Todd4State
04-04-2016, 12:12 AM
We won perception week! We beat USM and then took two out of three from Ole Miss and now for the most part our fans feel pretty good about our program right now. Being in first place in the SEC West also helps as well. Obviously, a sweep would have been even better- but there is no shame for MSU fans right now when you are at the water cooler when it comes to baseball. Case in point- some Ole Miss fan tweeted to Kendall Rogers about Bianco being fired after this season after the Saturday game. Another case in point- the huge attendance turnout- including yours truly- from MSU fans. That was AWESOME to see. I have no doubt we will keep that up in two weeks with SBW coming up. Fun series overall. It was a series we HAD to win at home after last season- not just getting swept but overall having a losing season. We restored some order for now at least until the Governor's Cup. Which I think will be big for both teams.
Dakota Hudson pitched about as well as you could ever hope for. He is a legit SEC ace- and not many teams have one like him. His cutter is filthy. Sexton was almost as good- and I felt bad that he didn't get the shutout that he deserved. I don't think he is in Hudson's class- but he's pretty close in terms of college pitchers and while he won't be a first round pick I could definitely see him going in the top five rounds easily. He's making himself some money. Great to see them come back this year and shove it down Ole Miss's throats after what happened to them in Oxford last year. I LOVED it when Hudson struck out one of their hitters and then stared down their dugout. THAT is what I want to see from our pitchers.
I got pissed off when I saw that Daniel Brown was starting. Before the game I saw Houston standing by the bullpen and I actually went through some denial stage where I was hoping that Cohen was going to pull one on Bianco. It didn't happen. The thing I don't understand about Brown starting was they already obviously lost confidence in him before last week- why go back to him when you have Houston, Pilkington, heck- even Breaux or Small as possible options? I could understand if all other options had been exhausted. I know everyone has a different opinion on who should start and most of you know that I think Houston should start. But my reasoning is Houston in his last start was really good- which makes him not getting another shot puzzling to me. In fact at the time he actually had BETTER stats than Brown did AS A STARTER. And that was before Brown fell off the wagon. Houston also had an ERA of 1.68 in the Cape and struck out 24 in 21.3 innings which included four starts. Houston also has an ERA that is a more than respectable 2.68 right now too. That said, I bet they will let Pilkington get the start. They are enamored with the freshmen- well one of them was hitting 98 today so I can understand. But that doesn't mean that they are the best option.
We lost today because of our starting pitcher. Everything else that happened stemmed from his start which I seen it Dawg accurately described as non-competitive.
It forced us to extend our bullpen- and that caused us some problems. Collateral damage basically. I thought Rigby pitched really well. He got the double play ball we needed and then Collins let it go between his legs. Small was electric. I love the way he attacked their hitters. I thought Blake Smith and Tatum pitched pretty well also- again we had to extend Blake to try to steal an inning to make up from the lack of a start we got and he gave up a ground rule double when he really should have been out of the game. Tatum kept the ball down and held a runner at third with less than two outs. Something he can build on. Reid was up and down- he got us out of jam but then got himself into trouble the next inning by walking two guys and hitting another. But then he calmed down and even though he allowed a hit he got it back together.
Elih Marrero had a really good weekend. He controlled the running game for the most part, but what really impressed me was his hitting. He had a key double to tie the game up today. I love the way he plays too.
Lowe is coming around. He still hits a lot of balls right at people- but he hit a home run to left center off of Short who I think is their best pitcher. Plus Short is LH too which makes it even more impressive. By the end of the year I think he is going to be tearing it up. Collins hit a ball that still hasn't landed yet. He has gotten a LOT better defensively- but his error today was a killer. Collins is starting to hit the ball a little bit better too.
Holland is slumping pretty bad right now. It might be about time to bring back LA or go with Stovall. Gridley was pretty solid all weekend. He just battles the pitcher every time up and makes them work.
Robson getting hurt is not good. I don't know what happened other than he can't grip a bat. We saw what he could do on Friday night when he got into their pitchers head and caused the bad throw which he scored all the way from first on to give us a cushion. We need him back for Florida because we need someone that can steal bases against Florida in a low scoring game. I freaking love Jake Mangum because it's pretty apparent that he hates Ole Miss almost as much as me. He gets a home run and then just wreaked havoc on them ALL weekend. The only problem is he has to reign it in because he got a little out of control there trying to catch everything that they hit on Saturday plus he got thrown out at third and picked off second once. They get to deal with him for two more years- I'm sure they are looking forward to it. Cody Brown did his usual. Reid had a good series also outside of a couple of at bats. Especially on Friday against their ace.
With all due respect to the rest of our opponents Florida is probably going to be the best team we see during the regular season. They have three starting pitchers that could/should go in the first round when they are draft eligible. That doesn't include their OF that's a probable first round pick and their third baseman who might win freshman of the year. Plus it's in Florida where they are almost unbeatable right now. In fact they HAVEN'T lost a game at home this year. Hudson and Sexton are going to give us a fighting chance in games one and two, but us getting swept is very possible. I'll be satisfied if we manage to somehow win one. I'm 100% sure that they will be number one in the country- they just swept the former number one team in Texas A&M.
We also have UT-Martin on Tuesday and that is a MUST win because of the EKU debacle. It's not a high pressure game, and I'm not worried about it- but we MUST take care of business. They split a series with Jackson State for Heaven's sakes. So, yeah- cancelling game two was the right move on our part. Playing them twice doesn't do anything for us.
Great weekend and Hail State!
Dakota Hudson pitched about as well as you could ever hope for. He is a legit SEC ace- and not many teams have one like him. His cutter is filthy. Sexton was almost as good- and I felt bad that he didn't get the shutout that he deserved. I don't think he is in Hudson's class- but he's pretty close in terms of college pitchers and while he won't be a first round pick I could definitely see him going in the top five rounds easily. He's making himself some money. Great to see them come back this year and shove it down Ole Miss's throats after what happened to them in Oxford last year. I LOVED it when Hudson struck out one of their hitters and then stared down their dugout. THAT is what I want to see from our pitchers.
I got pissed off when I saw that Daniel Brown was starting. Before the game I saw Houston standing by the bullpen and I actually went through some denial stage where I was hoping that Cohen was going to pull one on Bianco. It didn't happen. The thing I don't understand about Brown starting was they already obviously lost confidence in him before last week- why go back to him when you have Houston, Pilkington, heck- even Breaux or Small as possible options? I could understand if all other options had been exhausted. I know everyone has a different opinion on who should start and most of you know that I think Houston should start. But my reasoning is Houston in his last start was really good- which makes him not getting another shot puzzling to me. In fact at the time he actually had BETTER stats than Brown did AS A STARTER. And that was before Brown fell off the wagon. Houston also had an ERA of 1.68 in the Cape and struck out 24 in 21.3 innings which included four starts. Houston also has an ERA that is a more than respectable 2.68 right now too. That said, I bet they will let Pilkington get the start. They are enamored with the freshmen- well one of them was hitting 98 today so I can understand. But that doesn't mean that they are the best option.
We lost today because of our starting pitcher. Everything else that happened stemmed from his start which I seen it Dawg accurately described as non-competitive.
It forced us to extend our bullpen- and that caused us some problems. Collateral damage basically. I thought Rigby pitched really well. He got the double play ball we needed and then Collins let it go between his legs. Small was electric. I love the way he attacked their hitters. I thought Blake Smith and Tatum pitched pretty well also- again we had to extend Blake to try to steal an inning to make up from the lack of a start we got and he gave up a ground rule double when he really should have been out of the game. Tatum kept the ball down and held a runner at third with less than two outs. Something he can build on. Reid was up and down- he got us out of jam but then got himself into trouble the next inning by walking two guys and hitting another. But then he calmed down and even though he allowed a hit he got it back together.
Elih Marrero had a really good weekend. He controlled the running game for the most part, but what really impressed me was his hitting. He had a key double to tie the game up today. I love the way he plays too.
Lowe is coming around. He still hits a lot of balls right at people- but he hit a home run to left center off of Short who I think is their best pitcher. Plus Short is LH too which makes it even more impressive. By the end of the year I think he is going to be tearing it up. Collins hit a ball that still hasn't landed yet. He has gotten a LOT better defensively- but his error today was a killer. Collins is starting to hit the ball a little bit better too.
Holland is slumping pretty bad right now. It might be about time to bring back LA or go with Stovall. Gridley was pretty solid all weekend. He just battles the pitcher every time up and makes them work.
Robson getting hurt is not good. I don't know what happened other than he can't grip a bat. We saw what he could do on Friday night when he got into their pitchers head and caused the bad throw which he scored all the way from first on to give us a cushion. We need him back for Florida because we need someone that can steal bases against Florida in a low scoring game. I freaking love Jake Mangum because it's pretty apparent that he hates Ole Miss almost as much as me. He gets a home run and then just wreaked havoc on them ALL weekend. The only problem is he has to reign it in because he got a little out of control there trying to catch everything that they hit on Saturday plus he got thrown out at third and picked off second once. They get to deal with him for two more years- I'm sure they are looking forward to it. Cody Brown did his usual. Reid had a good series also outside of a couple of at bats. Especially on Friday against their ace.
With all due respect to the rest of our opponents Florida is probably going to be the best team we see during the regular season. They have three starting pitchers that could/should go in the first round when they are draft eligible. That doesn't include their OF that's a probable first round pick and their third baseman who might win freshman of the year. Plus it's in Florida where they are almost unbeatable right now. In fact they HAVEN'T lost a game at home this year. Hudson and Sexton are going to give us a fighting chance in games one and two, but us getting swept is very possible. I'll be satisfied if we manage to somehow win one. I'm 100% sure that they will be number one in the country- they just swept the former number one team in Texas A&M.
We also have UT-Martin on Tuesday and that is a MUST win because of the EKU debacle. It's not a high pressure game, and I'm not worried about it- but we MUST take care of business. They split a series with Jackson State for Heaven's sakes. So, yeah- cancelling game two was the right move on our part. Playing them twice doesn't do anything for us.
Great weekend and Hail State!