DH Game Thread vs USA

[Dad04]

This is spot on. All teams, even the elite, strand runners, walk people with leads, and make errors. Every one of them.

This Cajun team is struggling in the “man on 3rd and less than two outs” category so far. Yet somehow are scoring more runs per game than the 2014 team. That stuff normally evens out so the best is probably yet to come.

I’ve had this conversations with friends of mine many times over the years. You notice the mistakes and perceived shortcomings of the team you root for and are passionate about WAY more than you do any other team’s.

That’s the basis of the question I was asking earlier in the thread. What are our conference mates doing?

The answer is, most are giving up more runs than UL, many are walking more batters, only a few are scoring more runs (and a lot of that has to do with some playing in Cracker Jack stadiums). And they are kicking the ball around more than the Cajuns are.

This Cajun team lacks a true #1 starter. But they have much better than average depth, and more than just about any other team in the conference. The defense is as good or better than any other team in the league, and they can score with anyone.

I expect a regional appearance from this group. Whether or not they can win a regional without a guy that can eat up innings and keep your offense in striking distance in the first game of a regional remains to be seen. I do think, other than running into one of the elite of the elite starting pitchers, that this team can score on anyone. And they have shown on many occasions that they can be cold blooded killers when they get into other teams bullpens.

They came back in game 2 Saturday and stood on USAs neck. The line up is deep and we no longer need to choose between fielders or hitters.

The least sloppy team usually wins, but they all sloppy.

[ManAboutTown]

"Sloppiness" or inconsistency has always been and will always be what separates good college teams from successful post season teams. I watched some #12 Ole Miss at #3 Florida game 3 yesterday. 5 errors in the game, Florida made 3 errors, but won 7-4. I mean bonehead errors too. Both teams will probably host. I know sloppiness is not limited to fielding %. I am not holding my breath for mistake free college baseball.

UF has a soph. Jac Caglianone, the Sunday starter, who also DH's every game. He is batting .400 and leads the nation in HR with 17. He is 6-0 on the mound 3.41 ERA and throws mid 90's from the left side.

Thank you JD. Exactly what I was getting at before the charmins started with the personal bs.

[zeppelincajun]

Ha. Glad you saw some semblance of humor there. It’s difficult to convey via text.

And it wasn’t in response to one simple fact, as I’m sure you know.

On a serious note, who, on the schedule, do you think the Cajuns need to win a series against (and not sweep) for the doubters to give them some credit? Or with ODU and the Georgia teams not on the regular season schedule, is there not one?

IMO this has less to do with "doubters" and more to do with discussing the whole picture. If we are going to examine how we statistically stack up against our conference mates (a totally valid discussion), I think it's important to keep in mind that the level of competition (to this point of the season) has not necessarily been equal. Our performances against some lackluster competition, IMO, has left some things to be desired. We had to gut out a series win against High Point. The narrative leaving that series was the Panthers were just better than we gave them credit for. They are currently sitting at 7-16 (1-5 in the Big South). We had to slug our way around 18+ innings of truly awful pitching this weekend against a very down USA team. Credit where it's due. We did that. This absolutely would've been an 0-3 weekend with the 2017-2021 offenses.

There are plenty of quality clubs left on the schedule that we would do well to take the series against. Playing as we have to this point, I'm not sure it will happen against the CCUs and USMs. We walk three guys in an inning against Coastal, and they may hang a 10 spot on us.

On a positive note: our strength of schedule is 12 out of 14 in the SBC...at 132. JMU and ASU are at 226 and 243 respectively. I take that to mean the vast majority of our league (including us) is committed to making this conference a contender on the national level.

[lafman1]

Well that didn’t take long.

[Dad04]

Thank you JD. Exactly what I was getting at before the charmins started with the personal bs.

Imperfection is baked into the college game. Baseball is hard.

[ManAboutTown]

Yea you can tout early season meaningless SOS numbers all you want. What I’m referring to is the eye test and I’ve been following Cajuns Baseball for longer than you’ve been alive. This team is the best we’ve had in 7+ years in overall attack. Our pitching staff is talented, they will settle in. I’m just not a sky-falling guy. But whatever, you do you.

Oof... There are some beauties in this discussion. The replies to me saying the obvious back then have aged well...

[MWolf]

That is not a controversial take. I think another problem is we read the game threads. There are many posts of "WE LOST TO HIGH POINT WE SUCK." "WE LOST TO MCNEESE WE SUCK." "WE LOST TO SOUTH AL AND BLEW A LEAD WE SUCK." Saying we have plenty of room to improve is not controversial. I get defensive when people say we suck. We don't. We have plenty of room to improve, and must improve to have success in the post season. Sometimes it's hard to separate in-the-moment reactions from general views of the team. Not just yours but everyone's.

We got swept by JMU we suck