Missouri St Game 3

[bigbub50]

Frei Draws start at 2b. Solo Hr, single, and throwing error through 3.
Stone has a no no going through 4 but has surrendered 5 walks and a hbp.
State has stranded 5 base runners through 3.
Skinny has 2 K's with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs.

[House33]

Can Stevens get a shot at 1st base yet?

[bigbub50]

Can Stevens get a shot at 1st base yet?

Stallman the home plate stomper can play there as well.

[House33]

Anybody but the strike out king?

[bigbub50]

State bats alive in 4th. Downs, Pulliman, and Cupp go hr, triple, single respectively. Starting pitcher chased.

[Ranchdawg]

This Foster kid looks good!

[House33]

?Open mouth and insert foot?

[parabrave]

You could hear Hines hit over the radio and that sounded like a HR.

[bigbub50]

Gotta give Hines credit with his glove as well.

[Pinto]

Their middle infield is salty.

[DawgFromOxford]

Gotta give Hines credit with his glove as well.

This. While his bat seems to be boom or bust, he's been A+ defensively today

[EdwardDrayton]

Combo no no through seven.

[EdwardDrayton]

"Bogenpohl matadors that one." LOL! Well played Charlie!!

[CaptainObvious]

While Hines does have a solo HR, he has left the population of French Camp on the bases today. Apparently performs better with no pressure! Feel bad for his future Wife!

[R2Dawg]

Combo no no through seven.

Yeah impressive again on the mound.

Bats been good this weekend too. Some experts said we'd go 2-1 this weekend and MizSt is a good team? Maybe USM was just an outlier?

We'll find out what we are made of after neutral site games coming up.

[EdwardDrayton]

Yeah impressive again on the mound.

Bats been good this weekend too. Some experts said we'd go 2-1 this weekend and MizSt is a good team? Maybe USM was just an outlier?

We'll find out what we are made of after neutral site games coming up.

JP doing good work.

[StateDawg44]

No Gavin Black again. What?s the deal?

[EdwardDrayton]

This playing handsies with the pitchers is the dumbest thing.

[HoopsDawg]

Really thought we would go Hungate against the righties

[BeardoMSU]

Combo no no through seven.

Oh well...

[StateDawg44]

Dotson ain?t the guy.

[EdwardDrayton]

Oh well...

Still good work by our guys and JP overall. Dotson on the other hand, welp ......

[HoopsDawg]

Dotson ain?t the guy.

A no hitter is a special thing. I'm surprised we didn't go with our best available.

[StateDawg44]

A no hitter is a special thing. I'm surprised we didn't go with our best available.

Yeah a no hitter is nice but when you walk as many as we have it takes a little luster away.

[HoopsDawg]

Yeah a no hitter is nice but when you walk as many as we have it takes a little luster away.

I'm talking purely about the decision.

[EdwardDrayton]

Whew. Another W and a series sweep. Although Closing Time gave us some unnecessary drama.

[EdwardDrayton]

Yeah a no hitter is nice but when you walk as many as we have it takes a little luster away.

Yeah we did walk a few.

[maroonmania]

Dotson ain?t the guy.

I missed some of the later innings. Did Black ever pitch? Why are we trying to use Dotson as a cliser?

[bigbub50]

Lemon was asked about black at presser Friday. Said he was fine and may pitch this wkend. Reading between the lines, he is either struggling or could be in the dog house. Purely speculation on my part. Also mannel hasn’t pitched. They could also be banged up and lemon doesn’t want to divulge that info.

[StateDawg44]

I missed some of the later innings. Did Black ever pitch? Why are we trying to use Dotson as a cliser?

Still a ghost

[HoopsDawg]

Lemon was asked about black at presser Friday. Said he was fine and may pitch this wkend. Reading between the lines, he is either struggling or could be in the dog house. Purely speculation on my part. Also mannel hasn’t pitched. They could also be banged up and lemon doesn’t want to divulge that info.

Lemon is really weird about injuries.

[bigbub50]

Steve just asked him again about Black a few minutes ago at the press conference. Lemon said "hes good, just waiting for the right opportunity, you may see a cpl new pitchers on Tuesday." If the two new pitchers are Black and Mannell and they both look healthy, then those boys MAY have been in the dog house. We were counting on both those arms from all accounts and for both of them to not pitch at all the first 7 games, then start pitching tells the tale in my opinion. Again, pure speculation on my part. We need both of them.

[BigDawg81]

I heard that Black is healthy but is having command issues.

[BeardoMSU]

I heard that Black is healthy but is having command issues.

Hmmm...so is Dotson, lol.

[Homedawg]

Lemon was asked about black at presser Friday. Said he was fine and may pitch this wkend. Reading between the lines, he is either struggling or could be in the dog house. Purely speculation on my part. Also mannel hasn’t pitched. They could also be banged up and lemon doesn’t want to divulge that info.

Mannel got rough up this spring. He's just behind some people.

[BeardoMSU]

Mannel got rough up this spring. He's just behind some people.

And Black?

[BigDawg81]

Hmmm...so is Dotson, lol.
Haha right? If Black can not play in these games, he is not going to play much or at all this year.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Things that jump out to me:

(1) Undefeated when Downs plays, just saying. He's probably having a Cody Brown season
(2) Frei is a player, Reeves must have been real good in practice to bench him thus far.
(3) Ace Reece could end up good, but he K's a lot today, he's statistically identical to Hines
(4) Reece and Hines look like dog meat to mid-major lefty pitchers
(5) Cupp is better than Mershon at SS (defensively and meant as a complement because I really liked Mershon as a player)
(6) I guess Nolan Stevens is not pitching anymore?
(7) Sundays might get brutal after Hungate, Williams, Davis, and McPherson are done for the weekend, need Gavin Black
(8) Pruett must be hurt or something

This was a good weekend, Missouri State is a good program.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Lemon is really weird about injuries.

Hopefully just dog house.

It has not hurt the team that all these other dudes got innings. Other than walks, the competition thus far can't do a thing with these pitchers. 143 batting average against these pitchers.

Last year MSU 4:1 K to BB ratio, it's about 3:1 right now. But JP is using his complete staff right now.

[Coach34]

Federalist made some good points- I'll also add:

1. Its still cold. That skews things. Different players handle cold differently. I was terrible in cold or rain. So is every other baseball player. So we still have lots of thinsg to figure out.
2. Stop putting Dotson in high level sits- he aint ready
3. We are going to have constant line-up change for awhile because we have no idea who needs to play 2B/LF/RF yet
4. Reese is feeling the pressure and needs to drop to 5 again. We scored 9 runs on Sat and Lemon throws him back to 3. No jackass. Stay with them flipped because it was successful.
5. I'm not sure Ligon and Simmons needs to be SP's. They have some good stuff but we have guys throwing mid-90's that probably could give us a better 5 innings.
6. Sullivan is solid. Like that guy and his Rollie Fingers stache
7. Work Frei hard at 2B- I think his bat will be necessary this season every weekend

[Todd4State]

I really do not understand why we put Dotson back out there in that situation just because we need to get not only Black- we need to get several other pitchers work too. Mannell, Nolan Stevens, and Pruitt needs to get another chance. That's regardless of how Dotson pitched today. Being up 6-1 in the 9th was the perfect opportunity to get Black in the game. Or even Mannell. Maybe the pitchers had a party that got out of hand? We are talking about baseball players so it's not out of the realm of possibility.**

One thing I noticed and liked about our offense today- they got Hines and Reese to strike out on pitches up in the zone and then in later at bats they both hit home runs on pitches up in the zone. THAT is called adjusting. Very good to see. In fact those two home runs turned out to be very big because without them- it's a tie game that goes into extra innings. And we are now 14/14 in stolen bases and we got bunt hit from Chance. I like the versatility we are showing where we can hit for power and also play small ball.

Ironically enough, my biggest concern is the starting pitching. Stone didn't have his best stuff today and was wild. It seemed to me like he was having trouble with his release point at times and holding onto the ball a little bit too long. Ligon and Stone walking guys and not going very deep into games is a concern. Homedawg- if they keep throwing like they did this weekend we might see both our guys Foster and Grant in the rotation by years end. Also, we need to start to figure out some defined roles with our bullpen. Really hard to do that when key pieces haven't gotten in a game yet. Lemonis should have used his veto power to get someone other than Dotson in just because Dotson has pitched a fair amount this year. Luke's a good pitcher and nothing against him- we just need to see what we have.

This team is weird because I feel like we are a good team and we are performing well overall- but I also feel like we still have a lot of question marks not just on the mound but also in the field.

Catcher is settled for the most part I think. We know Ross is the guy and we know that Powell is a solid back-up. But if Powell struggles we may have to give Owen a shot to see what he can do.

Hines and Reese have the corner infield spots and Cupp is the shortstop. Hines and Reese haven't been bad- but they also haven't clicked yet either. They'll get hot soon enough. Cupp is playing really well. Second base is a mixed bag. I really like Frei and Butkner. It's an interesting combination. Frei is a switch hitter with power and Butkner is a freshman who can hit, play defense, and steal bases. Going to be interesting to see if the do a platoon where Frei starts the game to give us some more power and then we maybe sub in Butkner later for defense? Or do they do a tradition L/R split against certain pitchers?

Outfield is even more jumbled. We legit have six guys that can play. Downs and Stallman are both playing well. I think we have to be traditional there with L/R splits. Chance is going to play everyday as he should. Stevens has been doing some good things. But then you have Pulliam who can run and hit. And then you have O'Brien who we can use as a defensive replacement. And it looks like his hitting has improved so he isn't a complete liability. And then what else is there to say about Noah Sullivan? Ball sounds like it has been shot out of a cannon when he hits. Really good portal pick up by Lemonis.

We got a big test against Troy who is a top 25 team on Tuesday. The biggest thing I want to see besides a win is some other pitchers get in the game. We almost need a Wednesday game against a SWAC team to get everyone in for the week.

[Coach34]

We need to win this midweek. I'd like to see Davis or McPherson get a start. Roll Williams in there also