-First off, I’m glad that we got this series over with. This one was quite a mismatch. If we played UMass Lowell 100 times, I really doubt they’d beat us more than once or twice. Not to complain too much, but I fail to see who this series benefited.
-In the series opener on Saturday, I really thought after the 2nd inning that we were looking at a 15-0 kind of game. I think our hitters relaxed a bit after that. I don’t blame them, I mean, the combination of the weather, the crowd, and the opponent made any kind of energy almost impossible. Some of that is definitely a credit to them. Their starter Rand began throwing his curve for a strike and that seemed to keep us off balance a bit too. After the 2nd inning I remember thinking that UMass Lowell, just based on their body language, didn’t have any real belief that they could compete with us. But as those zeros started going up on the scoreboard, that changed. Their dugout found some energy, some momentum. They had more life than ours did. The game turned into a weird thing where it felt so easy early on, then we just couldn’t flip the switch again. I’ve seen fall scrimmages with more intensity than what I saw from our dugout during the middle innings on Saturday. And again, I’m not blaming anyone for that… I think it was just a combination of a number of things. I was really proud of us for getting that win, though. It’s easy to get fired up and play hard when it’s LSU on Friday night and it’s warm and the stands are packed. Saturday was a different deal, and I was proud of the way that we finished it.
-Second game in a row that Emerson Hancock has completely overmatched the opposing lineup. It goes without saying that he’s going to face better lineups starting in a few weeks and when he does, it’s not going to be no hits and a pile of strikeouts. That said, his stuff looks a bit better to me than last year. I’d say that he’s made a jump. For whatever reason, Robert Tyler just never turned into the “guy” on Friday night. You’d have to go back to Alex Wood in ’12, which really isn’t recent, for the last time that we had a Friday night who could dominate that way. It’s been fun to watch Emerson these first two weeks.
-Hardly a unique thought on my part, but LJ Talley’s play to end the 5th inning…. I said to someone and texted another that “his freshman year, he wouldn’t have had a prayer of making that play.” I got frustrated with that back in 2016 as I felt that we had a couple of better options defensively and we weren’t really getting THAT much offense either. I’ll give Talley a lot of credit. He’s really gotten better.
-Saturday was the highest leverage spot that Justin Glover has pitched in quite awhile. Good to see him respond and do some good things. He’s a guy who may be moving up in the in the bullpen.
-One of the biggest differences between series like this and SEC series are the defensive plays that get made. UMass Lowell was pretty weak defensively, especially in the corner OF spots. They didn’t have a lot of range in their IF either. We had some balls that got in and took some extra bases that won’t show up once we get into the conference, but everyone knows that… It’s fun to do what we did offensively over both games today, but I don’t think anyone is taking any false positives from it.
-Will Procter’s walks were a little disappointing today. He’s obviously going to live and die with his curveball and walks are a risk there.
-Great to see John Cable get that grand slam. He needed to get on the board. But heck, he just hasn’t played very much recently. When you consider how much time he missed, he really hasn’t been terrible. He just needs Abs, but I think the ability is there.
-I’m interested to know what is going on with Kaden Fowler. I thought that the staff was pretty high on him back in the fall. Is he hurt? I’m really surprised we haven’t seen him, especially now with Tucker Bradley being hurt.
-Cam Shepherd clearly isn’t going to hit .580 or whatever his average is now, over the whole year. But man, what a start. I wasn’t going out on much of a limb when I said that he was a lot better than the stat sheet suggested last season. He carries so much confidence to the plate with him and gives you a great at-bat every time. They’re going to love that guy in pro ball, I bet.
-I think it’s safe to say that Cole Wilcox is a little ways away from helping in a major role right now. And that’s ok… it’s not like he has to start for us next weekend or anything. I hope that he doesn’t lose too much confidence as this obviously wasn’t the beginning to his career that he probably expected. He’ll be fine ultimately, but I think we’re going to have to wait a little bit before we see him getting big outs for us.
-Good weekend overall. This was a series that absolutely needed to be a sweep, and it was. LIU Brooklyn is still winless on the year after getting swept by Florida Gulf Coast this weekend (they were outscored 29-2 over the three game series). Kennesaw State is 4-2. We should be 8-0 when we head to Statesboro next weekend. Georgia Southern will be a lot better than Dayton or UMass Lowell… and I’m sure everyone is more than ready to see an uptick in the competition.
-In the series opener on Saturday, I really thought after the 2nd inning that we were looking at a 15-0 kind of game. I think our hitters relaxed a bit after that. I don’t blame them, I mean, the combination of the weather, the crowd, and the opponent made any kind of energy almost impossible. Some of that is definitely a credit to them. Their starter Rand began throwing his curve for a strike and that seemed to keep us off balance a bit too. After the 2nd inning I remember thinking that UMass Lowell, just based on their body language, didn’t have any real belief that they could compete with us. But as those zeros started going up on the scoreboard, that changed. Their dugout found some energy, some momentum. They had more life than ours did. The game turned into a weird thing where it felt so easy early on, then we just couldn’t flip the switch again. I’ve seen fall scrimmages with more intensity than what I saw from our dugout during the middle innings on Saturday. And again, I’m not blaming anyone for that… I think it was just a combination of a number of things. I was really proud of us for getting that win, though. It’s easy to get fired up and play hard when it’s LSU on Friday night and it’s warm and the stands are packed. Saturday was a different deal, and I was proud of the way that we finished it.
-Second game in a row that Emerson Hancock has completely overmatched the opposing lineup. It goes without saying that he’s going to face better lineups starting in a few weeks and when he does, it’s not going to be no hits and a pile of strikeouts. That said, his stuff looks a bit better to me than last year. I’d say that he’s made a jump. For whatever reason, Robert Tyler just never turned into the “guy” on Friday night. You’d have to go back to Alex Wood in ’12, which really isn’t recent, for the last time that we had a Friday night who could dominate that way. It’s been fun to watch Emerson these first two weeks.
-Hardly a unique thought on my part, but LJ Talley’s play to end the 5th inning…. I said to someone and texted another that “his freshman year, he wouldn’t have had a prayer of making that play.” I got frustrated with that back in 2016 as I felt that we had a couple of better options defensively and we weren’t really getting THAT much offense either. I’ll give Talley a lot of credit. He’s really gotten better.
-Saturday was the highest leverage spot that Justin Glover has pitched in quite awhile. Good to see him respond and do some good things. He’s a guy who may be moving up in the in the bullpen.
-One of the biggest differences between series like this and SEC series are the defensive plays that get made. UMass Lowell was pretty weak defensively, especially in the corner OF spots. They didn’t have a lot of range in their IF either. We had some balls that got in and took some extra bases that won’t show up once we get into the conference, but everyone knows that… It’s fun to do what we did offensively over both games today, but I don’t think anyone is taking any false positives from it.
-Will Procter’s walks were a little disappointing today. He’s obviously going to live and die with his curveball and walks are a risk there.
-Great to see John Cable get that grand slam. He needed to get on the board. But heck, he just hasn’t played very much recently. When you consider how much time he missed, he really hasn’t been terrible. He just needs Abs, but I think the ability is there.
-I’m interested to know what is going on with Kaden Fowler. I thought that the staff was pretty high on him back in the fall. Is he hurt? I’m really surprised we haven’t seen him, especially now with Tucker Bradley being hurt.
-Cam Shepherd clearly isn’t going to hit .580 or whatever his average is now, over the whole year. But man, what a start. I wasn’t going out on much of a limb when I said that he was a lot better than the stat sheet suggested last season. He carries so much confidence to the plate with him and gives you a great at-bat every time. They’re going to love that guy in pro ball, I bet.
-I think it’s safe to say that Cole Wilcox is a little ways away from helping in a major role right now. And that’s ok… it’s not like he has to start for us next weekend or anything. I hope that he doesn’t lose too much confidence as this obviously wasn’t the beginning to his career that he probably expected. He’ll be fine ultimately, but I think we’re going to have to wait a little bit before we see him getting big outs for us.
-Good weekend overall. This was a series that absolutely needed to be a sweep, and it was. LIU Brooklyn is still winless on the year after getting swept by Florida Gulf Coast this weekend (they were outscored 29-2 over the three game series). Kennesaw State is 4-2. We should be 8-0 when we head to Statesboro next weekend. Georgia Southern will be a lot better than Dayton or UMass Lowell… and I’m sure everyone is more than ready to see an uptick in the competition.
