The Good:
-Thought we played a much better series than we did against Evansville. Maybe Evansville is better than we thought. They took 2/3 from Northern Illinois over the weekend, so that probably doesn't clarify much of anything. But I thought that we played better top to bottom than we did last weekend. It's good to see that.... I think you could see some improvement at Georgia State last Wednesday and you could see some more this weekend.
-Great to see CJ Smith go 7 innings. He's definitely not your prototypical Friday night starter (and wasn't going to be ours until some other guys went down) though I think he has a place in the rotation somewhere.
-Good bounce back from Garrett Blaylock yesterday too. After McAllister's walk off HR on Saturday, it goes without saying that Garrett needed to have a big game, and he did.
-Speaking of McAllister, how good has that guy been? It was tough this year to get a good read given that the fall practices were closed, but I really didn't know that he was going to be a contributor this year.
-Is Luke Wagner legitimately a two-way player? I think that we get a little cute sometimes with position players pitching.... I think of Wagner as a pitcher first and a hitter second, but I think that this long term future is on the mound. But maybe really is a two-way guy.
-Back to Blaylock, even with what he did yesterday, he's still at .143 on the season (those 2 HRs were his first two hits of the season), but he has only K'd twice in 14 ABs. So there's definitely some improvement there.
-It goes without saying that we'll be better as a club offensively once Ben Anderson and Riley King get going. And I really think they will. Those guys are a combined 5-48 on the season, but between them, they've only K'd 4 times. Riley King is hitting the ball hard and Anderson is fast enough to beat out some things and force mistakes... it'll happen, I really think it will.
-Lastly, yesterday is how it's supposed to play out. You play a team like Gardner Webb with their third game in two days, you really ought to have a large advantage on the mound, and that certainly showed up for us. We haven't played a major college caliber lineup yet, but our pitching has overmatched the hitters from the three teams that we've played so far. We'll get Webb built back up, hopefully get Cannon back pretty soon, and get some confidence for these young guys.... our pitching is going to always give us a chance.
The Bad:
-Having said what I did above about Anderson and King, it's pretty obvious that we have some limitations in the lineup... I don't think it's something that you can just fix, but you hope some guys will get hot and carry us. The lack of power is a bit concerning though. I'm a bit surprised that we haven't run more on the year... we've only attempted 5 steals so far. I'm hoping that will pick up
-7 walks yesterday by our staff was a little bothersome and we are averaging four and a half per game. Got to clean that up a little bit
-We have some great looking uniform combinations... I mean, I'm biased, but we do.... that said, I wish we'd throw away those white hats. I've never been a fan of white hats in baseball and I really do not like our white hat/ red jersey combo that we wore yesterday.
I imagine North Florida this weekend will be better than Gardner Webb. I like where we are though. Feels better than last Monday, for sure.
-Thought we played a much better series than we did against Evansville. Maybe Evansville is better than we thought. They took 2/3 from Northern Illinois over the weekend, so that probably doesn't clarify much of anything. But I thought that we played better top to bottom than we did last weekend. It's good to see that.... I think you could see some improvement at Georgia State last Wednesday and you could see some more this weekend.
-Great to see CJ Smith go 7 innings. He's definitely not your prototypical Friday night starter (and wasn't going to be ours until some other guys went down) though I think he has a place in the rotation somewhere.
-Good bounce back from Garrett Blaylock yesterday too. After McAllister's walk off HR on Saturday, it goes without saying that Garrett needed to have a big game, and he did.
-Speaking of McAllister, how good has that guy been? It was tough this year to get a good read given that the fall practices were closed, but I really didn't know that he was going to be a contributor this year.
-Is Luke Wagner legitimately a two-way player? I think that we get a little cute sometimes with position players pitching.... I think of Wagner as a pitcher first and a hitter second, but I think that this long term future is on the mound. But maybe really is a two-way guy.
-Back to Blaylock, even with what he did yesterday, he's still at .143 on the season (those 2 HRs were his first two hits of the season), but he has only K'd twice in 14 ABs. So there's definitely some improvement there.
-It goes without saying that we'll be better as a club offensively once Ben Anderson and Riley King get going. And I really think they will. Those guys are a combined 5-48 on the season, but between them, they've only K'd 4 times. Riley King is hitting the ball hard and Anderson is fast enough to beat out some things and force mistakes... it'll happen, I really think it will.
-Lastly, yesterday is how it's supposed to play out. You play a team like Gardner Webb with their third game in two days, you really ought to have a large advantage on the mound, and that certainly showed up for us. We haven't played a major college caliber lineup yet, but our pitching has overmatched the hitters from the three teams that we've played so far. We'll get Webb built back up, hopefully get Cannon back pretty soon, and get some confidence for these young guys.... our pitching is going to always give us a chance.
The Bad:
-Having said what I did above about Anderson and King, it's pretty obvious that we have some limitations in the lineup... I don't think it's something that you can just fix, but you hope some guys will get hot and carry us. The lack of power is a bit concerning though. I'm a bit surprised that we haven't run more on the year... we've only attempted 5 steals so far. I'm hoping that will pick up
-7 walks yesterday by our staff was a little bothersome and we are averaging four and a half per game. Got to clean that up a little bit
-We have some great looking uniform combinations... I mean, I'm biased, but we do.... that said, I wish we'd throw away those white hats. I've never been a fan of white hats in baseball and I really do not like our white hat/ red jersey combo that we wore yesterday.
I imagine North Florida this weekend will be better than Gardner Webb. I like where we are though. Feels better than last Monday, for sure.
