My thoughts on the weekend

[messageboardsuperhero]

Offensively- Bless their hearts, but Cincy has one of the worst pitching staffs I've ever seen from a "biggish" school. Just too many freshmen for them to have success this year... But we did what we should have done to them and Miami OH. We will no doubt score more runs and have more pop this year- the amount of doubles was very encouraging and we are clearly a much bigger, more physical team this year. I can't wait to see what we look like when Collins, Rea, and especially Smith all come back fully healthy. Robson is finally healthy and showing out. I'm looking forward to seeing separation between who can really hit good pitching and who was feasting off inferior arms. Our lineup will definitely be much more settled this year as well.

Defensively- We will be outstanding, as expected. No real surprise there.

Pitching- We were so-so on the mound, IMO. I will say, Cincy does have a few good hitters and are better at the plate than they are on the mound. The bright side is that the veterans we'll rely on were pretty solid, and our bullpen will be extremely deep if Sexton or McCord step up and we can keep Mitchell, Tatum, and Brown in the pen. We allowed 15 ER in the four games on the weekend, but 10 of those came in two innings against true freshmen making their debut. Man, McCord is going to be so good for us- his stuff is just outstanding. Hopefully it was just jitters, because I really like some of what I saw out of him. I still think he can help us this year.

All in all, we did what we should have done to inferior teams. The next six games will probably be more of the same. We should be 10-0 when Arizona comes to town, and we'll probably learn a little more then.

[Todd4State]

I agree with you. We just need to get a few guys healthy and we have to figure the pitching staff out.

[bulldogcountry1]

We sit around for weeks speculating about every aspect of the team. Then we play, and we still wonder if what we saw was accurate, or if it was the result of other factors: cold weather, nerves, injuries, quality of opponent, etc.

Nevertheless, it was definitely encouraging to see us swinging the bats that way. Yes, Cincy's pen was pretty bad, but wildness and cold weather can often have an effect on the offense. I was pleased to see us be patient at the plate and get lots of hits with runners on. There weren't many chances for strategy. We missed a couple of bunt opportunities and got some runners thrown out on the bags due to some sort of miscommunication, but let's just call it learning opportunities.

The veteran pitchers mostly did what they needed to do, so that's a plus. Several of the young guys had to battle some nerves, but I was pleased to see Cohen let them battle, for the most part. Some of those guys will make strides every appearance and be major contributors.

Enough of the vague generalities...

Rea looked confident and comfortable, more than he ever did last year.

I hate that I missed Smith. He should be a dynamic player.

Holland started coming around yesterday. He will be big for us, but he needs to control his emotions a little better.

Humphreys is a big time player

Team chemistry seems much more like it was two years ago. Loose and fun, yet focused and very well prepared.

[maroonmania]

The thing I really like about this team is how many different talented options we have both in the field and on the mound. If one guy is in a hitting slump we have options to switch the starting lineup around. And we have a lot of pitching options where if some of the young guys struggle we just need to find the ones that are ready. Would seem out of all the talented arms we have we can find 3 guys that could be reasonably consistent on SEC weekends even while leaving RMitchell in the pen. And I think there is little doubt that with our lineup depth and the new ball that we are going to score considerably more runs this year. So we just need pitchers that will control games, they don't have to shut people out.