethink the way that we slot our pitching the next time we get into a regional as a host. I said last week that throwing Chase Adkins in game one was a bad idea. You shouldn't use your regular Friday night guy against a 4-seed... That Campbell game should have been Emerson Hancock, Adam Goodman, Will Procter, and Blake Cairnes. Instead it wound up being Adkins, Tony Locey, and Cairnes. How many did we score against Campbell? 18? Was there any real doubt that we'd outscore those guys? To me, a lot of the issues that we ran into today arose from that decision for how to pitch Campbell. And I know Chase Adkins wasn't sharp in that start... But Chase is a gamer, he elevates his performance in big spots... he did that all season, and he should have been getting the baseball today. Hancock could have beaten Campbell easily. But the way we did it, we didn't have Adkins (although I thought he should have thrown some innings today) and Locey didn't have as much gas in the tank either. That wasn't major college level managing this weekend.
-On that note, I didn't understand some of our pitching decisions in game one. Why throw Goodman before Ryan Webb? Why not throw Adkins? Or in game two, I know the season is on the line and all, but Zac Kristofak threw 50 pitches yesterday. He's not a big guy and he really uses a lot of effort pitching. Bringing him on in game two seemed like desperation and maybe it was, but I just don't know what we were really expecting there. He got those first outs with guts, but you could tell he didn't have much. We talked about all that all year, the way that we kept pounding Kevin Smith, Tony Locey, Zac Kristofak, and Aaron Schunk. Were those guys just out of gas coming into the weekend?
-Those two runs that Duke scored in the top of the 9th today were crushing. At 6-4, I really felt like we had a good chance in the 9th inning to win it... the wind really seemed to go out of the sails though at 8-4.
-As far as the more broad level stuff, I have to wonder if this was "peak Stricklin" that we saw this season. A lot of things lined up well for us. We caught a big break in getting Keegan McGovern back. We got more out of CJ Smith than I think anyone expected. Adam Sasser took a huge step forward. We caught South Carolina and Missouri at great times, as well. Don't get me wrong, we were a really good team anyway, but a lot of things broke the right way for us this year... I don't know that we should expect that next season, especially in light of what we're losing.
-Stricklin's comments postgame seemed a bit misplaced. It was very good season, we defied a lot of expectations, and everyone should be proud of that. But, when he says "We've turned this program around" (at least he says "we")... I don't know, it just seems like a strange time to spike the football. We got to a regional this year. We were doing that pretty regularly under Stricklin's predecessor. When Stricklin says "this is built to last" ... is it? I mean, I don't know that we've got another Keegan McGovern waiting in the wings. We've basically had one very good recruiting class. Two of the centerpieces of that class lost their jobs this season and one of the major sophomore contributors (Tucker Bradley) didn't even sign here originally. I'm not trying to be too negative here, and I can appreciate his efforts to put a positive spin of things, but I don't know that anyone who follows this program closely thought "this is built to last. We're not going anywhere" walking out of the stadium tonight. I didn't. Or when he says "we built this thing the right way" and that the administration and recruits "could see what we were building" ... that just doesn't seem very realistic either. There was no trajectory that lead to this season. There was no gradual, definitive improvement each season before this, no "knocking on the door." This season was like a rogue wave... it came out of nowhere. I thought that we'd have a winning season this year just because of the experience, but I reject the idea that this was the foreseeable result of program building over the last four seasons. To me, following the decisions that we made this weekend in how to slot our rotation and then all the decisions that were made from the dugout today, his self congratulations in the post game rubbed me the wrong way.
-At best, Stricklin just wasn't ready to be a major college head coach five years ago, but grew into that role. At worst, he's never going to be that and this season will prove to be an anomaly. I imagine that Stricklin will get an extension, but I hope that we don't go crazy with it. This season didn't answer any questions as much as it muddied the water a little bit. What bugs me is that a couple of times this season in some very big spots (Friday night at Florida and then this weekend) we just didn't make very good decisions from the dugout. It's just hard for me to get past that and get past what might have been this year.
-All of that said, this season as a whole was fun... especially the last few weeks. Beating Arkansas the way we did the last day of the regular season, that was one of the most fun baseball games I've ever been to and that's as excited as I've gotten during a game in a long time on that 7-2 putout to end it. I'll always remember that and I'll always remember the grit of this team. Stricklin is correct that today won't define this group.
-I don't know what else to say. It's just hard to believe it's over. I really, really thought we'd be playing next weekend. It wasn't until about the 7th inning in the second game today that I started to think it we may not get there. It just feels strange to know that it's done, that the book is closed now. The last day of the season always stinks. It's even harder when it's in June.
I just never felt good during the second game and didn't feel good about things for most of the first game either. It sucks to leave to the stadium for the last time in the season that way.... just irritated and pissed off.
-In a lot of ways, today felt both atypical and familiar. The non foul ball call in the middle of the first game really seemed to linger with us. We only gave up one that inning, as I recall, but it seemed like the whole day was different after that. We seemed a little bit tight before that happened, but afterward we just didn't seem like ourselves at all. We've been so strong mentally all year, overcome so much, but we just couldn't do it today. Bad time for that to show up. But then, on a more objective level, we didn't hit lefties very well all season. I can remember talking about that going all the way back to that Charlotte series. And that's what happened today. Stinson in game one and Stallings in game two. We just couldn't hit those guys... and they had to be running on fumes. Stallings especially... I mean, that guy threw like 70 pitches on Saturday... we struggled with lefties all year long, and we struggled with our offense going into the tank for several innings in a row, also. A lot of those issues, which had been there all year, came back to roost today.
-This was a terrible weekend pitching wise. There is no other way around it. It makes you wonder how we were so effective all year and how we could look like that this weekend. We pitched to Duke 17 innings today. How many of those did they score on us? I think it was 11.
-LJ Talley had a great day. Really happy for him. And he made some defensive plays today that he wouldn't have had a prayer of making two years ago. It's neat to see that, to see him grabbing a ball in shallow RF and gunning the guy out at 1st, and thinking about how far he's come defensively. Offensively too. He turned into a guy this season.
-We need to rethink the way that we slot our pitching the next time we get into a regional as a host. I said last week that throwing Chase Adkins in game one was a bad idea. You shouldn't use your regular Friday night guy against a 4-seed... That Campbell game should have been Emerson Hancock, Adam Goodman, Will Procter, and Blake Cairnes. Instead it wound up being Adkins, Tony Locey, and Cairnes. How many did we score against Campbell? 18? Was there any real doubt that we'd outscore those guys? To me, a lot of the issues that we ran into today arose from that decision for how to pitch Campbell. And I know Chase Adkins wasn't sharp in that start... But Chase is a gamer, he elevates his performance in big spots... he did that all season, and he should have been getting the baseball today. Hancock could have beaten Campbell easily. But the way we did it, we didn't have Adkins (although I thought he should have thrown some innings today) and Locey didn't have as much gas in the tank either. That wasn't major college level managing this weekend.
-On that note, I didn't understand some of our pitching decisions in game one. Why throw Goodman before Ryan Webb? Why not throw Adkins? Or in game two, I know the season is on the line and all, but Zac Kristofak threw 50 pitches yesterday. He's not a big guy and he really uses a lot of effort pitching. Bringing him on in game two seemed like desperation and maybe it was, but I just don't know what we were really expecting there. He got those first outs with guts, but you could tell he didn't have much. We talked about all that all year, the way that we kept pounding Kevin Smith, Tony Locey, Zac Kristofak, and Aaron Schunk. Were those guys just out of gas coming into the weekend?
-Those two runs that Duke scored in the top of the 9th today were crushing. At 6-4, I really felt like we had a good chance in the 9th inning to win it... the wind really seemed to go out of the sails though at 8-4.
-As far as the more broad level stuff, I have to wonder if this was "peak Stricklin" that we saw this season. A lot of things lined up well for us. We caught a big break in getting Keegan McGovern back. We got more out of CJ Smith than I think anyone expected. Adam Sasser took a huge step forward. We caught South Carolina and Missouri at great times, as well. Don't get me wrong, we were a really good team anyway, but a lot of things broke the right way for us this year... I don't know that we should expect that next season, especially in light of what we're losing.
-Stricklin's comments postgame seemed a bit misplaced. It was very good season, we defied a lot of expectations, and everyone should be proud of that. But, when he says "We've turned this program around" (at least he says "we")... I don't know, it just seems like a strange time to spike the football. We got to a regional this year. We were doing that pretty regularly under Stricklin's predecessor. When Stricklin says "this is built to last" ... is it? I mean, I don't know that we've got another Keegan McGovern waiting in the wings. We've basically had one very good recruiting class. Two of the centerpieces of that class lost their jobs this season and one of the major sophomore contributors (Tucker Bradley) didn't even sign here originally. I'm not trying to be too negative here, and I can appreciate his efforts to put a positive spin of things, but I don't know that anyone who follows this program closely thought "this is built to last. We're not going anywhere" walking out of the stadium tonight. I didn't. Or when he says "we built this thing the right way" and that the administration and recruits "could see what we were building" ... that just doesn't seem very realistic either. There was no trajectory that lead to this season. There was no gradual, definitive improvement each season before this, no "knocking on the door." This season was like a rogue wave... it came out of nowhere. I thought that we'd have a winning season this year just because of the experience, but I reject the idea that this was the foreseeable result of program building over the last four seasons. To me, following the decisions that we made this weekend in how to slot our rotation and then all the decisions that were made from the dugout today, his self congratulations in the post game rubbed me the wrong way.
-At best, Stricklin just wasn't ready to be a major college head coach five years ago, but grew into that role. At worst, he's never going to be that and this season will prove to be an anomaly. I imagine that Stricklin will get an extension, but I hope that we don't go crazy with it. This season didn't answer any questions as much as it muddied the water a little bit. What bugs me is that a couple of times this season in some very big spots (Friday night at Florida and then this weekend) we just didn't make very good decisions from the dugout. It's just hard for me to get past that and get past what might have been this year.
-All of that said, this season as a whole was fun... especially the last few weeks. Beating Arkansas the way we did the last day of the regular season, that was one of the most fun baseball games I've ever been to and that's as excited as I've gotten during a game in a long time on that 7-2 putout to end it. I'll always remember that and I'll always remember the grit of this team. Stricklin is correct that today won't define this group.
-I don't know what else to say. It's just hard to believe it's over. I really, really thought we'd be playing next weekend. It wasn't until about the 7th inning in the second game today that I started to think it we may not get there. It just feels strange to know that it's done, that the book is closed now. The last day of the season always stinks. It's even harder when it's in June.
