We are top five only when two guys are pitching. Rest of the staff pitching and we aren't even top 25.
Printable View
We are top five only when two guys are pitching. Rest of the staff pitching and we aren't even top 25.
I agree its a relatively small sample size and I am not going overboard about it but we have now seen a Johnny wholestaff implosion in 4 of our 7 losses so far. Those being FAU (10-6), EKU (16-12), Vandy (12-6) and GA (11-8). With even decent pitching we win 2 or 3 of those games. Its a significant concern no doubt.
It's college baseball, there are going to be games like that. We've held opposing teams to 5 runs or fewer in 16 of our wins, 3 of our losses, and our one tie. I'm ok with our pitching right now. We need to find another dependable starter, but our pen has been pretty good in most games and a lot of our depth is young and learning.
It's not so much the Sunday and midweek losses - it's what they represent. Come postseason, we are going to be in a bind. It will be hard to win any tournament or regional setting (other than maybe a super) with only two dependable arms.
Is it too late for Elijah Staley to start pitching? Imagine that beast throwing downhill at you.
I wish we would let Pilkington go longer. Hopefully he has a good night tomorrow night and will become a Sunday guy for us. In his last 2 outings vs. EKU and Valley State, he has thrown 98 pitches in 9 innings allowing only 1 run with 11 K's, 3 BB's and 5 hits. During the remainder of those two games (10 innings), the rest of our bullpen allowed 16 runs, 5 walks, 19 hits and 11 K's.
Rpi says we over ranked.... #50.
Usm #14
Om #9
Vandy #25
Georgia #31
http://www.d1baseball.com/rpi/
I don't understand our fanbase sometimes. We complain about the media not respecting us and then they give us respect and we still complain. I don't get it. Guys enjoy the ride. The team has flaws but so does everyone else. I watch other teams besides just us and we are as good as anyone. They're aren't any perfect teams out there. Florida probably closest but look what just happened to them. We are young and talented. Sure we gonna struggle some but we gonna win way more than we lose.
I'm really glad to see us ranked that high. We have a brutal stretch coming up, so being highly ranked now will cushion the blow of perception if we drop some games in the next 3-4 weeks. We go 4-2 in our next 6 SEC games, and shit will begin to get Real.
You just nailed every MSU fan. Complain about EKU everyday. Ignore series wins over Vandy on the road, South Alabama, Georgia, USC on the road, and a sweep of Oregon.
The other thing is we have time to fix it at this point. We have Pilkington who has pitched well up to this point- but his big test is tomorrow. As others have said, if he does well against USM he will probably get the next look. He might have gotten the start Sunday against Georgia if he was RH because of Cohen and Wes overplaying how UGA's hitters looked against our RH pitching. We're going to pitch a lot of people tomorrow so they may limit his pitch count on Tuesday and then see how he does Sunday on another limited pitch count.
If Pilkington isn't ready Zac Houston has some starting experience and the best he has looked this year was his last start. We certainly could go back to Daniel Brown as well- we just have to not overextend him and we're going to have to piggy back someone with him. A change of scenery might do Tatum some good as well and that's another option.
You are right about them monkeying around too much with the pitching. They threw a freshman because they overevaluated a generalized stat. Keegan was wild as hell. I don't know if they got him out too soon or not- and I'm not going to bitch about them taking anyone out too soon after they've been leaving people in way too long most of the time- but I seriously doubt Keegan would have gone much longer. You can only play with fire for so long before you get burned. Keegan was too hyped up and let his emotions affect the rest of his performance. Which is probably not unusual for a freshman.
Yep. Florida lost to a UK team that also took two of three from Georgia. I think that affected our national perception in a positive way a little bit in the eyes of the "experts" this weekend.
Georgia has a legit ace- he will win some games for them. And I think at the end of the year we'll probably find out that they are a decent team- like 30 wins or so.
I'm not sold on the Sunday performance vs Oregon being more meaningful than the two SEC Sundays. Per Kendall Rogers @ D1BB earlier today: "The Ducks are ranked 287 nationally in batting average, 212 in scoring, 241 in runs, 249 doubles per game, and 134 in homers per game."
I agree that we should expect a couple guys to improve as the year goes on, but at this point, no clue who that might be.