#13 in Perfect Game

[Political Hack]

Have a real chance to move back into a top 8 seed over the next two weeks. Hammer that and the schedule is pretty favorable the rest of the way out.

[MarketingBully01]

Get to at least 8-4 over the next two weeks and we are sitting pretty.

[preachermatt83]

I look for us to go 7-5 over the next two weeks and still be sitting pretty bc I think we will take 2-1 against OM.

[Saltydog]

or national seed. RPI is where we've got to make up ground.

[Sandman14]

actually it is the exception rather than the norm when the seeding deviates tremendously from the consensus of the polls.

[PMDawg]

Crap. That was a fast week.

[maroonmania]

We certainly have our chances coming up. We still need to get some offense going to make the jump back to national seed type status though. Won a great series this past weekend, and I know Vandy has quality pitchers, but the Sat and Sun games combined we had ONLY 9 hits. Very fortunate to win the Sat game where we were outhit 8-6 and yet still manufactured 6 runs. We depend too much on walks, hit batsmen and errors at the moment for scoring opportunities. We can easily be shut down when you have a pitcher like Vandy did Sunday that isn't walking folks and the defense behind him is playing solid. Our pitching and defense look really good right now though. Believe the last 3 innings of the Sunday Vandy game was a defensive aberration. We had been steady as a rock for about 3 weeks before that.

[thedawg]

I think discussion of a national seed is wishful thinking after our start... Our start didn't kill our ultimate goals but it pretty much shot down a realistic shot at being a national seed... At this point we need to keep rolling and get a regional in Starkville.. I think thats a lot more reasonable of a goal... We would have to get red hot to get into the conversation for national seed... Its possible but really really hard in our league

[Pollodawg]

We certainly have our chances coming up. We still need to get some offense going to make the jump back to national seed type status though. Won a great series this past weekend, and I know Vandy has quality pitchers, but the Sat and Sun games combined we had ONLY 9 hits. Very fortunate to win the Sat game where we were outhit 8-6 and yet still manufactured 6 runs. We depend too much on walks, hit batsmen and errors at the moment for scoring opportunities. We can easily be shut down when you have a pitcher like Vandy did Sunday that isn't walking folks and the defense behind him is playing solid. Our pitching and defense look really good right now though. Believe the last 3 innings of the Sunday Vandy game was a defensive aberration. We had been steady as a rock for about 3 weeks before that.

Oh, I agree that we still need to get better. The biggest plus behind this is that we likely won't face another pitcher as good as Beede all year. We caught a break with him playing like excrement and his fielder's not helping, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

[maroonmania]

I think discussion of a national seed is wishful thinking after our start... Our start didn't kill our ultimate goals but it pretty much shot down a realistic shot at being a national seed... At this point we need to keep rolling and get a regional in Starkville.. I think thats a lot more reasonable of a goal... We would have to get red hot to get into the conversation for national seed... Its possible but really really hard in our league

I agree regional host is the more attainable goal at this point. That's why I was hoping against hope to get the almost unheard of Vandy sweep this weekend. We almost needed something like that to make up for earlier losses to Holy Cross (twice), Arizona and even Western Carolina that will be dragging on us all season to even think about a national seed. I think now to get back into a national seed discussion we will probably need to win the LSU series on the road and have some SEC sweeps at home which I'm certainly not counting on.

[AlSwearengen]

we were slapping the ball around pretty good friday night, but saturday and sunday were pretty bad.

[engie]

Let's not shortsell that Vanderbilt pitching staff as "quality" now. Let's call them what they are -- the overall best staff in the country.

After this weekend, they are (nationally):
#2 in ERA
#1 in WHIP
#1 in hits allowed/9IP(5.19 avg)
#7 in K/BB ratio
#3 in K/9IP

[Todd4State]

If we finish in the top 3-4 in the SEC, we should host. We've set ourselves up nicely for a change. A sweep of Arkansas would be really nice- and is doable, but also not likely. Then LSU is always going to be tough on the road.

[engie]

we were slapping the ball around pretty good friday night, but saturday and sunday were pretty bad.

You watched both of those games in their entirity?

[blacklistedbully]

To be a national seed, I think we need to win every series at least 2-1 plus sweep at least 1. Or if we lose any series, we'd need to sweep another to make up for it. This is assuming we don't lose any of the 5 remaining OOC games.

All speculation, of course, and impacted by outside factors such as our RPI, which is, of course impacted by our opponents RPI and our opponent's opponent's RPI. To keep it simple, we mostly want the teams we play and beat to win their other games to a point. Where it gets interesting is to wonder where things land if LSU, Vandy, OM, Bama, Auburn, UT or various combinations win enough outside our series to take a national seed away from us, despite a series loss to us.

Would be fun to have an educated guess on all that. An uneducated guess makes me think the only ones that could would be Vandy, LSU or OM.

[Homedawg]

we were slapping the ball around pretty good friday night, but saturday and sunday were pretty bad.

Sunday, I thought we swung it pretty well after the first couple of innings. Lots of hard hit balls, most of which were right at them. Armstrong rocket to first, heck liner to third, rea 3 hard hit balls. Those were 5 that come straight to mind that were all outs.

[bulldogcountry1]

we were slapping the ball around pretty good friday night, but saturday and sunday were pretty bad.

We stung some balls pretty good yesterday, but most were hit right at a fielder or they just made good plays. On the other hand, Vandy had 6-7 dumb luck infield hits and hit maybe two balls with any kind of authority.

There's a saying for that I can't recall at the moment.

[War Machine Dawg]

Sunday, I thought we swung it pretty well after the first couple of innings. Lots of hard hit balls, most of which were right at them. Armstrong rocket to first, heck liner to third, rea 3 hard hit balls. Those were 5 that come straight to mind that were all outs.

Yup, a whole lotta "at 'em" balls yesterday. If you keep hitting it hard like that, eventually they're gonna find the holes. Thought we hit it pretty well overall Saturday, too.

[Political Hack]

the 1st and 2nd place SEC teams should be national seeds. If we take the LSU series, we should be vying for that #2 spot down the stretch. RPI, polls, etc... don't dictate outcomes. They're a result of your play. Win the games and we'll be a national seed. Hell, there was a team with 7 losses in the top 10-12 last week.

[Political Hack]

we're also the higher ranked 9-loss team in the country. Others will catch us in that category and slide as they do. losing early is way better than losing late.