-First, I wrote last night that I thought we'd have to play our best game of the year today to win. I really felt like that was the case given that Wright State is a veteran team who had just lost their 5th game in a row and would come out with some urgency today. We didn't play our best game by any stretch and the loss in that circumstance was very foreseeable. The game actually didn't feel quite as close as 3-1.
-Wright State had a chance to really pop the game open in the 4th inning. Heath Holder wasn't great today... He struggled all day to find his command, but I will give him credit for not giving in and not letting things get sideways. He did a fantastic job of fielding his position in that 4th inning and that (combined with some bizarre decisions from Wright State) kept them to 1 run that inning when 3+ looked possible.
-Blake Cairnes did a tremendous job in relief. Given his repertoire, which is primarily fastballs with some sliders mixed in, I thought that Wright State might hit him hard. Instead, Cairnes settled in nicely and got a lot of quick outs. 62 pitches to get 15 outs. That's very solid work.
-Wright State is good defensively. Their SS is an SEC caliber player. You really have to earn it with them.
-Coming into the weekend, I thought that we would see some higher scoring games. Their Friday guy Scholtens is better than his numbers this year indicate, but they are still a hittable staff. We have caught a break not seeing Sean Murphy this weekend, too.... Still, if you'd told me we would hold them to 6 runs over the first two games, I would have thought we were staring down two easy wins. The offensive struggles this weekend are very concerning. We've gotten 12 hits in 18 innings, at least three of which were infield hits. We've gotten one extra base hit this weekend, by my count. We're going to see much better pitching staffs moving forward this season. Our own pitchers can keep us in the game, but if we only score 1 run, it's going to be very difficult.
-We need to do a better job of handling prosperity. We had a nice, emotional win on Opening Night against Ga Southern. We came out the next day with a poor offensive effort. We had a nice, emotional, down to the wire win against Mercer. We came out the next game against South Alabama with a poor offensive effort (Kevin Hill was really good for them, but we didn't make him work very hard). We have a walkoff, emotional win against Cincinnati and come out the next day with a poor offensive effort against Western Kentucky, with 15 strikeouts. We have a walkoff, emotional win last night and come out today with a poor offensive effort. It's frustrating. It's one step forward, one step back.
-LJ Talley had as good of an 0-9 weekend against Ga Southern as you can ask for. Good ABs, he looked confident, he hit the ball hard, just had nothing to show. It's been a tough season for him so far numbers wise, and today he seemed to fight his confidence a little bit. The quality of his ABs today just didn't look to be at the level that we saw against Ga Southern. I hate to see that. He is a talented player. He isn't as smooth defensively as Levi Hyams, but I think he will ultimately end up on that level as a hitter.... I just hope he doesn't lose his confidence, though, and today seem to show that he is fighting with that.
-Trevor Kieboom hit the ball hard each time... the 6-4-3 DPs were a killer both time, but he squared it up. I question plugging him at cleanup in his first start of the season, after seeing very limited live pitching since last season.
-We were very aggressive on the first pitch today, and I think Wright State figured that out quickly. We had some very fast innings and didn't make Sexton work very hard in a few of the innings he threw against us.
-I think that we are going to see some changes in the rotation by the time league play rolls around. But really, I don't know that it's going to change our fate very much. We've played 11 games so far this year and have been no hit through at least 5 innings in 2 games, have had 4 hits going into the 9th inning in another, and have scored 1 run in 2 other games. If we can't get the offense on track and figure out how to put some pressure on the other guy, it doesn't matter so much who starts for us on the mound.
-I don't know. Last weekend bugged me, today bugged me. Our schedule has been pretty decent so far, but 7-4 is disappointing, still, and we could just as easily be 4-7 right now.... It's getting progressively harder to spin this as "today was hard, but this program is going in the right direction." Is it?
-Wright State had a chance to really pop the game open in the 4th inning. Heath Holder wasn't great today... He struggled all day to find his command, but I will give him credit for not giving in and not letting things get sideways. He did a fantastic job of fielding his position in that 4th inning and that (combined with some bizarre decisions from Wright State) kept them to 1 run that inning when 3+ looked possible.
-Blake Cairnes did a tremendous job in relief. Given his repertoire, which is primarily fastballs with some sliders mixed in, I thought that Wright State might hit him hard. Instead, Cairnes settled in nicely and got a lot of quick outs. 62 pitches to get 15 outs. That's very solid work.
-Wright State is good defensively. Their SS is an SEC caliber player. You really have to earn it with them.
-Coming into the weekend, I thought that we would see some higher scoring games. Their Friday guy Scholtens is better than his numbers this year indicate, but they are still a hittable staff. We have caught a break not seeing Sean Murphy this weekend, too.... Still, if you'd told me we would hold them to 6 runs over the first two games, I would have thought we were staring down two easy wins. The offensive struggles this weekend are very concerning. We've gotten 12 hits in 18 innings, at least three of which were infield hits. We've gotten one extra base hit this weekend, by my count. We're going to see much better pitching staffs moving forward this season. Our own pitchers can keep us in the game, but if we only score 1 run, it's going to be very difficult.
-We need to do a better job of handling prosperity. We had a nice, emotional win on Opening Night against Ga Southern. We came out the next day with a poor offensive effort. We had a nice, emotional, down to the wire win against Mercer. We came out the next game against South Alabama with a poor offensive effort (Kevin Hill was really good for them, but we didn't make him work very hard). We have a walkoff, emotional win against Cincinnati and come out the next day with a poor offensive effort against Western Kentucky, with 15 strikeouts. We have a walkoff, emotional win last night and come out today with a poor offensive effort. It's frustrating. It's one step forward, one step back.
-LJ Talley had as good of an 0-9 weekend against Ga Southern as you can ask for. Good ABs, he looked confident, he hit the ball hard, just had nothing to show. It's been a tough season for him so far numbers wise, and today he seemed to fight his confidence a little bit. The quality of his ABs today just didn't look to be at the level that we saw against Ga Southern. I hate to see that. He is a talented player. He isn't as smooth defensively as Levi Hyams, but I think he will ultimately end up on that level as a hitter.... I just hope he doesn't lose his confidence, though, and today seem to show that he is fighting with that.
-Trevor Kieboom hit the ball hard each time... the 6-4-3 DPs were a killer both time, but he squared it up. I question plugging him at cleanup in his first start of the season, after seeing very limited live pitching since last season.
-We were very aggressive on the first pitch today, and I think Wright State figured that out quickly. We had some very fast innings and didn't make Sexton work very hard in a few of the innings he threw against us.
-I think that we are going to see some changes in the rotation by the time league play rolls around. But really, I don't know that it's going to change our fate very much. We've played 11 games so far this year and have been no hit through at least 5 innings in 2 games, have had 4 hits going into the 9th inning in another, and have scored 1 run in 2 other games. If we can't get the offense on track and figure out how to put some pressure on the other guy, it doesn't matter so much who starts for us on the mound.
-I don't know. Last weekend bugged me, today bugged me. Our schedule has been pretty decent so far, but 7-4 is disappointing, still, and we could just as easily be 4-7 right now.... It's getting progressively harder to spin this as "today was hard, but this program is going in the right direction." Is it?
