And the way they bounced back the last two days. Thursday night was such a difficult loss.... An extremely winnable game that we just didn't win.... It put us at 2-5 in the conference and put us one game away from losing our 8th home conference series in a row. Instead of going into the tank, we had some guys who stepped up and put it in another gear... Robert Tyler, Skyler Weber, Stephen Wrenn, and Connor Jones. I saw a lot of resiliency in Starkville too, after the Friday night game.... It's a long season, but I have to say that the mentality looks good.
-If I'd had more time yesterday morning, I would have written "Stephen Wrenn needs a hit in the worst way..." He sure didn't have to wait long.... I think that yesterday was the third time he's homered on the first pitch that our offense has seen in a game.... I know that he hit a leadoff homer (coincidentally enough in the series finale last year at Tennessee and at South Carolina, and I believe both of those were on the first pitch). The HR was great, but adding another one after that was even better. Skyler Weber smashed the first pitch he saw into RF, so suddenly our first two hitters have squared up the only two pitches they've seen. Setting the tone early that way, and playing in front was just tremendous.
-Don't take a smoke break (if people still do that) in the 4th inning with us. I don't know what why, but it seems like a lot of action always happens in the 4th...
-If anyone was sitting near the end of the Alabama dugout, I'd love to know what all was said between that fan of ours and Mitch Gaspard, and then the rest of the Alabama staff.... It seemed like a very long, and not overly pleasant, conversation, at least as judged by typical fan/ coach interactions. I think it was in the middle of the 5th.
-Baseball is a funny game. Our offense looks so much better and so much more balanced now that you're getting some production from LJ Talley and with Trevor Kieboom's production at 1B. To me, that was the biggest story offensively this weekend, and the biggest reason why we were so much more successful. This was the best offensive series we've had since Florida State came to town last year, I think. And, for the concern about switching defense for offense, we played a very good defensive game yesterday with Kieboom at 1B and Curry behind the plate.
-Both teams used so much bullpen on Thursday night. But then, our relievers only had to get four outs the rest of the series. Think about that... You think about two older guys answering the bell in Tyler and Jones this weekend.... We are in some trouble if either of those guys gets bounced in the 4th inning. I still tend to think that Tyler's CG 2 hitter at Ole Miss his freshman year was slightly more impressive than what he did Friday night, just because of the talent in Ole Miss' lineup that year, but either way, Friday night was, at worst, the best he's thrown since then. And then Connor Jones has a career day, without question, yesterday. Contrast that to Alabama, who saw their bullpen take on a lot of work Friday and Saturday.
-We only K'd 4 times yesterday.... And I think you saw in the 4th, Alabama isn't the greatest defensive team in the world. We made some things happen yesterday just putting the bat on the ball...
-To that end, I wondered at the time why Alabama pulled in their IF in the 4th inning.... They were down 6-2 and again, it was the 4th inning.... I think it was Daniel Nichols who hit a pop into shallow LF that would have been a flat footed play for the SS if he's playing at normal depth, but he isn't and the ball drops and we score two more runs (and Nichols winds up at 2nd). I'll take it, for sure, but I've never understood why college coaches are so in love with pulling in the IF, especially early in the game.
-It's always nice in the rubber game to go down the stretch with a big league and seeing some playing time for some others. By the end of that one yesterday we'd replaced our entire IF and one of our OFs. I think all of our position players on the active roster got in yesterday.
-On to Clemson and A&M. Don't know a whole lot about the Tigers, other than that they appear to be playing some good baseball. I watched a chunk of A&M and Florida last night. The Gators are the better team, especially playing at home, and I think we may be seeing some of what we did last year when A&M started off so hot.... Still, Texas A&M will be a much better lineup than the one we saw this weekend. And they'll pitch too, especially now that it appears that Andrew Vinson is back for them. But either way, we played some really, really good baseball the last two days. We'll give ourselves a chance out in College Station if we play to that level. We're 4-5 and we're 2-0 in April.
-If I'd had more time yesterday morning, I would have written "Stephen Wrenn needs a hit in the worst way..." He sure didn't have to wait long.... I think that yesterday was the third time he's homered on the first pitch that our offense has seen in a game.... I know that he hit a leadoff homer (coincidentally enough in the series finale last year at Tennessee and at South Carolina, and I believe both of those were on the first pitch). The HR was great, but adding another one after that was even better. Skyler Weber smashed the first pitch he saw into RF, so suddenly our first two hitters have squared up the only two pitches they've seen. Setting the tone early that way, and playing in front was just tremendous.
-Don't take a smoke break (if people still do that) in the 4th inning with us. I don't know what why, but it seems like a lot of action always happens in the 4th...
-If anyone was sitting near the end of the Alabama dugout, I'd love to know what all was said between that fan of ours and Mitch Gaspard, and then the rest of the Alabama staff.... It seemed like a very long, and not overly pleasant, conversation, at least as judged by typical fan/ coach interactions. I think it was in the middle of the 5th.
-Baseball is a funny game. Our offense looks so much better and so much more balanced now that you're getting some production from LJ Talley and with Trevor Kieboom's production at 1B. To me, that was the biggest story offensively this weekend, and the biggest reason why we were so much more successful. This was the best offensive series we've had since Florida State came to town last year, I think. And, for the concern about switching defense for offense, we played a very good defensive game yesterday with Kieboom at 1B and Curry behind the plate.
-Both teams used so much bullpen on Thursday night. But then, our relievers only had to get four outs the rest of the series. Think about that... You think about two older guys answering the bell in Tyler and Jones this weekend.... We are in some trouble if either of those guys gets bounced in the 4th inning. I still tend to think that Tyler's CG 2 hitter at Ole Miss his freshman year was slightly more impressive than what he did Friday night, just because of the talent in Ole Miss' lineup that year, but either way, Friday night was, at worst, the best he's thrown since then. And then Connor Jones has a career day, without question, yesterday. Contrast that to Alabama, who saw their bullpen take on a lot of work Friday and Saturday.
-We only K'd 4 times yesterday.... And I think you saw in the 4th, Alabama isn't the greatest defensive team in the world. We made some things happen yesterday just putting the bat on the ball...
-To that end, I wondered at the time why Alabama pulled in their IF in the 4th inning.... They were down 6-2 and again, it was the 4th inning.... I think it was Daniel Nichols who hit a pop into shallow LF that would have been a flat footed play for the SS if he's playing at normal depth, but he isn't and the ball drops and we score two more runs (and Nichols winds up at 2nd). I'll take it, for sure, but I've never understood why college coaches are so in love with pulling in the IF, especially early in the game.
-It's always nice in the rubber game to go down the stretch with a big league and seeing some playing time for some others. By the end of that one yesterday we'd replaced our entire IF and one of our OFs. I think all of our position players on the active roster got in yesterday.
-On to Clemson and A&M. Don't know a whole lot about the Tigers, other than that they appear to be playing some good baseball. I watched a chunk of A&M and Florida last night. The Gators are the better team, especially playing at home, and I think we may be seeing some of what we did last year when A&M started off so hot.... Still, Texas A&M will be a much better lineup than the one we saw this weekend. And they'll pitch too, especially now that it appears that Andrew Vinson is back for them. But either way, we played some really, really good baseball the last two days. We'll give ourselves a chance out in College Station if we play to that level. We're 4-5 and we're 2-0 in April.
