-It's funny how fast everything starts to feel "familiar" again. I love this time of year.
-The story was obviously Robert Tyler.... It's really hard to do a lot better than he did. 13 of the 15 outs that he collected came via strikeout. The other two outs were fairly routine IF grounders. One walk and one hit that wasn't squared up. It's like bowling a 290. Stricklin and company did the right thing, I thought, by getting him out after 5. It's a long season, he didn't throw much in the fall, so there's no reason to give him a heavy work load right out of the gate.
-Tyler was just something else....The two performances of his that stand out prior to last night were the win here over tech and the win at Ole Miss. He was super in both of those outings, but last night felt different.... He beat the tech hitters and Ole Miss hitters, but he just overmatched the Ga Southern hitters last night. Some of those guys, college baseball players for a solid program, had about as much chance of squaring him up last night as I would have. The last time that we had a pitcher dominate the opposing lineup like that, at least the last time that really stands out to me, was Alex Wood against Western Illinois in 2012. It's not rare for a pitcher to have a strong outing and collect double digit strikeouts. It's really rare when he does it that way, where he is so much better than the opposing batter, inning after inning.
-Last night didn't have the "wow" element (overall) of last season's Opening Day. But that's just fine. We were playing a much better team last night than we saw in Eastern Illinois. We handled the big spots and that was was important. I was so happy for Logan Moody getting that bunt down in his first college AB. Normally you wouldn't want to give away an out in the 3rd inning, but I thought it was the right thing to do there, all things considered. Nick King did his job and hit the ball to the right side and then Skyler Weber got another big RBI in his AB.... The first time we got a man in scoring position, our next three hitters did three different jobs, exactly as they needed to be done. That was certainly not the case with any regularity last season, and it was great to see that type of execution right out of the gate last night.
-Evan Challenger is a good pitcher, and a veteran player. I understand that South Alabama will bring a good prospect up here next weekend. Our lineup needs to see guys like that early, as we are going to open league play against a very strong rotation from Kentucky. Last night played a lot more like an SEC game than anything Eastern Illinois could offer us a year ago, and that's a big positive.
-It's hard to grade our defense last night, given that 2/3 of the outs we recorded in the game were K's. But I thought it was pretty good overall. We had a couple of miscues in the IF and then airmailed a throw to 3b, but with freshmen on that stage in the opener, you can expect a couple of misplays. Major league players often talk about the "speed" of the game at the big league level compared to the minors. I have yet to hear anyone that the game isn't a lot faster at this level than high school. It's a hard transition, for sure.
-On Michael Curry, that's just how he throws, I'm told. It's a little unusual, but he's made it work for a long time now.
-This was the second straight Opening Day that Daniel Nichols has homered. Also, this marks the third opening weekend, in his four year career, that he's gone deep. That's pretty neat. Keegan McGovern homered last year on Opening Day as well, and I REALLY thought that he'd hit a long HR in his last AB, when it left the bat. Also, this was the second year in a row that Bo Tucker has gotten the first call from bullpen in relief of Robert Tyler. When we get into league play, if you can get 7-8 out of Tyler and then turn it over to Tucker, opposing offenses are going to have a hard time lighting up the scoreboard against us. That's a tough 1/2 punch. Perno used to say, a couple of years ago, if you were going to come in for Justin Grimm, you'd better have some dirty stuff. It's the same case with Tyler. When opposing hitters see him 2-3 ABs, I've got to think it's going to look like a beachball if the next guy doesn't have a lot of movement himself.
-How about Blakely Brown getting a save in his first career outing? I don't know that that has ever happened before. Brown has a good curve... very polished for a freshman.
-7 hits is a good, but not great, offensive effort. But we scored 4 runs from it. And we only K'd two times all night (and one was a questionable called third strike).... You can work with that. Different level obviously, but when things really started falling apart for the Braves two years ago, they just couldn't string anything together. I remember seeing them play the Marlins on Labor Day Sunday, Alex Wood started for us, and we scored 1 run on 10 hits.... All the K's and empty at bats between those hits just made it tough to get anything across the plate. All in all, I thought that it was a good offensive effort last night.... I actually feel even better about it this morning than I did leaving the stadium.
-Finally, it'll be interesting to see how Ga Southern reacts. I heard last night, and didn't know this before, that they actually set an NCAA record for strike outs in a season last year. Ga Southern K'd 530 times in 57 games a year ago. Losing their top six hitters from last years team and playing all those young and new guys last night, having 18 K's had to be something of a nightmare scenario for them. How do they bounce back this afternoon?
-Can't wait to get back over there. Heath Holder recorded this first base hit of the Scott Stricklin tenure in Athens, now Heath makes his first career start in his 5th year in the program. I'm really excited for that guy.
-The story was obviously Robert Tyler.... It's really hard to do a lot better than he did. 13 of the 15 outs that he collected came via strikeout. The other two outs were fairly routine IF grounders. One walk and one hit that wasn't squared up. It's like bowling a 290. Stricklin and company did the right thing, I thought, by getting him out after 5. It's a long season, he didn't throw much in the fall, so there's no reason to give him a heavy work load right out of the gate.
-Tyler was just something else....The two performances of his that stand out prior to last night were the win here over tech and the win at Ole Miss. He was super in both of those outings, but last night felt different.... He beat the tech hitters and Ole Miss hitters, but he just overmatched the Ga Southern hitters last night. Some of those guys, college baseball players for a solid program, had about as much chance of squaring him up last night as I would have. The last time that we had a pitcher dominate the opposing lineup like that, at least the last time that really stands out to me, was Alex Wood against Western Illinois in 2012. It's not rare for a pitcher to have a strong outing and collect double digit strikeouts. It's really rare when he does it that way, where he is so much better than the opposing batter, inning after inning.
-Last night didn't have the "wow" element (overall) of last season's Opening Day. But that's just fine. We were playing a much better team last night than we saw in Eastern Illinois. We handled the big spots and that was was important. I was so happy for Logan Moody getting that bunt down in his first college AB. Normally you wouldn't want to give away an out in the 3rd inning, but I thought it was the right thing to do there, all things considered. Nick King did his job and hit the ball to the right side and then Skyler Weber got another big RBI in his AB.... The first time we got a man in scoring position, our next three hitters did three different jobs, exactly as they needed to be done. That was certainly not the case with any regularity last season, and it was great to see that type of execution right out of the gate last night.
-Evan Challenger is a good pitcher, and a veteran player. I understand that South Alabama will bring a good prospect up here next weekend. Our lineup needs to see guys like that early, as we are going to open league play against a very strong rotation from Kentucky. Last night played a lot more like an SEC game than anything Eastern Illinois could offer us a year ago, and that's a big positive.
-It's hard to grade our defense last night, given that 2/3 of the outs we recorded in the game were K's. But I thought it was pretty good overall. We had a couple of miscues in the IF and then airmailed a throw to 3b, but with freshmen on that stage in the opener, you can expect a couple of misplays. Major league players often talk about the "speed" of the game at the big league level compared to the minors. I have yet to hear anyone that the game isn't a lot faster at this level than high school. It's a hard transition, for sure.
-On Michael Curry, that's just how he throws, I'm told. It's a little unusual, but he's made it work for a long time now.
-This was the second straight Opening Day that Daniel Nichols has homered. Also, this marks the third opening weekend, in his four year career, that he's gone deep. That's pretty neat. Keegan McGovern homered last year on Opening Day as well, and I REALLY thought that he'd hit a long HR in his last AB, when it left the bat. Also, this was the second year in a row that Bo Tucker has gotten the first call from bullpen in relief of Robert Tyler. When we get into league play, if you can get 7-8 out of Tyler and then turn it over to Tucker, opposing offenses are going to have a hard time lighting up the scoreboard against us. That's a tough 1/2 punch. Perno used to say, a couple of years ago, if you were going to come in for Justin Grimm, you'd better have some dirty stuff. It's the same case with Tyler. When opposing hitters see him 2-3 ABs, I've got to think it's going to look like a beachball if the next guy doesn't have a lot of movement himself.
-How about Blakely Brown getting a save in his first career outing? I don't know that that has ever happened before. Brown has a good curve... very polished for a freshman.
-7 hits is a good, but not great, offensive effort. But we scored 4 runs from it. And we only K'd two times all night (and one was a questionable called third strike).... You can work with that. Different level obviously, but when things really started falling apart for the Braves two years ago, they just couldn't string anything together. I remember seeing them play the Marlins on Labor Day Sunday, Alex Wood started for us, and we scored 1 run on 10 hits.... All the K's and empty at bats between those hits just made it tough to get anything across the plate. All in all, I thought that it was a good offensive effort last night.... I actually feel even better about it this morning than I did leaving the stadium.
-Finally, it'll be interesting to see how Ga Southern reacts. I heard last night, and didn't know this before, that they actually set an NCAA record for strike outs in a season last year. Ga Southern K'd 530 times in 57 games a year ago. Losing their top six hitters from last years team and playing all those young and new guys last night, having 18 K's had to be something of a nightmare scenario for them. How do they bounce back this afternoon?
-Can't wait to get back over there. Heath Holder recorded this first base hit of the Scott Stricklin tenure in Athens, now Heath makes his first career start in his 5th year in the program. I'm really excited for that guy.
