-Tough loss. Really tough. You can make the argument that this was the most gut wrenching loss of the Stricklin era.... We just started off so slowly last year that we were behind the 8 ball pretty fast.... and none of our early conference losses seemed to sting all that much. Tonight would have been a tough deal even without the Tyler injury. We had the lead in the 7th on a night when we didn't do much offensively, but had really ground things out on the mound and in the field. To lose it late was a tough, tough pill to swallow.
-On the Tyler injury, I didn't see anything on the pitch that was alarming, but he motioned immediately for the dugout afterward. I understand that he'll have an MRI tomorrow. That surprised me as I figured they'd wait until Sunday night or Monday to do that. Keep your fingers crossed. There's no need to speculate right now. On Tucker's injury, it was pretty clear that it was a groin. Don't think I've ever seen two pitchers leave a game with injuries before. That was weird.... Drew Moody did a real nice job in relief, though when we hit their #9 hitter, you had to feel like things were about to get hairy, and they did. Still, it was a good outing for Moody. He didn't know he was going in 45 seconds before he's standing on the mound. He did a nice job of keeping his composure, not rushing through his warm ups, and allowing himself to get settled.
-I didn't like the pinch hitting decision in the 8th. I don't know the book on their guy, Chris Brown... maybe lefties have torn him up this year... If we were going to pinch hit for King, I think the better option would have been Josh Day or Mitchell Webb. Stricklin pressed the right buttons with the pinch hitters last weekend, but I just didn't like what we did in the 8th tonight.
-It's tough to score a lot of runs when 3-5 goes 1-13 with 5 strikeouts. The fact that had a lead with only 7 outs left to get anyway makes tonight feel even tougher.
-I thought that both Nick King and Michael Bell had some questionable defensive plays early on, but they settled in and did a terrific job down the stretch tonight. Those last couple of innings were as good as we've seen from the middle IF since Farmer and Hyams were here.
-You wish everyone could have as good of an approach as Keegan McGovern.... It's so impressive what that guy is doing at the plate. Freshman hitters are almost never as advanced as he is.... He just doesn't get himself out and he forces the pitcher to throw strikes.
-I'm sure we'll see Jason Richman again this weekend. When we do, we need to be patient with him.... I'm sure that's very easy for me to say sitting in the stands, but I really think he'll put some guys on base if we force him to throw strikes... We drew 2 walks off of him tonight in 2 innings and I think that we can do better than that when we see him again.
-These guys aren't better than we are. I'm glad that we're playing again tomorrow and relatively early.... I'd hate to have to chew on tonight's game for too long. We need a good outing out of Ryan Lawlor and I think he's a good matchup for these guys... It's going to be a real shame if we don't win this series, because this team is absolutely not better than we are.
-On the Tyler injury, I didn't see anything on the pitch that was alarming, but he motioned immediately for the dugout afterward. I understand that he'll have an MRI tomorrow. That surprised me as I figured they'd wait until Sunday night or Monday to do that. Keep your fingers crossed. There's no need to speculate right now. On Tucker's injury, it was pretty clear that it was a groin. Don't think I've ever seen two pitchers leave a game with injuries before. That was weird.... Drew Moody did a real nice job in relief, though when we hit their #9 hitter, you had to feel like things were about to get hairy, and they did. Still, it was a good outing for Moody. He didn't know he was going in 45 seconds before he's standing on the mound. He did a nice job of keeping his composure, not rushing through his warm ups, and allowing himself to get settled.
-I didn't like the pinch hitting decision in the 8th. I don't know the book on their guy, Chris Brown... maybe lefties have torn him up this year... If we were going to pinch hit for King, I think the better option would have been Josh Day or Mitchell Webb. Stricklin pressed the right buttons with the pinch hitters last weekend, but I just didn't like what we did in the 8th tonight.
-It's tough to score a lot of runs when 3-5 goes 1-13 with 5 strikeouts. The fact that had a lead with only 7 outs left to get anyway makes tonight feel even tougher.
-I thought that both Nick King and Michael Bell had some questionable defensive plays early on, but they settled in and did a terrific job down the stretch tonight. Those last couple of innings were as good as we've seen from the middle IF since Farmer and Hyams were here.
-You wish everyone could have as good of an approach as Keegan McGovern.... It's so impressive what that guy is doing at the plate. Freshman hitters are almost never as advanced as he is.... He just doesn't get himself out and he forces the pitcher to throw strikes.
-I'm sure we'll see Jason Richman again this weekend. When we do, we need to be patient with him.... I'm sure that's very easy for me to say sitting in the stands, but I really think he'll put some guys on base if we force him to throw strikes... We drew 2 walks off of him tonight in 2 innings and I think that we can do better than that when we see him again.
-These guys aren't better than we are. I'm glad that we're playing again tomorrow and relatively early.... I'd hate to have to chew on tonight's game for too long. We need a good outing out of Ryan Lawlor and I think he's a good matchup for these guys... It's going to be a real shame if we don't win this series, because this team is absolutely not better than we are.
