Texas A&M Baseball Thoughts

[Todd4State]

WHAT A WEEKEND for the Diamond Dogs! I was worried about how we would perform at Texas A&M after losing the Auburn series and then it looked like on Friday my fears were confirmed. But then in typical 2017 MSU baseball fashion this team steps up yet again and dominated A&M in game two and then found a way to win the series in game three. The bottom line is as amazing as this all seems given our circumstances- good teams find ways to win games.

Pilkington does need to pitch better than he did against A&M because we're going to need him to be a legit ace down the stretch. Really that's about my only complaint. Yes, Plumlee gave up a grand slam but that should have been a foul ball. Denver McQuary stepping up could be HUGE for us. We desperately need someone to step up as the number two guy- and ever since the Governor's Cup he has been the guy to do that. He just keeps getting more and more confident it seems- and with that confidence his command is starting to follow suit gradually. He's going to be a very good pitcher for us. Billingsley was better overall than he was against Auburn and he gutted out his start and then we turned it over to our back end bullpen guys. Cole Gordon was a big reason why we were able to do that and if he can step up and be a long relief option for us that would be huge as well. Riley Self was outstanding and completely shut them down. It's ideal to have about seven legit pitchers for the postseason but between Pilkington, McQuary and then a bullpen of Gordon, Barlow, Self, and Price we could go a long with that.

Josh Lovelady was huge in game three at the plate for us. He kind of shows us how baseball is- last week against Auburn he got thrown out at the plate on a really good play by Auburn, but this week he scores on a passed ball that gave us the lead that we never gave up. The guy is an absolute warrior. Rooker only went 3-11 with a double which is not a good weekend for him- but us winning two games without him dominating like he has at times has to give our team some confidence. Hopefully Stovall's hand heals soon so that we can get him back into the lineup. I think the splint was supposed to come off today. LA had a big game on Friday and to me he looks like he is gradually improving. Bragg is a talented player that has been working on his work habits but he has been improving on that throughout the year. He has to get that bunt down when he is asked to do so at this point in his career. Gridley did not get a hit- but he did reach base four times with three being HBP and he also parlayed that into two runs scored.

Tanner Poole has had a tough year at times but he really stepped up for us on Saturday driving in Lovelady with a double. Mangum had a tough weekend as well- but he had a double on Friday and then an RBI on Sat. To me it looks like he is starting to feel a little bit better as far as swinging the bat. The two Texans- Hunter Vansau and Elijah MacNamee had good weekends going back home. Vansau had a big game on Friday getting three hits and a walk to go with two RBI's and then MacNamee had RBI's in the first two games and then a double in the third game.

One thing I think we all saw this weekend is how tough and dangerous the SEC is in baseball. You can't assume that just because you are playing the 14th best team in the SEC that you are going to automatically win. Auburn and Kentucky learned that the hard way. Even though Georgia has struggled this year, we're going to have to be really sharp on the road and play our best baseball to come out of there with a series win. That's going to be a big series for a guy like Gridley who is from there. They do have some very good players like Michael Curry and they hit better than Ole Miss obviously so we've got to be ready to play. I'm guessing it could be senior weekend for them but I'm not sure. They're playing with a lot of confidence after taking the series on the road at Kentucky and this week they play Georgia Tech in their version of the Governor's Cup. Tech has struggled this year so it wouldn't shock me if Georgia beat them especially as confident as they are right now. Their only path to the postseason is to get into the SEC Tournament and win it- so we're going to get their best. On top of all of that their coach could be in trouble if they don't finish the season hot, so you know they're going to go all out.

As we all know we got messed over by that umpire on the grand slam call and in his defense it was obviously hard to see- but that's not an excuse and the right call needs to be made. It wasn't just that but there were several obviously blown calls in other games around the league- a badly blown call at first base that went LSU's way and affected that game a lot and then a couple of really bad calls in Auburn/Alabama. The SEC needs to do something about this because it's hurting the quality of the product in the league. They don't allow coaches to argue anymore even if the coach is right and they end up fining the school and suspending the coach- which is simply too severe of a punishment for this level and it doesn't hold the umpires accountable. The replay system that the SEC has is a joke as well. They need to expand it beyond scoring plays and they need someone in Birmingham watching the games to alert the umpire that a call should be reviewed like MLB. As far as MSU specifically, we need a student manager to watching the TV version of the game on a computer to alert Cann that a challenge should occur. MLB teams have someone that does that for them and that helps with the process as well so that you don't have people like Paul Manieri challenging every single call and you also don't have coaches that miss plays that should be legitimately challenged.

On the pro baseball front- Jacob Robson was just named one of the Tigers top 30 prospects and Dakota Hudson had a great start a couple of days ago for Springfield the Cardinals AA team. Brandon Woodruff has been dominating in AAA and he should be called up pretty soon. Chad Girodo has been solid as the closer for the Blue Jays AAA team in Buffalo and will hopefully be called back up soon and Tyler Moore hit a couple of home runs for the Marlins AAA team in NOLA- yes, the Baby Cakes. I can see Hudson getting called up by the Cardinals in September if he continues to pitch well because their bullpen sucks. Although it has been better lately. Jonathan Holder pitched well for the Yankees last night and he also picked up his first MLB win a couple of days ago.

We have such as bright future right now as a baseball program. We have an AD that cares about baseball and is willing to help us out, we have a rock star of a coach that is just starting and is going to improve our recruiting and hopefully player retention- I can't wait to see what our 2019 and 2020 classes look like, and we have a new state of the art stadium on the way. And on top of that we have a lot of former players having success in pro baseball and making it up to MLB. We also have a totally united fan base behind this program. I can't wait to watch us in Omaha and this time Thunder and Lightning is going to refer to hitters 1-9 for us and starting pitchers 1-4. Hopefully there will be a lot more National Seeds, SEC Tournament and regular season titles, and Governor's Cups in there as well.

Hail State!

[WSOPdawg]

Good writeup, Todd.

One thing that somewhat bothers me concerns replays. I thought that ANY scoring play can be reviewed, and if so, Cann needs to step his game up and challenge some scoring plays. For example, Mangum's attempted steal of home against Bama where he was called out when replay showed he was safe (this would have been the 10th run and prevented the extra innings as we would have won 10-9, but no challenge, no run for us); aTm's grand slam that wasn't (why not have the umps go review the tape to be sure???), and wasn't aTm's 3rd run scored on a double play where the batter was clearly out at 1st on the relay from 2B but the ump called the runner safe, which allowed the run to score (why not go to the review because that was a scoring play)?

[Todd4State]

Good writeup, Todd.

One thing that somewhat bothers me concerns replays. I thought that ANY scoring play can be reviewed, and if so, Cann needs to step his game up and challenge some scoring plays. For example, Mangum's attempted steal of home against Bama where he was called out when replay showed he was safe (this would have been the 10th run and prevented the extra innings as we would have won 10-9, but no challenge, no run for us); aTm's grand slam that wasn't (why not have the umps go review the tape to be sure???), and wasn't aTm's 3rd run scored on a double play where the batter was clearly out at 1st on the relay from 2B but the ump called the runner safe, which allowed the run to score (why not go to the review because that was a scoring play)?

I absolutely agree with you. Cann needs to fix that. Another play that comes to my mind is Gridley getting called out on a steal attempt at third base during the Governor's Cup. To me it seems like a very simple fix and hopefully he will make that adjustment going forward.

[confucius say]

Are the umps held accountable in any way? Like can you be suspended or shipped off to call the tenn at mizzou series if you blow several calls? Would be interesting to hear the league's approach to this.

[dawgoneyall]

Cann should have request a review. That is on him.

[Commercecomet24]

Great write-up, Todd! Appreciate it! I think Pilkingtons hit a little bit of a wall. Hopefully he can find a second wind. I love this team!

[Todd4State]

Are the umps held accountable in any way? Like can you be suspended or shipped off to call the tenn at mizzou series if you blow several calls? Would be interesting to hear the league's approach to this.

I'm honestly not sure what if anything they do with them. If they do anything it's certainly not made public.

The problem here IMO is technically SEC baseball is considered amateur but people take it seriously. So, the SEC kind of plays the "but these are regular guys that umpire because they love the game" but to me that's not an excuse for incompetence. They need umpires that match the quality on the field- and right now they have high school caliber umpires calling what amounts to AA level baseball games. With a terrible replay system to boot.

[Todd4State]

Cann should have request a review. That is on him.

In his defense sometimes it's hard to see a play clearly from the vantage point of the dugout. Again, that's why he needs someone to alert him using the available technology that we have. I think in our case it was a play that wasn't obvious as it was happening but it became obvious when you looked at it on replay.

[Todd4State]

Great write-up, Todd! Appreciate it! I think Pilkingtons hit a little bit of a wall. Hopefully he can find a second wind. I love this team!

You may be right about Pilkington but he was very good against Auburn and I think most of his issue in the A&M game was something mechanical. Now were his mechanics off because he is tired? Possibly. Hopefully Henderson will fix whatever the issue was.

It's hard not to love this team. They just keep fighting and find ways to win.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Good write up Todd, I think we may get the long awaited payoff from the invested at-bats in several players like Macnamee, Vansau, and Poole. We need this.

[MarketingBully]

Great analysis Todd as usual. I am absolutely dumb founded that LSU fans actually thought the ump got that safe at first call right even though the ball beat the runner there by a step and a half and the announcers (who were impartial) went on and on about how bad a call it was. It's just like the A&M fans saying the grand slam was a fair ball. Hey idiots, call a spade a spade. You benefited from shitty calls by SEC umps. All the teams have. Even we have on the second double header walkoff against Alabama. Our fans can at least admit it. In no way was that LSU runner safe at any point that allowed the tieing run to score. No way.

[shoeless joe]

I'm honestly not sure what if anything they do with them. If they do anything it's certainly not made public.

The problem here IMO is technically SEC baseball is considered amateur but people take it seriously. So, the SEC kind of plays the "but these are regular guys that umpire because they love the game" but to me that's not an excuse for incompetence. They need umpires that match the quality on the field- and right now they have high school caliber umpires calling what amounts to AA level baseball games. With a terrible replay system to boot.

The problem is with all college umps. Umpire that strive to be really good are calling pro ball in the minors. College umps are guys that aren't good enough to call pro ball OR don't have the desire to call at the highest level so they call in college. Whichever one they fall under it leads to an extremely bad product day in and day out in college baseball. And with coaches having no recourse there is absolutely zero reason for them to try to do anything any better than what they do right now. It's a bad system that is poorly run. I've been on this soapbox for years and it seems to stay just as bad or even get worse as the years go on...which is what would be expected by the system that's in place.

[Bully13]

I still remember how hard my dad and I laughed reading Ron Polks comments after a game in Memphis saying how much he hated "getting homered" by the umps.

[Offshore Dawg]

Todd, do you or have you ever thought about writing for a baseball publication of some sort.

[Randolph Dupree]

You may be right about Pilkington but he was very good against Auburn and I think most of his issue in the A&M game was something mechanical. Now were his mechanics off because he is tired? Possibly. Hopefully Henderson will fix whatever the issue was.

It's hard not to love this team. They just keep fighting and find ways to win.

I'm not too worried about Pilk. I think he just didn't have his best stuff Thursday, and that's just baseball. I personally thought the home plate ump was hosing him by not giving him the call at the knees.

[Intramural All-American]

It was a homerun. We didn't get screwed. Plumlee, Rooker, and lovelady have all confirmed that. Regardless, plumlee was put in a terrible situation there, and pilk has got to be able to throw strikes. Huge weekend, still.

[AusTexDawg]

Great OP, Todd.

Seems like with all of the emphasis on shortening the length of games, especially in MLB and in college ball to a lesser degree, that there might not be much desire to expand replay to more plays.

[BB30]

Good read... I have been somewhat of a conservative non believer in this team being able to make some noise in the post season due to our pitching situation but we continue to find ways to win games and piece everything together. I think we are starting to see some of those young arms finally figure some things out. As you stated we really need Pilkington to be a bit more consistent and become a true ace. His production has been alright but hasn't matched the plus stuff he has.

The issues I see as far as post season play is concerned is primarily centered around regional play. If we drop one in the regional it will be tough with our pitching staff as it is right now to get through it. I think we can play with anyone in a 3 game set so it isn't quite as much of a concern in SR play. Once you get to the CWS you never know what can happen.

This team has been an absolute blast to watch compete. They are literally the definition of a bulldog. They just get out there and scrap, claw, and fight every game. The next few years look really bright for our baseball program.

[mparkerfd20]

It was a homerun. We didn't get screwed. Plumlee, Rooker, and lovelady have all confirmed that. Regardless, plumlee was put in a terrible situation there, and pilk has got to be able to throw strikes. Huge weekend, still.

Agreed. It wasn't foul. It was 100% a legit HR. Although some videos circulating appeared it was foul from the angle it was shot. I saw 2 different ones that confirmed it was indeed fair.

[MarketingBully]

This is the type of team that if they get hot will win the whole thing. The Coastal Carolina team last year reminds me of this team this year. They just win and have senior and upper classmen leadership to get us through the hard times. The hard part will be making it through the regional oddly enough but if we make it passed that hurdle I could see us going pretty far especially if McQuery continues to develop as a second starter and we have a one or two of our relievers step up. Our fans keep doubting but this team keeps winning.