Todd4State
04-30-2016, 11:42 PM
Great to win yet another SEC series and keep oursleves in National Seed discussion.
Hudson has to step it up a little bit. I don't think it's fatigue as much as it is him needing to work on keeping the ball down out of the stretch. Sexton was good again today- obviously it was a mistake to take him out early like that and while I wouldn't have personally done so myself I can understand why Cohen would "treat it like the seventh inning". I think the thing that Cohen needs to learn there is to treat the first seven innings of a DH in the SEC like the first seven innings of any other game. I can't say enough about how outstanding Konnor Pilkington was today. By far the best he has pitched and I think having faced all of those guys from Florida, A&M, and LSU paid off for him today.
The bullpen remiains inconsistent. It's easy to sit around and say "well it was not right to bring in ___" when it doesn't work but we haven't had anyone that we can really count on EVERY week like a Reed, Lindgren, Girodo, or Holder. And to make it even more difficult every week it's a different guy who looks good and a different guy that has a bad outing. Walking in 9 guys unintentionally is unexcusable. They pretty much beat us by playing Little League stall ball. Our guys have to ATTACK THE ZONE every time. Blake Smith looked great in game one. He didn't get the job done today. Rigby pitched much better today and that was good to see. Will he keep it up? Houston was off again. He is good then bad then good again. Daniel Brown was WAY off in game one but actually got his guy out in game two and then closed out game three. Billingsley left a pitch up and it got hammered. That has been rare lately from him though. As I have said- I have been critical of the management of the pitching staff this year, but it's hard to manage a staff where you never know what you are going to get.
I like Kruger at catcher over Marrero right now. Kruger is hitting the ball better and I think he is as good as Marrero is defensively RIGHT NOW. Now Marrero does have a higher ceiling and when Marrero is a junior he will be better than Kruger is at this stage, but Elih is going to have to make some adjustments at the plate and having to play a DH forced him into the lineup which took Rooker out and that was not in our favor.
Lowe and Collins continue to play well for us. Gavin's home run set the tone for us Thursday. I HATE to see Stovall get hurt. We're lucky there wasn't any ligament damage but I'm fairly certain he is done for the year. I just hope he can play some summer baseball but I imagine that is possibly in doubt as well. LA playing with a fractured wrist says a lot about him. Gridley has been hitting better and he did a nice job of hitting today to get in a run to get us the lead in game two. Holland needs to step up if LA can't play. My hope is that at some point LA is well enough to play SS and then we can move Gridley to second but I'm not sure that is very realistic at this point.
Great to see Robson back even though he didn't get a hit. I think he will be hitting leadoff probably by the Auburn series at the latest. Mangum is still awesome even after he tweaked his ankle on Thursday. Reid was our MVP at the plate this weekend even though he completely whiffed on a ball on Thursday that he should have caught. Rooker had a big home run on Thursday as well and we have to get him locked in. If Humphreys is having some issues with soreness, I would just DH him and play Rooker in the OF alongside Robson in CF and Mangum in RF. But that is just me.
This series went about like I thought on Saturday as far as it being low scoring. I think playing a DH was a disadvantage for us because I think it kept Alabama from exposing their bullpen too much and made their starters even better plus it caused us to have to put Kruger at DH and take Rooker out which hurt us offensively. I think the SEC rule of playing 7 innings for a DH is one of the worst in all of baseball at all levels. There is no reason for it. I do understand playing DH from time to time- but make them 9 innings. I thought we would win 2/3 this weekend and we did.
As everyone can see, we are pretty beat up right now. The good news is we don't have any midweek games and we will be at home after having to play 8 pretty tough games on the road or at neutral sites- ULM which went 14 innings, LSU for three, the Governor's Cup, and then three at Alabama. So basically the past two weeks we played possibly our three biggest rivals away from Dudy Noble Field and we came out victorious in all of those instances. Our team should be commended for that. But it does take a toll. So, now we get to rest a little bit before we play again Thursday and the good news is after that we play a regular Friday, Sat, Sun series so our pitchers will get a built in rest break a little bit.
Mizzou is kind of like Alabama in that their pitching is REALLY good but they are not a great hitting team although they do hit better than Bama. They have Tanner Houck who might be the first pick in the draft in a couple of years. They also beat Tennessee this weekend. So, even though their record isn't very good it won't be easy. I think the games will be similar to this weekend in that I am expecting them to be low scoring except for maybe the Sunday game and I think we will get a similar result and possibly even a sweep if we play well. The other good news is Arkansas beat Texas A&M so we won't lose any ground on them this weekend. The bad news is Arkansas is playing better and now Auburn has won their series as well. So, nothing will come easy for us but something worth going for usually isn't easy to obtain.
We just need to get 100% healthy and continue to develop our pitchers as best as we can and hope for the best.
Hail State!
Hudson has to step it up a little bit. I don't think it's fatigue as much as it is him needing to work on keeping the ball down out of the stretch. Sexton was good again today- obviously it was a mistake to take him out early like that and while I wouldn't have personally done so myself I can understand why Cohen would "treat it like the seventh inning". I think the thing that Cohen needs to learn there is to treat the first seven innings of a DH in the SEC like the first seven innings of any other game. I can't say enough about how outstanding Konnor Pilkington was today. By far the best he has pitched and I think having faced all of those guys from Florida, A&M, and LSU paid off for him today.
The bullpen remiains inconsistent. It's easy to sit around and say "well it was not right to bring in ___" when it doesn't work but we haven't had anyone that we can really count on EVERY week like a Reed, Lindgren, Girodo, or Holder. And to make it even more difficult every week it's a different guy who looks good and a different guy that has a bad outing. Walking in 9 guys unintentionally is unexcusable. They pretty much beat us by playing Little League stall ball. Our guys have to ATTACK THE ZONE every time. Blake Smith looked great in game one. He didn't get the job done today. Rigby pitched much better today and that was good to see. Will he keep it up? Houston was off again. He is good then bad then good again. Daniel Brown was WAY off in game one but actually got his guy out in game two and then closed out game three. Billingsley left a pitch up and it got hammered. That has been rare lately from him though. As I have said- I have been critical of the management of the pitching staff this year, but it's hard to manage a staff where you never know what you are going to get.
I like Kruger at catcher over Marrero right now. Kruger is hitting the ball better and I think he is as good as Marrero is defensively RIGHT NOW. Now Marrero does have a higher ceiling and when Marrero is a junior he will be better than Kruger is at this stage, but Elih is going to have to make some adjustments at the plate and having to play a DH forced him into the lineup which took Rooker out and that was not in our favor.
Lowe and Collins continue to play well for us. Gavin's home run set the tone for us Thursday. I HATE to see Stovall get hurt. We're lucky there wasn't any ligament damage but I'm fairly certain he is done for the year. I just hope he can play some summer baseball but I imagine that is possibly in doubt as well. LA playing with a fractured wrist says a lot about him. Gridley has been hitting better and he did a nice job of hitting today to get in a run to get us the lead in game two. Holland needs to step up if LA can't play. My hope is that at some point LA is well enough to play SS and then we can move Gridley to second but I'm not sure that is very realistic at this point.
Great to see Robson back even though he didn't get a hit. I think he will be hitting leadoff probably by the Auburn series at the latest. Mangum is still awesome even after he tweaked his ankle on Thursday. Reid was our MVP at the plate this weekend even though he completely whiffed on a ball on Thursday that he should have caught. Rooker had a big home run on Thursday as well and we have to get him locked in. If Humphreys is having some issues with soreness, I would just DH him and play Rooker in the OF alongside Robson in CF and Mangum in RF. But that is just me.
This series went about like I thought on Saturday as far as it being low scoring. I think playing a DH was a disadvantage for us because I think it kept Alabama from exposing their bullpen too much and made their starters even better plus it caused us to have to put Kruger at DH and take Rooker out which hurt us offensively. I think the SEC rule of playing 7 innings for a DH is one of the worst in all of baseball at all levels. There is no reason for it. I do understand playing DH from time to time- but make them 9 innings. I thought we would win 2/3 this weekend and we did.
As everyone can see, we are pretty beat up right now. The good news is we don't have any midweek games and we will be at home after having to play 8 pretty tough games on the road or at neutral sites- ULM which went 14 innings, LSU for three, the Governor's Cup, and then three at Alabama. So basically the past two weeks we played possibly our three biggest rivals away from Dudy Noble Field and we came out victorious in all of those instances. Our team should be commended for that. But it does take a toll. So, now we get to rest a little bit before we play again Thursday and the good news is after that we play a regular Friday, Sat, Sun series so our pitchers will get a built in rest break a little bit.
Mizzou is kind of like Alabama in that their pitching is REALLY good but they are not a great hitting team although they do hit better than Bama. They have Tanner Houck who might be the first pick in the draft in a couple of years. They also beat Tennessee this weekend. So, even though their record isn't very good it won't be easy. I think the games will be similar to this weekend in that I am expecting them to be low scoring except for maybe the Sunday game and I think we will get a similar result and possibly even a sweep if we play well. The other good news is Arkansas beat Texas A&M so we won't lose any ground on them this weekend. The bad news is Arkansas is playing better and now Auburn has won their series as well. So, nothing will come easy for us but something worth going for usually isn't easy to obtain.
We just need to get 100% healthy and continue to develop our pitchers as best as we can and hope for the best.
Hail State!