-There's not a whole lot to say, really... I mean, this is the situation. Clearly, our head coach doesn't subscribe to the "under promise and over deliver" philosophy. I know it's just two games, and I know that it is a good freshman class, but the fact that we've been non-competitive in our first two games this year is very concerning. It'd be one thing if we were playing well and just coming up short. But that's not what's happening here. If we lose tomorrow, it'll be the first time that we've been swept to open a season since 2011. That was also the last time we made a regional. Perhaps it will be spun that way, but seeing all three games at Stetson that season, we at least competed and you could tell that the mentality and the heart was there. It's not just empty at bats or defensive miscues or poor pitching.... it's bad body language right now too. This early, that's very concerning.
-Our starting pitchers this weekend have gotten 22 outs total. It goes without saying that you could survive many weekends doing that. Worse yet, the next guy up both days has struggled as well.
-College of Charleston beat our baseball team today by a larger margin than Kentucky beat our basketball team.
-Tony Locey showed some good things, I thought. I made the comment early on in watching him that "any legitimate program would groom this guy as a closer." It's going to be hard to go through the order 3 times throwing that many fastballs, although he does locate it well. He works at a good clip too.
-Austin Biggar has a nice day both behind the plate and at the plate. We had very few balls going to the backstop. I wish College of Charleston had tried to run so we could see his arm, but I guess there was no point in the them doing that.
-Posted earlier that it really bugged me that we took out Aaron Schunk, Cam Shepherd (who would have come up 2nd the next inning) and Will Proctor. We need to get as many at bats as we can for all three of those guys before Baton Rouge. Today was a stinker, but you can still do some productive things in a blowout loss. It reminded me of two years ago at Kentucky on Friday night... we're something like 7-16 in the SEC and obviously going nowhere.... We're getting beaten all night, but clawed back a little bit and had a chance to make a push in the 8th inning. Mitchell Webb, a freshman then, was coming up to bat. We pinch hit for him with Zack Bowers, a then junior who I think would have signed pro for a bus ticket. I made the point after the game that it would have been a whole lot more beneficial for Mitchell Webb to hit in that spot as he'll probably find himself in that same situation next year or later in his career, while Bowers was going to be on the team for two weeks at the most. Seeing all those freshmen come out today, I made the comment that "you wonder why we can't take a step forward? It's stuff like that.... "
-I guess Tucker Maxwell must have banged something up last night. Really surprised we didn't see him.
-The bulk of our offensive production the last two games has come with the game out of hand. I'm too tired right now to go back and look, but maybe after tomorrow I'll see how many hits we got this weekend when the game was still in contention. I'm not taking much solace in getting hits against the presumed bottom of College of Charleston's bullpen when they're pitching with a huge lead and just trying to throw it over the plate and make us put the ball in play. 15-6 and 9-3 are actually deceptive final scores in a way as they don't do justice to just how lopsided these two games have been.
-Right now, at least internally, we really need to dial back some of the rhetoric and focus on really tightening some things up on the mound and in the field... not for the sake of making a push in the SEC, but more to stay out of something historically bad. Over-reaction after two games? Maybe, and I hope it is... but there just aren't many games on the entire schedule, and none in the conference, literally none, that we can win playing like we have the last two days.
-A lot of these miscues aren't showing up as errors. We were better in the field today than yesterday, but still shaky over all...
-On a brighter note, I thought that Adam Sasser had a great day. It begs the question of why he didn't start at 1B or DH last night, but it was good to see him have that kind of performance today.
-The last series of the season, in 2014, we got smashed two games in a row by Kentucky... It was some of the most uninspired, disinterested baseball that I'd ever seen. We bounced back and won the series finale, which ensured that we'd finish 12th in the conference and go to the SECT. Hopefully we'll have a similar bounce-back tomorrow.... That Sunday Kentucky game was important for the program after the way the first two games had gone, I thought, and I would say the same about tomorrow. Mercer is going to be a tough game on Tuesday with them opening their new (or renovated?) stadium and then Ga Southern will be tough this weekend. We need to the get this one tomorrow and give ourselves something to feel good about heading into that.
-The forecast is 75 degrees tomorrow and sunny. It's a 1:00pm pitch, third game of the season. I talked to two regular fans today who said they weren't coming. I'll be there, and I'll be a lot of games this season... not every one, but hopefully 40-45. I'll be honest, though, it's not easy to justify this sometimes.
-Our starting pitchers this weekend have gotten 22 outs total. It goes without saying that you could survive many weekends doing that. Worse yet, the next guy up both days has struggled as well.
-College of Charleston beat our baseball team today by a larger margin than Kentucky beat our basketball team.
-Tony Locey showed some good things, I thought. I made the comment early on in watching him that "any legitimate program would groom this guy as a closer." It's going to be hard to go through the order 3 times throwing that many fastballs, although he does locate it well. He works at a good clip too.
-Austin Biggar has a nice day both behind the plate and at the plate. We had very few balls going to the backstop. I wish College of Charleston had tried to run so we could see his arm, but I guess there was no point in the them doing that.
-Posted earlier that it really bugged me that we took out Aaron Schunk, Cam Shepherd (who would have come up 2nd the next inning) and Will Proctor. We need to get as many at bats as we can for all three of those guys before Baton Rouge. Today was a stinker, but you can still do some productive things in a blowout loss. It reminded me of two years ago at Kentucky on Friday night... we're something like 7-16 in the SEC and obviously going nowhere.... We're getting beaten all night, but clawed back a little bit and had a chance to make a push in the 8th inning. Mitchell Webb, a freshman then, was coming up to bat. We pinch hit for him with Zack Bowers, a then junior who I think would have signed pro for a bus ticket. I made the point after the game that it would have been a whole lot more beneficial for Mitchell Webb to hit in that spot as he'll probably find himself in that same situation next year or later in his career, while Bowers was going to be on the team for two weeks at the most. Seeing all those freshmen come out today, I made the comment that "you wonder why we can't take a step forward? It's stuff like that.... "
-I guess Tucker Maxwell must have banged something up last night. Really surprised we didn't see him.
-The bulk of our offensive production the last two games has come with the game out of hand. I'm too tired right now to go back and look, but maybe after tomorrow I'll see how many hits we got this weekend when the game was still in contention. I'm not taking much solace in getting hits against the presumed bottom of College of Charleston's bullpen when they're pitching with a huge lead and just trying to throw it over the plate and make us put the ball in play. 15-6 and 9-3 are actually deceptive final scores in a way as they don't do justice to just how lopsided these two games have been.
-Right now, at least internally, we really need to dial back some of the rhetoric and focus on really tightening some things up on the mound and in the field... not for the sake of making a push in the SEC, but more to stay out of something historically bad. Over-reaction after two games? Maybe, and I hope it is... but there just aren't many games on the entire schedule, and none in the conference, literally none, that we can win playing like we have the last two days.
-A lot of these miscues aren't showing up as errors. We were better in the field today than yesterday, but still shaky over all...
-On a brighter note, I thought that Adam Sasser had a great day. It begs the question of why he didn't start at 1B or DH last night, but it was good to see him have that kind of performance today.
-The last series of the season, in 2014, we got smashed two games in a row by Kentucky... It was some of the most uninspired, disinterested baseball that I'd ever seen. We bounced back and won the series finale, which ensured that we'd finish 12th in the conference and go to the SECT. Hopefully we'll have a similar bounce-back tomorrow.... That Sunday Kentucky game was important for the program after the way the first two games had gone, I thought, and I would say the same about tomorrow. Mercer is going to be a tough game on Tuesday with them opening their new (or renovated?) stadium and then Ga Southern will be tough this weekend. We need to the get this one tomorrow and give ourselves something to feel good about heading into that.
-The forecast is 75 degrees tomorrow and sunny. It's a 1:00pm pitch, third game of the season. I talked to two regular fans today who said they weren't coming. I'll be there, and I'll be a lot of games this season... not every one, but hopefully 40-45. I'll be honest, though, it's not easy to justify this sometimes.
