We don’t play Alabama every year, obviously, so this doesn’t mean quite as much, but I think hold the longest series winning streak in the SEC against us…. By my memory, 2004 was the last time we took a series from the Tide. You have to put an astrick by 2008, given that we’d already clinched the SEC title in week 9. Alabama surprisingly swept a double header from us to start league play in 2009, before we bounced back and won the finale on Sunday. The 2012 series loss at Alabama was one of the more pivotal series, in the grand scheme of things, in the David Perno career. That weekend, combined with some things that happened two weekends later in Gary Indiana are part of the reason we are where we are now.
Last year the Tide had to play their “home” games in Hoover while their stadium was being renovated. I was thinking about that last Saturday night driving back from Starkville. Hoover isn’t exactly “just up the road”…. It’s 50 miles away from the Tide campus. Imagine having to get on a bus and drive 50 miles every time you wanted to practice…. Alabama stayed in one of the many hotels near the stadium there in Hoover for weekend series…. It’s really no surprise that they never got things on track a season ago.
Bama looks pretty good so far. They’re hard to read and some of their mid-week performances would seem to indicate that they aren’t very deep in their bullpen. Alabama comes to Athens at 15-9 overall, 4-2 in the SEC, and 6-5 away from the Capstone. They opened the season by taking 2 of 3 from Maryland. They followed that up with a sweep of North Dakota. Alabama had a pretty good showing in Cary NC at a tournament there, beating Notre Dame, Niagra, and Brown, while losing to NC State. Alabama would drop 2 of 3 at home to the Houston Cougers. Following a decisive mid week beating at the hands of Southern Miss, Alabama made a loud statement by sweeping a Saturday doubleheader in Baton Rouge. LSU won on Sunday. Alabama returned home to face Tennessee, taking the first two from the Vols before dropping the finale of another Saturday doubleheader.
Alabama played Auburn in Montgomery in a non-conference mid week game Tuesday, falling 10-1. That makes three times in four mid week games that Alabama has lost by 7 runs or more.
Tonight we’ll see Geoffery Bramblett, a big junior righty from Hoover High School. Bramblett has been really good on the year, going 3-0 in 6 starts with a 1.42 ERA. His 38 innings lead the Tide staff. He has a 29/11 K/BB and the opponents are hitting just .203 against him.
Friday’s starter is Jake Walters, a sophomore righty from Maylene Alabama. This guy picked up a save against us last season, on Sunday I believe. Walters’ numbers aren’t quite as good as Bramblett’s but they’re solid. He’s 2-2 in 6 starts with a 2.73 ERA. He’s thrown 33 innings and has a 39/11 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .254 against him.
Saturday we’ll face off with Nick Eicholtz, a lanky junior righty from Odessa Florida. Eicholtz hasn’t gotten the work load of the other two, but he’s been really good in his outings. In 4 appearances, all starts, he’s 1-0 with a 0.50 ERA. He’s thrown 18 innings and has a 12/7 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .236 against him and it’s pretty much all singles… Only two hits this year have gone for extra base hits, both doubles.
As a staff, Alabama throws a lot of strikes. They’ve only walked 67 all year, in 24 games. We’ve walked 123 in 26 games, including 44 in our 6 conference games.
Offensively, Alabama is lead by Chance Vincent, at least in terms of average and OBP. The senior right handed hitting 1st baseman will probably hit 6th for them. He’s .321/.398/.346. Chandler Taylor leads the Tide in HRs with 4. We should expect to see the freshman southpaw from Montgomery hitting 3rd and playing RF. He’s hitting .256/.365/.463 with 4 HRs and 11 RBIs.
Georgie Salem should be the Tide CF and hit in the bottom 3rd. You may remember his good work in center in 2013. I’m surprised that this guy is still there, but his offensive numbers just haven’t been great the last two years. In fact, he’s only hitting .173/.230/.247. Regardless of the numbers, this guy does have some ability and he can hurt you. Watching the guy in 2013, I just assumed he’d be top ten round pick his junior year and would be off in spring training right now….
If you look at the SEC stat sheets, most offensive categories have Georgia and Alabama at the bottom. These guys have only hit 10 HRs on the year and their 189 strike outs is worse than ours on a per game basis. Their OBP is also .001 lower than ours and their 16 steals matches our (so they run successfully very slightly more than we do, per game). Their .252 average is .001 better than ours and their slugging percentage is .015 less than ours. From that aspect, these guys do look beatable. They do pitch very well though.
This certainly looks like a very even series on paper.
Last year the Tide had to play their “home” games in Hoover while their stadium was being renovated. I was thinking about that last Saturday night driving back from Starkville. Hoover isn’t exactly “just up the road”…. It’s 50 miles away from the Tide campus. Imagine having to get on a bus and drive 50 miles every time you wanted to practice…. Alabama stayed in one of the many hotels near the stadium there in Hoover for weekend series…. It’s really no surprise that they never got things on track a season ago.
Bama looks pretty good so far. They’re hard to read and some of their mid-week performances would seem to indicate that they aren’t very deep in their bullpen. Alabama comes to Athens at 15-9 overall, 4-2 in the SEC, and 6-5 away from the Capstone. They opened the season by taking 2 of 3 from Maryland. They followed that up with a sweep of North Dakota. Alabama had a pretty good showing in Cary NC at a tournament there, beating Notre Dame, Niagra, and Brown, while losing to NC State. Alabama would drop 2 of 3 at home to the Houston Cougers. Following a decisive mid week beating at the hands of Southern Miss, Alabama made a loud statement by sweeping a Saturday doubleheader in Baton Rouge. LSU won on Sunday. Alabama returned home to face Tennessee, taking the first two from the Vols before dropping the finale of another Saturday doubleheader.
Alabama played Auburn in Montgomery in a non-conference mid week game Tuesday, falling 10-1. That makes three times in four mid week games that Alabama has lost by 7 runs or more.
Tonight we’ll see Geoffery Bramblett, a big junior righty from Hoover High School. Bramblett has been really good on the year, going 3-0 in 6 starts with a 1.42 ERA. His 38 innings lead the Tide staff. He has a 29/11 K/BB and the opponents are hitting just .203 against him.
Friday’s starter is Jake Walters, a sophomore righty from Maylene Alabama. This guy picked up a save against us last season, on Sunday I believe. Walters’ numbers aren’t quite as good as Bramblett’s but they’re solid. He’s 2-2 in 6 starts with a 2.73 ERA. He’s thrown 33 innings and has a 39/11 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .254 against him.
Saturday we’ll face off with Nick Eicholtz, a lanky junior righty from Odessa Florida. Eicholtz hasn’t gotten the work load of the other two, but he’s been really good in his outings. In 4 appearances, all starts, he’s 1-0 with a 0.50 ERA. He’s thrown 18 innings and has a 12/7 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .236 against him and it’s pretty much all singles… Only two hits this year have gone for extra base hits, both doubles.
As a staff, Alabama throws a lot of strikes. They’ve only walked 67 all year, in 24 games. We’ve walked 123 in 26 games, including 44 in our 6 conference games.
Offensively, Alabama is lead by Chance Vincent, at least in terms of average and OBP. The senior right handed hitting 1st baseman will probably hit 6th for them. He’s .321/.398/.346. Chandler Taylor leads the Tide in HRs with 4. We should expect to see the freshman southpaw from Montgomery hitting 3rd and playing RF. He’s hitting .256/.365/.463 with 4 HRs and 11 RBIs.
Georgie Salem should be the Tide CF and hit in the bottom 3rd. You may remember his good work in center in 2013. I’m surprised that this guy is still there, but his offensive numbers just haven’t been great the last two years. In fact, he’s only hitting .173/.230/.247. Regardless of the numbers, this guy does have some ability and he can hurt you. Watching the guy in 2013, I just assumed he’d be top ten round pick his junior year and would be off in spring training right now….
If you look at the SEC stat sheets, most offensive categories have Georgia and Alabama at the bottom. These guys have only hit 10 HRs on the year and their 189 strike outs is worse than ours on a per game basis. Their OBP is also .001 lower than ours and their 16 steals matches our (so they run successfully very slightly more than we do, per game). Their .252 average is .001 better than ours and their slugging percentage is .015 less than ours. From that aspect, these guys do look beatable. They do pitch very well though.
This certainly looks like a very even series on paper.
