I thought that it might be worthwhile to take a look at where things stand now at the halfway point of league play.
As an initial matter, the strong 10-5 start has given us a ton of margin for error in the second half. We need to 4-11 (probably) to get into a regional somewhere. I think that we need to go 6-9 to host a regional and 8-7 or better to be a top 8 national seed. That’s all extremely do-able.
I do think the schedule over the back half is going to be a bit harder. We’ve already played South Carolina and Kentucky, who are at the bottom of the league with 4-11 records (Alabama is also 4-11, and that’s who we’ll see in our last series). Missouri, Miss State, and Auburn are all .500 or better. In the first half, we only played two teams (LSU and Vanderbilt) who are now .500 or better in the league.
I’ve watched some of Miss State here and there the last couple of weeks. I think they’re clearly the best team that we’ll play this year, especially given that series is in Starkville. It’s a real testament to their program, that is now on their fourth coach in four years, but they just keep winning at a high level.
It’s surprising that Florida is 6-9. That’s probably the biggest surprise in the SEC. They aren’t just losing games, they’re getting beaten down pretty badly, especially away from Gainesville. We know they have the talent; they’ve recruited too well over the last decade to suddenly have a dip. They hit a 3-run walk off HR to win the rubber game against South Carolina last weekend. I’m thinking that may launch them a little bit. If South Carolina wins that series, you could probably stick a fork in Florida. But now, I don’t think you can. They go to LSU and then Kentucky goes to Gainesville. If Florida can find a way to go 4-2 over those weekends, they’ll be 10-11 when they come to Athens and they’ll have something to really fight for.
From what I’ve seen, which isn’t a ton, I’m not a big believer in Auburn. I don’t know why, I’m just not… They swept Tennessee back in week one, but are 5-7 since then, with a road series win at South Carolina being the only weekend they’ve won since that opening weekend. It won’t be easy on the road, but I think that we’ll handle Auburn.
I imagine that Alabama people probably thought they’d be further along in year two under Bohannan. I believe that Bohannan will win there, but Alabama is pretty weak. I don’t want to get into the whole thing of thinking that we can just bank some wins in that final weekend, that kind of thing never works out, but hopefully we’ll be playing for a national seed and Alabama will be just trying to end their season.
As for Missouri, it’s that weird thing where the road team has won ever series since they joined the SEC. They’re capable of coming in here and beating us this weekend. I don’t think they will, but they’re a scrappy group and TJ Sikemma is one of the best arms that we’ll see this season.
I say all of that to say that the wins are definitely there for us to be a national seed again. It’s going to be tougher than it was in the first half, but it’s not a huge difference. And look at it this way. We were probably fortunate to win that Sunday South Carolina game. But that’s really been the only one where it felt like were lucky to come away with the win. We’ve played some close games for sure, but our 10-5 isn’t lucky. There’s really nothing to “even out” over the last half.
I heard it was said during the broadcast last night that we are “only” hitting .240 in the SEC. Without any context, that sounds pretty bad. But, we are #9 in the conference in in-league batting average. Only five SEC teams are hitting above .265 vs SEC pitching. We’ve known all year that we aren’t a great offensive club, but we’ve done enough to be on top of the league and I believe that we can win SEC regular season title “only” hitting .245 or so against the rest of the conference. The reason is pitching and defense. In our 15 SEC games, we have the second best ERA in conference best batting average against. We’ve allowed 89 hits to SEC hitters. Missouri is #2 on that last at 110. That’s not JUST pitching, it’s defense too. It’s making plays – not just the routine ones, but the spectacular ones that would be scored as a hit if they dropped.
On the pitching note, Florida has the worst in-conference ERA at 6.91 and has a .302 average against by SEC hitters. So surprising. But I bet those numbers won’t be that bad in five weeks.
The one thing that is concerning to me is whether our pitching can hold up – not in terms of effectiveness, but health. Last night against Clemson was big in a few respects, one of which being that Logan Moody and Darryn Pasqua showed they can get outs. Now maybe the Clemson hitters were fatigued a bit and maybe that played into it. But those guys threw a lot of strikes and made a lot of big pitches. Maybe one or both finds a bigger role going down the stretch. I hope so, or I hope that someone else does, because we’re really using a small number of pitchers a lot.
Emerson Hancock has been fantastic and it’s hard to imagine him fading. But he’s already at 61 innings on the year, after having throw 77 2/3 all of last year. Tony Locey will, unless he has a bad start, pass last year’s innings total this weekend. CJ Smith has already surpassed his total from last year.
Aaron Schunk has made 14 appearances and thrown 20 innings. Last year he made 20 appearances and threw 30 innings. Zac Kristofak has made 14 appearances and thrown 27 1/3 innings. Last year he made 31 appearances and throw 42 1/3 innings. Justin Glover has pitched in 16 games this year, throwing 14 2/3 innings, which almost equals hit total over the previous two seasons. Finally, Tim Elliott has already thrown almost 17 more innings this year than he did in the previous two seasons. All of those guys are putting up great numbers. And nobody appears to be getting fatigued right now. All I’m saying is that it’s a really heavy work load for a couple of guys. Locey and Hancock, I imagine those guys will be fine at the current clip. But CJ Smith and Glover are guys I worry about. I worry too about Schunk, just because he’s already playing 3rd base every day. All of that is more concerning to me than the offensive issues that we’ve had.
All in all, it’s hard to imagine a better start to this thing. I thought we looked good, but not great, over the first four weekends. As much as I want to say that the South Carolina series gave us some confidence and all that, I think it’s more that this teams rises to the competition. We didn’t play great against Kentucky or Tennessee, but we did enough to 3-3 over those two weekends. But LSU and Vanderbilt? We really dialed it up for those series. I think that we can talk about the tangible good things and there is a lot to that, but this team has a lot of intangibles also. This isn’t like 2004 in terms of how it’s going, but this group reminds me of the 2004 team in their maturity and approach.
This thing is really going good, to say the least.
As an initial matter, the strong 10-5 start has given us a ton of margin for error in the second half. We need to 4-11 (probably) to get into a regional somewhere. I think that we need to go 6-9 to host a regional and 8-7 or better to be a top 8 national seed. That’s all extremely do-able.
I do think the schedule over the back half is going to be a bit harder. We’ve already played South Carolina and Kentucky, who are at the bottom of the league with 4-11 records (Alabama is also 4-11, and that’s who we’ll see in our last series). Missouri, Miss State, and Auburn are all .500 or better. In the first half, we only played two teams (LSU and Vanderbilt) who are now .500 or better in the league.
I’ve watched some of Miss State here and there the last couple of weeks. I think they’re clearly the best team that we’ll play this year, especially given that series is in Starkville. It’s a real testament to their program, that is now on their fourth coach in four years, but they just keep winning at a high level.
It’s surprising that Florida is 6-9. That’s probably the biggest surprise in the SEC. They aren’t just losing games, they’re getting beaten down pretty badly, especially away from Gainesville. We know they have the talent; they’ve recruited too well over the last decade to suddenly have a dip. They hit a 3-run walk off HR to win the rubber game against South Carolina last weekend. I’m thinking that may launch them a little bit. If South Carolina wins that series, you could probably stick a fork in Florida. But now, I don’t think you can. They go to LSU and then Kentucky goes to Gainesville. If Florida can find a way to go 4-2 over those weekends, they’ll be 10-11 when they come to Athens and they’ll have something to really fight for.
From what I’ve seen, which isn’t a ton, I’m not a big believer in Auburn. I don’t know why, I’m just not… They swept Tennessee back in week one, but are 5-7 since then, with a road series win at South Carolina being the only weekend they’ve won since that opening weekend. It won’t be easy on the road, but I think that we’ll handle Auburn.
I imagine that Alabama people probably thought they’d be further along in year two under Bohannan. I believe that Bohannan will win there, but Alabama is pretty weak. I don’t want to get into the whole thing of thinking that we can just bank some wins in that final weekend, that kind of thing never works out, but hopefully we’ll be playing for a national seed and Alabama will be just trying to end their season.
As for Missouri, it’s that weird thing where the road team has won ever series since they joined the SEC. They’re capable of coming in here and beating us this weekend. I don’t think they will, but they’re a scrappy group and TJ Sikemma is one of the best arms that we’ll see this season.
I say all of that to say that the wins are definitely there for us to be a national seed again. It’s going to be tougher than it was in the first half, but it’s not a huge difference. And look at it this way. We were probably fortunate to win that Sunday South Carolina game. But that’s really been the only one where it felt like were lucky to come away with the win. We’ve played some close games for sure, but our 10-5 isn’t lucky. There’s really nothing to “even out” over the last half.
I heard it was said during the broadcast last night that we are “only” hitting .240 in the SEC. Without any context, that sounds pretty bad. But, we are #9 in the conference in in-league batting average. Only five SEC teams are hitting above .265 vs SEC pitching. We’ve known all year that we aren’t a great offensive club, but we’ve done enough to be on top of the league and I believe that we can win SEC regular season title “only” hitting .245 or so against the rest of the conference. The reason is pitching and defense. In our 15 SEC games, we have the second best ERA in conference best batting average against. We’ve allowed 89 hits to SEC hitters. Missouri is #2 on that last at 110. That’s not JUST pitching, it’s defense too. It’s making plays – not just the routine ones, but the spectacular ones that would be scored as a hit if they dropped.
On the pitching note, Florida has the worst in-conference ERA at 6.91 and has a .302 average against by SEC hitters. So surprising. But I bet those numbers won’t be that bad in five weeks.
The one thing that is concerning to me is whether our pitching can hold up – not in terms of effectiveness, but health. Last night against Clemson was big in a few respects, one of which being that Logan Moody and Darryn Pasqua showed they can get outs. Now maybe the Clemson hitters were fatigued a bit and maybe that played into it. But those guys threw a lot of strikes and made a lot of big pitches. Maybe one or both finds a bigger role going down the stretch. I hope so, or I hope that someone else does, because we’re really using a small number of pitchers a lot.
Emerson Hancock has been fantastic and it’s hard to imagine him fading. But he’s already at 61 innings on the year, after having throw 77 2/3 all of last year. Tony Locey will, unless he has a bad start, pass last year’s innings total this weekend. CJ Smith has already surpassed his total from last year.
Aaron Schunk has made 14 appearances and thrown 20 innings. Last year he made 20 appearances and threw 30 innings. Zac Kristofak has made 14 appearances and thrown 27 1/3 innings. Last year he made 31 appearances and throw 42 1/3 innings. Justin Glover has pitched in 16 games this year, throwing 14 2/3 innings, which almost equals hit total over the previous two seasons. Finally, Tim Elliott has already thrown almost 17 more innings this year than he did in the previous two seasons. All of those guys are putting up great numbers. And nobody appears to be getting fatigued right now. All I’m saying is that it’s a really heavy work load for a couple of guys. Locey and Hancock, I imagine those guys will be fine at the current clip. But CJ Smith and Glover are guys I worry about. I worry too about Schunk, just because he’s already playing 3rd base every day. All of that is more concerning to me than the offensive issues that we’ve had.
All in all, it’s hard to imagine a better start to this thing. I thought we looked good, but not great, over the first four weekends. As much as I want to say that the South Carolina series gave us some confidence and all that, I think it’s more that this teams rises to the competition. We didn’t play great against Kentucky or Tennessee, but we did enough to 3-3 over those two weekends. But LSU and Vanderbilt? We really dialed it up for those series. I think that we can talk about the tangible good things and there is a lot to that, but this team has a lot of intangibles also. This isn’t like 2004 in terms of how it’s going, but this group reminds me of the 2004 team in their maturity and approach.
This thing is really going good, to say the least.
