Todd4State
04-26-2016, 11:14 PM
First of all always great to win and get our trophy back to Starkville where it belongs AWESOME JOB by our entire team. Ole Miss is a good team and it was pretty tense the entire game.
Our pitching was OUTSTANDING tonight. I was nervous when I saw that we were starting Cyr against a good SEC team in a sold out environment- but he stepped up and delivered. He still has a Bluto ERA of 0.00. Houston was really good too- that's who I thought we would start mainly because he started last week and I would have been more comfortable going in with him, and it looks like now neither would have been a bad choice. There weren't very many hard hit balls hit off of either one of them and even though we got into some jams, they pitched their asses off and got out of them.
I am especially proud of Jacob Billingsley. I remember watching him work out in the bullpen during the Oregon series in pre-game and he was having a lot of problems with his leg left and just his mechanics in general. To see how far he has come and to pitch like he did tonight- he earned the MVP. He was outstanding tonight. His breaking ball was totally filthy and he was throwing it for strikes. Hopefully this will boost him going forward because Lord knows we need people to step up and be consistent. And going forward, I do expect our bullpen to get better. I think our woes are a combination of having a new pitching coach coming in late in the pre-season with a totally different philosophy, playing some really good hitting teams, and having a lot of inexperienced guys. What it has caused is inconsistency in the bullpen- but I see guys that have come a LOOONNG way and are looking better. I think we are about to see the fruits of that very soon- Humphreys, Brown, hopefully Rigby, and now hopefully Houston and Billingsley. And it will be interesting to see what we do with Cyr. He has to start figuring into the equation as well.
While Kruger had a rough night at the plate hitting I thought he looked outstanding catching tonight. Elih as good as he is has some freshman moments every now and then. Kruger kept every ball in front of him and shut down their running game all night long. He did a great job. He still needs to learn how to hit sliders though.
Lowe and Collins had some good at bats- Lowe drove in a run I believe. Gavin had a solid single later in the game. Gavin was lucky on a couple of plays- but he made them. I felt bad for Lowe when he missed that ball that floated over his head for a hit with a runner moving when he had to hold the guy on first base. Those were the kinds of things that happened against LSU on Sunday that led to us falling apart. Tonight each time something weird happened, we stepped up and snuffed it out.
Stovall should make SportsCenter for his catch to end that rally. We did have some bad luck in that inning to get those runners on, but it evened out on that play. That is a guy that was a catcher in high school last year. He's going to be really good for us as well. Gridley was solid and had a really nice solid single.
Rooker had a tough night at the plate. Mangum was awesome again. You don't see the leadoff hitter intentionally walked very often- we need to get Robson back so that the next time we are in that situation it's Lowe, Humphreys, or Rooker hitting behind him. Jake made a HUGE play on a diving catch. The man has become my favorite player on the team. And we get to see him for two more years. Humphreys did a NICE job of hitting to go opposite field to drive in our first run of the game and give us the lead early putting the pressure on them. Cody Brown did a nice job getting the SAC bunt down- but we have to execute better to drive those runs in when given an opportunity like that. When the infield is in, the WORST thing you can do is strike out. Put the ball in play and force the issue.
The only bad thing about tonight was I thought we ran ourselves out of some innings trying to steal some bases and messing up some hit and runs. Ole Miss actually did a good job of that tonight to their credit- they pulled a couple of hit and runs off very well. We did an even better job of getting out of trouble though. And that was ultimately the difference in the game for us.
The good news for us is we only have ONE OOC game left at Troy. That means that we can basically focus on SEC play for the most part and maybe even more importantly it means our bullpen will be even more rested in general. Alabama this weekend is going to be tough for our hitters- they have been terrible during midweek so them losing to Samford or anyone else is not a surprise. But they have been good on the weekend- they have a series win over LSU. They have struggled hitting the ball throughout the season. We may see some games kind of like tonight where we have to muster enough offense and then play good defense to win but pitch well. On Thursday it's going to be two Golden Spike Award candidates going up against each other in Hudson and Bramlett. I'll be happy with two out of three just because it is on the road and I think Alabama is a very good team. Plus everytime we play them, something weird seems to happen and we lose a game.
In closing, I saw an interview yesterday that Ryan Cyr did that made me smile. Someone asked him why we have been so good on the road. His response was "Well, you know- on the road we get to bat first. And we just like to punch people in the mouth first if we can." Paraphrased.
Enjoy work tomorrow my friends, and as Jackie Sherrill used to say- you can drink your coffee proudly from your MSU mug at work tomorrow. Proud of OUR MSU baseball team- and look forward to finishing the year strong. Hail State!
Our pitching was OUTSTANDING tonight. I was nervous when I saw that we were starting Cyr against a good SEC team in a sold out environment- but he stepped up and delivered. He still has a Bluto ERA of 0.00. Houston was really good too- that's who I thought we would start mainly because he started last week and I would have been more comfortable going in with him, and it looks like now neither would have been a bad choice. There weren't very many hard hit balls hit off of either one of them and even though we got into some jams, they pitched their asses off and got out of them.
I am especially proud of Jacob Billingsley. I remember watching him work out in the bullpen during the Oregon series in pre-game and he was having a lot of problems with his leg left and just his mechanics in general. To see how far he has come and to pitch like he did tonight- he earned the MVP. He was outstanding tonight. His breaking ball was totally filthy and he was throwing it for strikes. Hopefully this will boost him going forward because Lord knows we need people to step up and be consistent. And going forward, I do expect our bullpen to get better. I think our woes are a combination of having a new pitching coach coming in late in the pre-season with a totally different philosophy, playing some really good hitting teams, and having a lot of inexperienced guys. What it has caused is inconsistency in the bullpen- but I see guys that have come a LOOONNG way and are looking better. I think we are about to see the fruits of that very soon- Humphreys, Brown, hopefully Rigby, and now hopefully Houston and Billingsley. And it will be interesting to see what we do with Cyr. He has to start figuring into the equation as well.
While Kruger had a rough night at the plate hitting I thought he looked outstanding catching tonight. Elih as good as he is has some freshman moments every now and then. Kruger kept every ball in front of him and shut down their running game all night long. He did a great job. He still needs to learn how to hit sliders though.
Lowe and Collins had some good at bats- Lowe drove in a run I believe. Gavin had a solid single later in the game. Gavin was lucky on a couple of plays- but he made them. I felt bad for Lowe when he missed that ball that floated over his head for a hit with a runner moving when he had to hold the guy on first base. Those were the kinds of things that happened against LSU on Sunday that led to us falling apart. Tonight each time something weird happened, we stepped up and snuffed it out.
Stovall should make SportsCenter for his catch to end that rally. We did have some bad luck in that inning to get those runners on, but it evened out on that play. That is a guy that was a catcher in high school last year. He's going to be really good for us as well. Gridley was solid and had a really nice solid single.
Rooker had a tough night at the plate. Mangum was awesome again. You don't see the leadoff hitter intentionally walked very often- we need to get Robson back so that the next time we are in that situation it's Lowe, Humphreys, or Rooker hitting behind him. Jake made a HUGE play on a diving catch. The man has become my favorite player on the team. And we get to see him for two more years. Humphreys did a NICE job of hitting to go opposite field to drive in our first run of the game and give us the lead early putting the pressure on them. Cody Brown did a nice job getting the SAC bunt down- but we have to execute better to drive those runs in when given an opportunity like that. When the infield is in, the WORST thing you can do is strike out. Put the ball in play and force the issue.
The only bad thing about tonight was I thought we ran ourselves out of some innings trying to steal some bases and messing up some hit and runs. Ole Miss actually did a good job of that tonight to their credit- they pulled a couple of hit and runs off very well. We did an even better job of getting out of trouble though. And that was ultimately the difference in the game for us.
The good news for us is we only have ONE OOC game left at Troy. That means that we can basically focus on SEC play for the most part and maybe even more importantly it means our bullpen will be even more rested in general. Alabama this weekend is going to be tough for our hitters- they have been terrible during midweek so them losing to Samford or anyone else is not a surprise. But they have been good on the weekend- they have a series win over LSU. They have struggled hitting the ball throughout the season. We may see some games kind of like tonight where we have to muster enough offense and then play good defense to win but pitch well. On Thursday it's going to be two Golden Spike Award candidates going up against each other in Hudson and Bramlett. I'll be happy with two out of three just because it is on the road and I think Alabama is a very good team. Plus everytime we play them, something weird seems to happen and we lose a game.
In closing, I saw an interview yesterday that Ryan Cyr did that made me smile. Someone asked him why we have been so good on the road. His response was "Well, you know- on the road we get to bat first. And we just like to punch people in the mouth first if we can." Paraphrased.
Enjoy work tomorrow my friends, and as Jackie Sherrill used to say- you can drink your coffee proudly from your MSU mug at work tomorrow. Proud of OUR MSU baseball team- and look forward to finishing the year strong. Hail State!