-If you didn't have a dog in the fight, both yesterday and today would have been very enjoyable to games to just sit back and watch. There was some really good baseball out there over the last days. To that end, I guess it's fitting that we split the last two. But, you realize that today was a very winnable game with a number of post season implications, and it really stings to have not won it.
-Scott Daeley is a much better 3rd base coach than what we had the last couple of years. The sequence today with McLaughlin was disappointing and probably cost us the game. It's happened a few times where Daeley has thrown up the "stop" sign awfully late (like when the runner is already past 3rd with a full head of steam) and it's almost gotten a couple of times before today. It did catch up to us today. In general, you'd like to see some more aggressiveness and in that spot specifically, with where Sean was when the stop sign came up, and where the ball was, he really should have been sent. But as I say, it's been an improvement from the 3rd base box this year, without question.
-I told you guys that David Sosebee was the right #3. Wish we'd made the move earlier, but glad that we finally did. He's gotten much stronger in each of his starts and made it look easy at times today. Overall, both and Tyler got a lot of early count outs and it kept their pitch counts under control. That said, there was no reason to run Sosebee back out there in the 8th today. We had Cheek, Cole, and Ripple in the bullpen who hadn't thrown all weekend. It looked like Sosebee hit the wall to some extent in the 7th, and (just like at LSU on Sunday), you're playing with fire a bit when you run the guy back out there, especially with so many bullets left in the bullpen. It didn't cost us in the 8th today, but it almost did, and shouldn't have happened that way. Really proud of Sosebee, though.... Here's a guy who, as I've said before, wasn't even in the plan last year and is doing this for us down the stretch.
-I was really unimpressed with how MIke Bianco handled the late game today. He didn't bunt in the 8th (or 9th?) when it seemed like a no brainer to do so, and he also pinch ran for Sikes Orvis with one out there in the 9th.
-One Ole Miss fan told me on the way out that we were the first team to play the shift on Orvis that way. That made me happy. It was the same philosophy, but different positioning that we used on Martin last week (Jess Posey was basically playing a "short field" in RF for Orvis this weekend). Glad that we're putting together good scouting reports. This will be a big issue with AJ Reed next week, but we've done a really good job this season of not letting the other team's "guy" beat us. We made a bad pitch to Stewart at Florida State, but did well with him otherwise. We shut down Rea and Bregman too. Grayson Greiner has been the exception, but then we handled Orvis great this weekend. Something to be said for that.
-Going to games at Ole Miss is just a pleasure. Beautiful ballpark, great setting, and they run it very well... A lot of places could take a lesson from Ole Miss on how it should be done.
-Scott Daeley is a much better 3rd base coach than what we had the last couple of years. The sequence today with McLaughlin was disappointing and probably cost us the game. It's happened a few times where Daeley has thrown up the "stop" sign awfully late (like when the runner is already past 3rd with a full head of steam) and it's almost gotten a couple of times before today. It did catch up to us today. In general, you'd like to see some more aggressiveness and in that spot specifically, with where Sean was when the stop sign came up, and where the ball was, he really should have been sent. But as I say, it's been an improvement from the 3rd base box this year, without question.
-I told you guys that David Sosebee was the right #3. Wish we'd made the move earlier, but glad that we finally did. He's gotten much stronger in each of his starts and made it look easy at times today. Overall, both and Tyler got a lot of early count outs and it kept their pitch counts under control. That said, there was no reason to run Sosebee back out there in the 8th today. We had Cheek, Cole, and Ripple in the bullpen who hadn't thrown all weekend. It looked like Sosebee hit the wall to some extent in the 7th, and (just like at LSU on Sunday), you're playing with fire a bit when you run the guy back out there, especially with so many bullets left in the bullpen. It didn't cost us in the 8th today, but it almost did, and shouldn't have happened that way. Really proud of Sosebee, though.... Here's a guy who, as I've said before, wasn't even in the plan last year and is doing this for us down the stretch.
-I was really unimpressed with how MIke Bianco handled the late game today. He didn't bunt in the 8th (or 9th?) when it seemed like a no brainer to do so, and he also pinch ran for Sikes Orvis with one out there in the 9th.
-One Ole Miss fan told me on the way out that we were the first team to play the shift on Orvis that way. That made me happy. It was the same philosophy, but different positioning that we used on Martin last week (Jess Posey was basically playing a "short field" in RF for Orvis this weekend). Glad that we're putting together good scouting reports. This will be a big issue with AJ Reed next week, but we've done a really good job this season of not letting the other team's "guy" beat us. We made a bad pitch to Stewart at Florida State, but did well with him otherwise. We shut down Rea and Bregman too. Grayson Greiner has been the exception, but then we handled Orvis great this weekend. Something to be said for that.
-Going to games at Ole Miss is just a pleasure. Beautiful ballpark, great setting, and they run it very well... A lot of places could take a lesson from Ole Miss on how it should be done.
