Relax people,
we just split a couple of midweek games.
Let's see what our weekend rotation and bats do against Virginia Tech this weekend.
Still getting our feet on the ground and settled in. I'm confident we will be better than last year.
Thank you.
This team has fight and mental toughness; we witnessed it last night. Down 8-0 our team did not pack it in. This game is a game of inches and it was shown last night. Bases loaded and a scorching line drive down the right field line was one inch from being a bases clearing, game tying hit; instead it was caught by the first baseman on a terrific play.
This team is getting better and learning how to win. Going through a little adversity only makes the winning that much more enjoyable.
JMO
Hitting wise, the XBH's will come but team is improving each game (partially due to facing midweek arms likely) but I like the plate discipline. This is by far the most walks we've taken through 5 games in the last 8 years going back to Deggs first full year as asst. The SLU game helped but you can see it last night as well.
Pitching side, the team ERA looks bad, but you can chalk a huge portion of that up to two bad innings/outings in a short span. Bulk of the pitching appearances have been very good and it shows with the team K/BB ratio (3.75) where only 2016 had better numbers thus far. Fielding has also been fairly solid though you have hidden plays like missing a couple of deep flys last night that could have been outs but were listed as hits. Those are plays that at least one of them should have been made (RF) and the other would have needed to be a pretty outstanding play to be made.
Really, I just think our preseason leaders need to take the pressure off of themselves at the plate. The hits will come for Breaux and Cantrelle but maybe they're pressing too much now. Those guys stir the drink and will go a long way to getting us going and improving the team slug.
Hopefully Brennan is ok also
Not the result I wanted, but the guys played hard last night. Alex Hannie almost literally ran through a wall.
I don't hate putting Batty out there for the second inning. I think that was a move thinking long term.
It's pretty clear Deggs is still collecting information because some guys aren't performing when the lights are on as they did in the Fall or in a small JC stadium.
It would have been nice if we came out of the gate firing on all cylinders. But that's just not the case. We are still figuring it out from the players to the coaches. The key is to keep getting better. And, of course, the faster the better.
How about another obnoxiously optimistic irrelevant stat? We are undefeated on the road.
**I had to go back and edit all the "they's" to we's". Thank you Zoom!**
Thanks for saying this. Windy is a perfect example. I can count three different ABs where he came back from 0-2 to earn a walk.
We have seen some pitching that didn’t exactly hit their spots, but these hitters are also causing a lot of these walks. It was very obvious the last two games.
I love seeing the improvement from guys like Colton Frank, Caleb Armstrong, Windy even like you mention shows better plate discipline.
Right now, guys I think need to be everyday guys just from the eye test of watching every game: Hagedorn and Toro (prefer to catch Toro as his arm is noticeably better, but DH for Hagedorn who is only JC batter hitting), Frank, Windham, Cantrelle. Others you could make a case for but I dont have a problem rotating 2B & OF.
The OF is a bit of a mess and I don't feel like anyone is a must due to current circumstances. But I feel like Hannie has earned a shot. Brennan is hopefully OK and you let guys like him work out of it at the plate. Just dont like his K numbers, even against RHP.
Fitzgerald is hitting the Juco slump like it owes him money right now, feel like he watches 2 strikes every AB. But he only K'd once and got on 2x last night. I know those JC guys will come good, hopefully one or two sooner at the plate. That newcoming Juco hitting slump is a real thing though, between Fitz, Talley, Greene, and Kimple, those are our 4 lowest OBP's for guys with more than 5 ABs. Hagedorn is only one not affected.
Great post. I agree with everything except to say Hannie has earned his spot at least for now. He is the only one that has some physicality at the plate, which is severely needed. He had a big triple against SLU and was robbed of another extra base hit last night that would have probably led to a different result in the game.
Breaux if healthy is a must too based on his defense in centerfield.
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