Here's the deal gentlemen

[MetEdDawg]

Clearly this team had its hitting deficiencies and we couldn't get the big runs in the clutch moment today. But we took the consensus #1 team in the country to the 9th inning of the last game of their regional even with all the injuries, the youth we had to play, and the hitting woes at times. I know people are pissed and will bitch and moan, but if you look at the makeup of this team, we finished where we should have.

I said two months ago our potential was the last game of a regional at someone else's home turf. That's where we ended up. Not the ending we wanted, but not a bad year. We had a downish year and are still a Top 20 team. We will have a good combination of experience and youth if we can get Rea and Holder to come back and lead this team. Should be another chance at a good year next year.

[CadaverDawg]

Clearly this team had its hitting deficiencies and we couldn't get the big runs in the clutch moment today. But we took the consensus #1 team in the country to the 9th inning of the last game of their regional even with all the injuries, the youth we had to play, and the hitting woes at times. I know people are pissed and will bitch and moan, but if you look at the makeup of this team, we finished where we should have.

I said two months ago our potential was the last game of a regional at someone else's home turf. That's where we ended up. Not the ending we wanted, but not a bad year. We had a downish year and are still a Top 20 team. We will have a good combination of experience and youth if we can get Rea and Holder to come back and lead this team. Should be another chance at a good year next year.

Totally agree.

[Leroy Jenkins]

Congratulations.

[chainedup_Dawg]

I can accept losing straight up but giving a game away with shit like wild pitches is unacceptable. We threw more wild pitches tonight then I saw in an entire 12 and under tournament last weekend

[State82]

Clearly this team had its hitting deficiencies and we couldn't get the big runs in the clutch moment today. But we took the consensus #1 team in the country to the 9th inning of the last game of their regional even with all the injuries, the youth we had to play, and the hitting woes at times. I know people are pissed and will bitch and moan, but if you look at the makeup of this team, we finished where we should have.

I said two months ago our potential was the last game of a regional at someone else's home turf. That's where we ended up. Not the ending we wanted, but not a bad year. We had a downish year and are still a Top 20 team. We will have a good combination of experience and youth if we can get Rea and Holder to come back and lead this team. Should be another chance at a good year next year.

Nailed it. Bingo.

[Todd4State]

Clearly this team had its hitting deficiencies and we couldn't get the big runs in the clutch moment today. But we took the consensus #1 team in the country to the 9th inning of the last game of their regional even with all the injuries, the youth we had to play, and the hitting woes at times. I know people are pissed and will bitch and moan, but if you look at the makeup of this team, we finished where we should have.

I said two months ago our potential was the last game of a regional at someone else's home turf. That's where we ended up. Not the ending we wanted, but not a bad year. We had a downish year and are still a Top 20 team. We will have a good combination of experience and youth if we can get Rea and Holder to come back and lead this team. Should be another chance at a good year next year.

Well said. The only thing I'm going to add is we had some key starting pitchers go down and I think that was a huge difference. Paul Young could have been a difference maker. He was hurt in the pre-season from too much pitching in JUCO. Then Woodruff was essentially rehabbing this year, which hurt. Then Preston Brown emerged- and then went down, which I think was a killer. And then finally Ross gets some arm soreness just in time for the regionals.

We essentially had an entire starting rotation go down- and still finished one game from a SR. With a team that is hardly an offensive jaugernaught.

[MetEdDawg]

Well said. The only thing I'm going to add is we had some key starting pitchers go down and I think that was a huge difference. Paul Young could have been a difference maker. He was hurt in the pre-season from too much pitching in JUCO. Then Woodruff was essentially rehabbing this year, which hurt. Then Preston Brown emerged- and then went down, which I think was a killer. And then finally Ross gets some arm soreness just in time for the regionals.

We essentially had an entire starting rotation go down- and still finished one game from a SR. With a team that is hardly an offensive jaugernaught.

Exactly. Offensively we get better and we bring back a lot of injuries from the staff. Don't forget Will Cox in that bunch that went down too.

[LiterallyPolice]

Pirtle will be tough to replace..... But I think Cody Brown will fill the "beloved gamer" role over the next couple of years. We have some great young talent.

[Todd4State]

Pirtle will be tough to replace..... But I think Cody Brown will fill the "beloved gamer" role over the next couple of years. We have some great young talent.

I love Cody Brown. I was sitting in the LFL when he hit the double off the wall against Ole Miss to start the rally. He won me over that day.

[CadaverDawg]

Pirtle will be tough to replace..... But I think Cody Brown will fill the "beloved gamer" role over the next couple of years. We have some great young talent.

Yea, Cody and Vickerson are spark plugs, and love him or hate him, Vickerson plays with grit. I love the emotion those two show

[msstate7]

Vickerson needs to work on getting on top of ball this offseason. He's not a power hitter and he gives himself no chance hitting ball in air.

The bears' Braxton lee should be who Vick tries to imitate.

[Schultzy]

Sorry dudes, I've got some sour grapes here. The ball/strikes early in this one were horrible and cost us. The first run they scored was after a walk that Laster clearly struck them out on.

After that they rung Heck up on a pitch their catcher couldn't even catch. The ump was intimidated by that crowd?! If you can't handle that as an umpire don't sign up for the regionals.

We had our chances but damn that umpire was so inconsistent with the stroke zone. That's why you need to win regular season games. So you can host because college umps are so damned intimidated by the home crowd.

[Todd4State]

Sorry dudes, I've got some sour grapes here. The ball/strikes early in this one were horrible and cost us. The first run they scored was after a walk the Laster clearly struck them out on.

After that they rung Heck up on a pitch their catcher couldn't even catch. The ump was intimidated by that crowd?! If you can't handle that as an umpire don't sign up for the regionals.

We had our chances but damn that umpire was so inconsistent with the stroke zone. That's why you need to win regular season games. So you can host because college umps are so damned intimidated by the home crowd.

The umpire did suck. Maybe if we take care of business our crowd can intimidate the umpire in our favor. Or at least give him bar-b-que.

[maroonmania]

Sorry dudes, I've got some sour grapes here. The ball/strikes early in this one were horrible and cost us. The first run they scored was after a walk the Laster clearly struck them out on.

After that they rung Heck up on a pitch their catcher couldn't even catch. The ump was intimidated by that crowd?! If you can't handle that as an umpire don't sign up for the regionals.

We had our chances but damn that umpire was so inconsistent with the stroke zone. That's why you need to win regular season games. So you can host because college umps are so damned intimidated by the home crowd.

Amen, its night and day when you host versus you don't host. Got to keep that as a primary goal next year. And I'll probably get jumped on but even though this team did have some good moments this year and has some very special players that we will be losing next year, we really didn't do anything special in this regional. 2 wins over a 3 and 4 seed. JSU pulled the miracle of all miracle wins to practically hand us this regional and we couldn't muster up one win over ULL to take it. In fact we didn't lead ULL in ONE inning of either game we played them so I'm not going to pump out my chest because we were in reach the last couple of innings of the last game. And yes the umpiring didn't help but we just didn't make enough plays hitting, pitching or fielding to beat a very good ULL host team. I hope we continue to see more talent infused into our program and vastly improve our offense. I'll just say it, of all "good" MSU baseball teams I have ever watched over many decades this one was the most boring because of the constant struggle to score runs. Hoping that will improve next year. Pitching and defense are must haves but its a lot more exciting when you have a team that can hit the ball with authority.

[Schultzy]

Laster had several other pitches that should've been called strikes in my opinion. And were called in the same location for The University of Louisiana.

It's part of it though, earn a regional and we get those calls. I've laughed before at some of the calls we've gotten.

To respond to another thread earlier in the day, I'm glad we have more power on the way in our lineup, it looks like we have more on the way.

Wish we could've given Holder a lead to work with, he looks nastier than ever and I hope he makes it in the pros. Maybe my favorite player ever.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Well said. The only thing I'm going to add is we had some key starting pitchers go down and I think that was a huge difference. Paul Young could have been a difference maker. He was hurt in the pre-season from too much pitching in JUCO. Then Woodruff was essentially rehabbing this year, which hurt. Then Preston Brown emerged- and then went down, which I think was a killer. And then finally Ross gets some arm soreness just in time for the regionals.

We essentially had an entire starting rotation go down- and still finished one game from a SR. With a team that is hardly an offensive jaugernaught.

This is right. We had a ton of tough luck with injuries on the mound this year. To go along with the four you just mentioned, Will Cox and John Marc Shelley were both hurt pretty much all season. A lot of uncontrollable shit did not go our way this year- we made our share of mistakes as well, but not everything that went wrong was our fault. If people would just look at the final results of the season without thinking about the lofty preseason expectations, that would make it a lot better.

The more you think about it, with all the injuries and key underperformances, it's been a pretty damn good coaching job by Cohen and Butch Thompson to get us to an 18-12 SEC record and a few wild pitches away from a super regional. If this is a worst-case scenario/down year for us going forward, then I can certainly live with that.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Sorry dudes, I've got some sour grapes here. The ball/strikes early in this one were horrible and cost us. The first run they scored was after a walk that Laster clearly struck them out on.

After that they rung Heck up on a pitch their catcher couldn't even catch. The ump was intimidated by that crowd?! If you can't handle that as an umpire don't sign up for the regionals.

We had our chances but damn that umpire was so inconsistent with the stroke zone. That's why you need to win regular season games. So you can host because college umps are so damned intimidated by the home crowd.

The zone was terribly inconsistent- no doubt. But that's not really an excuse. We need to host next year and get those calls.

[I seen it dawg]

This is right. We had a ton of tough luck with injuries on the mound this year. To go along with the four you just mentioned, Will Cox and John Marc Shelley were both hurt pretty much all season. A lot of uncontrollable shit did not go our way this year- we made our share of mistakes as well, but not everything that went wrong was our fault. If people would just look at the final results of the season without thinking about the lofty preseason expectations, that would make it a lot better.

The more you think about it, with all the injuries and key underperformances, it's been a pretty damn good coaching job by Cohen and Butch Thompson to get us to an 18-12 SEC record and a few wild pitches away from a super regional. If this is a worst-case scenario/down year for us going forward, then I can certainly live with that.

Whoa you may freak some people out. There are some sky has fallen crowd that will not comprehend what you wrote.

[bulldogcountry1]

I love Cody Brown. I was sitting in the LFL when he hit the double off the wall against Ole Miss to start the rally. He won me over that day.

Brown looks like a mean SOB out there, and I mean that in the best possible way. He's got a bit of that serious Will Clark face on the field, and I think he will be a gamer once he earns a full time position.

[BrunswickDawg]

The more you think about it, with all the injuries and key underperformances, it's been a pretty damn good coaching job by Cohen and Butch Thompson to get us to an 18-12 SEC record and a few wild pitches away from a super regional. If this is a worst-case scenario/down year for us going forward, then I can certainly live with that.
You have to factor in the challenges with the results. If the Braves make it to the post season - after losing Huddy and BMac to FA, Beachy, Walden & Medlin to injury, having Uggla on the roster, Heyward being sub-par, BJ being BJ, etc. - you will say that Freddy and Wren did a great job managing a roster through adversity to have a successful season. The difference for us is you can't fill those gaps, so you have to adapt you style of play to the depleted roster. With what we lost, we should be pleased with the end result and the job our coaches did to manage it. Satisfied? No. Pleased? Yes.

[CadaverDawg]

Brown looks like a mean SOB out there, and I mean that in the best possible way. He's got a bit of that serious Will Clark face on the field, and I think he will be a gamer once he earns a full time position.

I agree. Brown is the type of player I love. Not scared to show some grit and emotion.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Brown looks like a mean SOB out there, and I mean that in the best possible way. He's got a bit of that serious Will Clark face on the field, and I think he will be a gamer once he earns a full time position.

I'm a huge Cody Brown fan. He gets on base, plays good defense, does all the little things really well, and even has a little bit of pop in his bat. He may be the most underrated player we have right now.

Our OF next season has some real upside between Brown, Vickerson, Robson, and Swinarski. I'd also like to see Reid Humphreys get a shot out there to make some more room in the infield, but I'm not sure if they'll do that.

[Bubb Rubb]

Laster had several other pitches that should've been called strikes in my opinion. And were called in the same location for The University of Louisiana.

It's part of it though, earn a regional and we get those calls. I've laughed before at some of the calls we've gotten.

To respond to another thread earlier in the day, I'm glad we have more power on the way in our lineup, it looks like we have more on the way.

Wish we could've given Holder a lead to work with, he looks nastier than ever and I hope he makes it in the pros. Maybe my favorite player ever.

I agree about the shitty umpiring. It was terrible, and that pitch Laster threw was strike three and end of inning...that was a killer. BUT...the umpire was terrible all over the place. He was giving Lingo those curveballs that were three inches off the plate, too. He was terrible, but he was terrible both ways; it just seemed to hurt us more.

Let's don't blame this on the umpires. That's the kind of stuff Ole Miss fans and Genespagers do. We're better than that.

[messageboardsuperhero]

You have to factor in the challenges with the results. If the Braves make it to the post season - after losing Huddy and BMac to FA, Beachy, Walden & Medlin to injury, having Uggla on the roster, Heyward being sub-par, BJ being BJ, etc. - you will say that Freddy and Wren did a great job managing a roster through adversity to have a successful season. The difference for us is you can't fill those gaps, so you have to adapt you style of play to the depleted roster. With what we lost, we should be pleased with the end result and the job our coaches did to manage it. Satisfied? No. Pleased? Yes.

Yep. Cohen can't just go out and pick up a free agent when four or five of our expected contributing pitchers go down with injuries.

[TheRef]

Yep. Cohen can't just go out and pick up a free agent when four or five of our expected contributing pitchers go down with injuries.

Either that or we can trade a few prospects in single-A for a quick replacement.

[Maroon Diapers]

Let's don't blame this on the umpires. That's the kind of stuff Ole Miss fans and Genespagers do. We're better than that.

I'm not normally one to blame umpires either. But when Collins has 2 on/2 out and the catcher has to lunge at the ball to catch it in the other batters box for 'Strike 3', that's sorry umpiring. That SOB should be better than that or he shouldn't be umpiring. Kind of like Heck getting hosed on the pick-off.

[Bubb Rubb]

I'm not normally one to blame umpires either. But when Collins has 2 on/2 out and the catcher has to lunge at the ball to catch it in the other batters box for 'Strike 3', that's sorry umpiring. That SOB should be better than that or he shouldn't be umpiring. Kind of like Heck getting hosed on the pick-off.

I'm in full agreement that they were bad calls. Like someone else said, that's why it's so important to host. I just wanted to point out that bad calls went both ways, even though they seemed to hurt us more. If we were hosting, we may have gotten some of those breaks.

Like Big Daddy Polk used to say, "That's baseball."