Don't sleep on yesterday. I know it was "just North Florida" and probably should not have come down to the wire that way, but that was a nice win and I know we can take some real confidence from it.
-When the lineup came out on Saturday I wrote how crazy it was that we only had one player start at SS from 2017 - 2020, and were now on our 3rd different starting SS for this young season. I was wrong though as Kameron Guidry was actually the fourth player to start at SS for us in what was the 11th game of the season.
-That's one of the bright spot on the weekend. Not just Guidry, but we are banged up right now. Three of the four guys we had on the IF yesterday probably won't be in those positions once everyone else is healthy. We've got pitchers banged up, we've got pitchers who were sick and are recovering, and one of our top freshman has only gotten 1 AB on the season. There is something to be said with pulling out a series win for what we were able to put on the field this weekend.
-Ryan Webb needs to get the baseball Friday night against Tennessee. He's earned that. He's got Friday night "stuff" and he's got a Friday night mentality. No need to overthink that one.
-Riley King had a pretty good weekend all in all. The DP he hit into last yesterday was a killer at the time, but it's worth pointing out that he did go 4-11 on the weekend and played some good defense at 2B.
-I don't know what you say about Ben Anderson. They couldn't get that guy out last year. He has had some hard-hit balls that have gone for outs this year... I mean, 4-39 doesn't tell the whole story, but you can't just chalk it all up to bad luck either. He's only drawn 2 walks on the year, which is also surprising. I think he showed last season that he's a threat at the plate. I've said before and stand by my statement that Randon Jernigan needs to be an every day player. If Randon cuts down on this strike outs (he doesn't have a ton of ABs, but strikes out in about a third of them) and Anderson can't get it doing, then Randon may end up as your CF.
-Thinking more about that base running gaffe on the tag up on the short fly to CF on Friday night.... It was a mistake for sure, but beyond Stricklin's explanation of it, I think the reality is that we're sufficiently limited offensively right now to where we have to play aggressively like that. We aren't going to score much playing station to station. With what happened on Friday night, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You have to be aggressive on the bases to make up for the lack of power and consistency in the offense, but then you can't give away outs on the bases because of the lack of power and consistency in the lineup.
-To that end, we are hitting .294 as a team. You aren't comparing apples to apples when looking at other SEC teams given the difference in schedules (we'd probably be sub .500 against Arkansas' schedule, they're undefeated against it and would easily be undefeated against ours). With that in mind, our collective .294 average is 5th in the SEC. But our on base percentage of .367 is second to last, ahead of only Missouri (who looks to be in for a very long season). We are slugging .459, which is 9th best in the league. We are 12th in runs scored, last in doubles, tied for first in triples (speedsters Garrett Blaylock and Shane Marshall have 40% of our triples on the the year), and 8th in HRs. So, you can frame that how you will. It's not THAT bad compared to the rest of the SEC (if we just pretend that everyone has played more or less the same caliber schedule) in some metrics and pretty bad in others.
We did score 20 runs this weekend. South Carolina scored 9 runs all weekend against Mercer. LSU scored 20 runs in losing 2/3 to Oral Roberts (LSU was blown out 22-7 on Friday night, also). Kentucky scored 11 runs against Ball State on the weekend, while Tennessee 18 runs against Georgia State. Vanderbilt scored 19 runs against Illinois Chicago, although 15 of those came in one game. Florida scored 23 runs against Florida A&M. Arkansas scored 24 on the weekend against Murray State. So, just for this weekend and just in terms of runs scored, I don't see a dramatic difference between us a number of other SEC schools.
Evansville is 5-2 in their other games this season. They took 2/3 from Northern Illinois, dropped a mid week game against Kentucky, and then took 3/4 against Western Illinois this past weekend. Gardner Webb dropped 2/3 last weekend to our friends from Campbell and currently sits at 2-7 (2-4 in their other games). Kennesaw State is 6-4 when they aren't playing us and just took 2/3 on the road from UAB. We haven't played a murderer's row this year, but the teams we have played have generally been decent aside from playing us.
It is what it is at the plate. Hopefully Anderson can get it going a bit and hopefully we'll get Cole Tate and Josh McAllister back pretty soon, as both guys will help us offensively. Looking around at what the rest of the SEC did this weekend largely against mid-major type programs, I don't feel as bad about us offensively. We do have some limitations, but we're hardly alone in that respect, it would appear.
-Let's kick Ga Southern's ass this week. And let's revisit whether that's a series that we need to playing at all.
-When the lineup came out on Saturday I wrote how crazy it was that we only had one player start at SS from 2017 - 2020, and were now on our 3rd different starting SS for this young season. I was wrong though as Kameron Guidry was actually the fourth player to start at SS for us in what was the 11th game of the season.
-That's one of the bright spot on the weekend. Not just Guidry, but we are banged up right now. Three of the four guys we had on the IF yesterday probably won't be in those positions once everyone else is healthy. We've got pitchers banged up, we've got pitchers who were sick and are recovering, and one of our top freshman has only gotten 1 AB on the season. There is something to be said with pulling out a series win for what we were able to put on the field this weekend.
-Ryan Webb needs to get the baseball Friday night against Tennessee. He's earned that. He's got Friday night "stuff" and he's got a Friday night mentality. No need to overthink that one.
-Riley King had a pretty good weekend all in all. The DP he hit into last yesterday was a killer at the time, but it's worth pointing out that he did go 4-11 on the weekend and played some good defense at 2B.
-I don't know what you say about Ben Anderson. They couldn't get that guy out last year. He has had some hard-hit balls that have gone for outs this year... I mean, 4-39 doesn't tell the whole story, but you can't just chalk it all up to bad luck either. He's only drawn 2 walks on the year, which is also surprising. I think he showed last season that he's a threat at the plate. I've said before and stand by my statement that Randon Jernigan needs to be an every day player. If Randon cuts down on this strike outs (he doesn't have a ton of ABs, but strikes out in about a third of them) and Anderson can't get it doing, then Randon may end up as your CF.
-Thinking more about that base running gaffe on the tag up on the short fly to CF on Friday night.... It was a mistake for sure, but beyond Stricklin's explanation of it, I think the reality is that we're sufficiently limited offensively right now to where we have to play aggressively like that. We aren't going to score much playing station to station. With what happened on Friday night, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You have to be aggressive on the bases to make up for the lack of power and consistency in the offense, but then you can't give away outs on the bases because of the lack of power and consistency in the lineup.
-To that end, we are hitting .294 as a team. You aren't comparing apples to apples when looking at other SEC teams given the difference in schedules (we'd probably be sub .500 against Arkansas' schedule, they're undefeated against it and would easily be undefeated against ours). With that in mind, our collective .294 average is 5th in the SEC. But our on base percentage of .367 is second to last, ahead of only Missouri (who looks to be in for a very long season). We are slugging .459, which is 9th best in the league. We are 12th in runs scored, last in doubles, tied for first in triples (speedsters Garrett Blaylock and Shane Marshall have 40% of our triples on the the year), and 8th in HRs. So, you can frame that how you will. It's not THAT bad compared to the rest of the SEC (if we just pretend that everyone has played more or less the same caliber schedule) in some metrics and pretty bad in others.
We did score 20 runs this weekend. South Carolina scored 9 runs all weekend against Mercer. LSU scored 20 runs in losing 2/3 to Oral Roberts (LSU was blown out 22-7 on Friday night, also). Kentucky scored 11 runs against Ball State on the weekend, while Tennessee 18 runs against Georgia State. Vanderbilt scored 19 runs against Illinois Chicago, although 15 of those came in one game. Florida scored 23 runs against Florida A&M. Arkansas scored 24 on the weekend against Murray State. So, just for this weekend and just in terms of runs scored, I don't see a dramatic difference between us a number of other SEC schools.
Evansville is 5-2 in their other games this season. They took 2/3 from Northern Illinois, dropped a mid week game against Kentucky, and then took 3/4 against Western Illinois this past weekend. Gardner Webb dropped 2/3 last weekend to our friends from Campbell and currently sits at 2-7 (2-4 in their other games). Kennesaw State is 6-4 when they aren't playing us and just took 2/3 on the road from UAB. We haven't played a murderer's row this year, but the teams we have played have generally been decent aside from playing us.
It is what it is at the plate. Hopefully Anderson can get it going a bit and hopefully we'll get Cole Tate and Josh McAllister back pretty soon, as both guys will help us offensively. Looking around at what the rest of the SEC did this weekend largely against mid-major type programs, I don't feel as bad about us offensively. We do have some limitations, but we're hardly alone in that respect, it would appear.
-Let's kick Ga Southern's ass this week. And let's revisit whether that's a series that we need to playing at all.
