-Long, cold day at the ballpark and unfortunately, it wasn't very much fun to sit through. Felt too much like last year. "Disappointing" isn't really the right word for this weekend. I've seen bad baseball away from Athens over the last few years... Vanderbilt last year comes to mind, South Carolina the year before does too... I don't know that I've ever been as angry or frustrated leaving a place as I was tonight.... It's one thing to go up to Nashville and get your faces kicked in three days in a row. They're a powerhouse, they play great at home, and they went on to win the national title. It's one thing to go to South Carolina or Arkansas and get beaten up. We were just overmatched and playing with a number of injuries in '13 in Columbia and '10 in Fayetteville. This weekend was something different though. Ga Southern isn't anything special this year. They were a 5-4 baseball team coming into this weekend. Their pitching isn't great, they aren't very strong defensively, their bullpen isn't very deep... I could go on, but this wasn't an outstanding team that swept us this weekend. And I know that this weekend was a focal point in our program. I know it was. And for us to go down there and go 0-3.... it just makes you angry. And let's be honest, Ga Southern gift wrapped the two 1st inning runs that we got today and two runs that we got on Friday night too. We can say "well, it was 3 one run losses".... I'd argue that it took some luck for us to get 3 runs on the board in the 1st and 3rd game.
-I didn't think we did a very good job from the dugout this weekend. Stricklin seemed to push all the right buttons up until this point, but some of the decisions that we made today seemed very questionable. I think it was the 4th or 5th inning in the middle game, we get a guy on, Nick King bunts and beats the throw to 1st.... Then Stephen Wrenn bunts and beats the throw to 1st. So we have the bases loaded with no outs, 2-3-4 coming up.... Granted, we'd already tried to give them two outs, but that was the situation. And we don't press the run across. Still trail 1-0. So in the 7th, Stephen Wrenn leads off with a hit and Skyler Weber comes up behind him. Skyler is having a tough weekend anyway, and now we don't bunt and he hits into a 4-6-3.... Still trail 1-0. Why are we not playing for a big inning earlier in the game, but trying to play for a big inning in the 7th? By that point, you're down to 9 outs left. All you need to do is score one run to extend the game. It just didn't make a lot of sense.
-Our staff is way too deep to give up late leads twice in a weekend. I thought it was a mistake to run Jared Walsh back out there for the 7th. He didn't have his best stuff today and had to work really hard to get through the 6th.... Conor Jones didn't have a lot either, but it's tough to bring a guy in with the tying run on 3rd base. How many times did that burn us last season? We had plenty enough arms to fill up those last 9 outs and while we'll never know for sure, I'd be be willing to bet that Jones can put up a zero if he gets a clean inning to start with. There was no reason for us to roll the dice the way we did.
-The middle of the order guys had a tough weekend and it's hard to score a lot when that's the case. I tell you, I would have bet my last dollar that we would have hit at least one HR down there this weekend. Ga Southern did a nice job of keeping the ball down and the heavy air no doubt helped to keep us in the yard. Still, I was shocked that we didn't hit any out.
-We got 16 hits all weekend long. At least two were bunts that we successfully beat out. At least one was scored a hit that should have been an error. Can you really expect to win when that's the production? The good news is, we're a better offensive team than that. The bad news is that we knew that scoring runs could be difficult in stretches with this group and I think that this weekend showed why that concern was present.
-David Sosebee did some outstanding work today and allowed us to have a deep bullpen for the finale. I thought McLaughlin did a really nice job today too.... his curve seemed to be as good as it's been all year.
-I'm glad that we get to play again Tuesday. We need to get this weekend's taste out of our mouths as soon as possible.
-I didn't think we did a very good job from the dugout this weekend. Stricklin seemed to push all the right buttons up until this point, but some of the decisions that we made today seemed very questionable. I think it was the 4th or 5th inning in the middle game, we get a guy on, Nick King bunts and beats the throw to 1st.... Then Stephen Wrenn bunts and beats the throw to 1st. So we have the bases loaded with no outs, 2-3-4 coming up.... Granted, we'd already tried to give them two outs, but that was the situation. And we don't press the run across. Still trail 1-0. So in the 7th, Stephen Wrenn leads off with a hit and Skyler Weber comes up behind him. Skyler is having a tough weekend anyway, and now we don't bunt and he hits into a 4-6-3.... Still trail 1-0. Why are we not playing for a big inning earlier in the game, but trying to play for a big inning in the 7th? By that point, you're down to 9 outs left. All you need to do is score one run to extend the game. It just didn't make a lot of sense.
-Our staff is way too deep to give up late leads twice in a weekend. I thought it was a mistake to run Jared Walsh back out there for the 7th. He didn't have his best stuff today and had to work really hard to get through the 6th.... Conor Jones didn't have a lot either, but it's tough to bring a guy in with the tying run on 3rd base. How many times did that burn us last season? We had plenty enough arms to fill up those last 9 outs and while we'll never know for sure, I'd be be willing to bet that Jones can put up a zero if he gets a clean inning to start with. There was no reason for us to roll the dice the way we did.
-The middle of the order guys had a tough weekend and it's hard to score a lot when that's the case. I tell you, I would have bet my last dollar that we would have hit at least one HR down there this weekend. Ga Southern did a nice job of keeping the ball down and the heavy air no doubt helped to keep us in the yard. Still, I was shocked that we didn't hit any out.
-We got 16 hits all weekend long. At least two were bunts that we successfully beat out. At least one was scored a hit that should have been an error. Can you really expect to win when that's the production? The good news is, we're a better offensive team than that. The bad news is that we knew that scoring runs could be difficult in stretches with this group and I think that this weekend showed why that concern was present.
-David Sosebee did some outstanding work today and allowed us to have a deep bullpen for the finale. I thought McLaughlin did a really nice job today too.... his curve seemed to be as good as it's been all year.
-I'm glad that we get to play again Tuesday. We need to get this weekend's taste out of our mouths as soon as possible.
