Baseball's elephant in the room.

[AlSwearengen]

The bullpen; will it improve? Has our gamble on pitchers like Pitzer and Sweeney with bloated ERA's not paid off? The SEC is tougher than the Cape, but I would expect Pitzer to have some success after how well he did in the Cape, but he doesn't seem to get any extended action. What about the freshmen? It seems like Miller gets murdered with his fastball; is it straight/flat? Location? I also think he needs a third pitch. What is holding Rhodes back? I doubt we see much of Bauer. Davis doesn't seem to have made a jump from last year. I'm starting to think Foster is going to be inconsistent at best.

We can't expect to score 10 runs against SEC weekend pitchers and we can't expect our starters to go more than 7 innings. Is there a remedy?

[99jc]

I think our young pitchers will improve through the season. Will they be good enough to get to a super-regional? Yes, I believe they can! Will it be enough to win the CWS? I don't believe so. But anything can happen if you have 2 good starting pitchers and the right matchups.

[Coach34]

Thats what BOC and Parker get paid to do- figure it out. We dont lack talent- so that is a position to be in preferable to past teams we have had down the line recently.

Davis? We didnt really need him to make some kind of big jump- just stay solid. His ERA was 3.77 last year. Teams hit .236 against him.
Burns? Has yet to give up a hit
Pitzer? Teams hitting .130 vs him so far
Webb? Throwing ok so far
Rhodes? Given up 1 hit in 6 innings
Sumbitch? Has thrown pretty well so far with 23 K's in 12 innings

These guys will be fine. Our problems have been more about our choices of who to pitch when. That's the elephant- can the coaches push the right buttons on the bullpen????

[ZedFedder]

I think we have the pieces, just need to whittle it down