-First, you obviously hope that Emerson is ok... that took some wind out of the sails last night for sure, and I know what everyone was thinking the way he landed and then watching him walk off the field. Keep your fingers crossed.
-Even with the injury, that was easily our best pitching performance of the year... possibly of Stricklin’s UGA tenure. I was thinking last night, what’s more impressive between scoring 11 on A&M Thursday night or shutting them out and taking a no hitter into the 6th inning last night? I think the latter, to be honest.
-Home plate umpiring... man alive. That’s as bad as I’ve seen in awhile. On balance, we probably benefited more than A&M, but really, no one benefits when the strike zone is that inconsistent. To me, it wasn’t just the strike zone, the guy had a really short fuse and seemed to want to escalate things... my wife said he looked rattled early on. I said he was the Percy Wetmore of umpires. Jordan Ferrell was his name (and still is). I don’t recall him previously.
-A&M doesn’t throw a competitive pitch on 0-2... It’s not that they don’t throw a strike, they don’t throw anything close. I commented on that early on... it was that noticeable. So we are in the 7th (I think, it was late in the game) and Tucker Maxwell is at 2b. They get Aaron Schunk down 0-2. We steal 3b on the pitch.... which, predictably, was in the left hand batters box. That was really good, smart baseball. It was going to be very difficult to throw him out given where we knew the pitch would be... but if for some reason Texas A&M had thrown him out, we lead off the next inning with Aaron Schunk anyway. But we also may get a wild throw (and almost did) and then we could score on a wild pitch... ultimately the run was stranded on 3rd, but the whole thing made me really happy to see. Little things like that are really getting better.
-I didn’t understand taking out Tony Locey, who was around 48 pitches, but I suppose it was the smart thing given that he threw Tuesday. Locey just looks like a different guy... that’s two Friday nights in a row where he’s been unhittable. If Hancock misses any starts, I don’t think the replacement decision will take too long.
-Zac Kristofak keeps getting better. I thought his curve looked great last night.
-On Keegan’s running catch in LF... I’m sure his losing 20 pounds was part of that, but for me, it was more of a testament to how well he sees the baseball off the bat. He’s always had more range than his straight line speed would suggest.
-We’ve got ourselves a team. Worst case we are 7-2 after today. Lot of baseball left and a lot of hard series, but there just isn’t THAT much mountain left to climb to get into a regional...
-Even with the injury, that was easily our best pitching performance of the year... possibly of Stricklin’s UGA tenure. I was thinking last night, what’s more impressive between scoring 11 on A&M Thursday night or shutting them out and taking a no hitter into the 6th inning last night? I think the latter, to be honest.
-Home plate umpiring... man alive. That’s as bad as I’ve seen in awhile. On balance, we probably benefited more than A&M, but really, no one benefits when the strike zone is that inconsistent. To me, it wasn’t just the strike zone, the guy had a really short fuse and seemed to want to escalate things... my wife said he looked rattled early on. I said he was the Percy Wetmore of umpires. Jordan Ferrell was his name (and still is). I don’t recall him previously.
-A&M doesn’t throw a competitive pitch on 0-2... It’s not that they don’t throw a strike, they don’t throw anything close. I commented on that early on... it was that noticeable. So we are in the 7th (I think, it was late in the game) and Tucker Maxwell is at 2b. They get Aaron Schunk down 0-2. We steal 3b on the pitch.... which, predictably, was in the left hand batters box. That was really good, smart baseball. It was going to be very difficult to throw him out given where we knew the pitch would be... but if for some reason Texas A&M had thrown him out, we lead off the next inning with Aaron Schunk anyway. But we also may get a wild throw (and almost did) and then we could score on a wild pitch... ultimately the run was stranded on 3rd, but the whole thing made me really happy to see. Little things like that are really getting better.
-I didn’t understand taking out Tony Locey, who was around 48 pitches, but I suppose it was the smart thing given that he threw Tuesday. Locey just looks like a different guy... that’s two Friday nights in a row where he’s been unhittable. If Hancock misses any starts, I don’t think the replacement decision will take too long.
-Zac Kristofak keeps getting better. I thought his curve looked great last night.
-On Keegan’s running catch in LF... I’m sure his losing 20 pounds was part of that, but for me, it was more of a testament to how well he sees the baseball off the bat. He’s always had more range than his straight line speed would suggest.
-We’ve got ourselves a team. Worst case we are 7-2 after today. Lot of baseball left and a lot of hard series, but there just isn’t THAT much mountain left to climb to get into a regional...
