Official opening day game thread!!

[wasabaka]

Can't believe he let Stovall hit with Cody brown available and top of lineup coming up

Playing the righty-righty match-ups as well as Cohen used to.**

[MarketingBully]

Crappy first game. 5-2 Tech.

[wasabaka]

This game came down to two strike hitting and our stupidity of pitching fastballs in the strike zone when up in counts. A two run double and two run triple were hit on two strike counts. Both Pilk and Barton gave them up. Could easily have seen this game as a win 2-1. Pilkington has to understand the situation when he is up 1-2 or 2-2 and not throw fastballs down the middle in those situations.

Excellent points. Hopefully Cann and Hendo drive them home and correct that.

[MarketingBully]

This lineup he had tonight should go in the garbage.

[BayouDawg]

8th and 9th inning we left the bases juiced. It seems more years than not we have issues with stranding runners

[msstate7]

Coach, fix the lineup tomorrow. Rooker should've been at the plate there. Win or lose, I want rooker getting more ABs than gridley

[MarketingBully]

Coach, fix the lineup tomorrow. Rooker should've been at the plate there. Win or lose, I want rooker getting more ABs than gridley

Gridley is better further down the lineup. Gridley is not a three hole hitter.

[MarketingBully]

Here's what you do. Mangum, Stovall, Alexander, Rooker, Bragg/Gordon, Poole, Gridley, Skelton/Lovelady, Marrero. I think that is a much better lineup.

[MarketingBully]

Coach, fix the lineup tomorrow. Rooker should've been at the plate there. Win or lose, I want rooker getting more ABs than gridley

Gridley is better when he hits 7-9. He has never hit in the top of the lineup and he in no way is a three hole hitter.

[wasabaka]

8th and 9th inning we left the bases juiced. It seems more years than not we have issues with stranding runners

Aside from 2013 and 2016, this is the absolute truth.

[Todd4State]

Here's what you do. Mangum, Stovall, Alexander, Rooker, Bragg/Gordon, Poole, Gridley, Skelton/Lovelady, Marrero. I think that is a much better lineup.

THIS^. Except take out Marrero at DH. I don't like a catcher at DH for various reasons- including in case your starting catcher gets hurt.

[Todd4State]

I think what really hurt us too was Stovall running through the stop sign and getting thrown out at home for the first out. That move probably cost us a minimum of two runs and likely more.

[preachermatt83]

Bottom line...you cannot leave bases loaded twice against a good team like tech. Oh, and never again should marrero DH. That was just strange.

[preachermatt83]

Bragg isn't going to be much for us. Way too much guessing at the plate.

Yup. He did it this summer too. Batted a whopping 170

[Cooterpoot]

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken crap. This team isn't going to be good. Lost too much, too many arms hurt, and new coaches. And next year we lose our home games. Hell of a time for Cohen to get out. Smart guy.

[Todd4State]

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken crap. This team isn't going to be good. Lost too much, too many arms hurt, and new coaches. And next year we lose our home games. Hell of a time for Cohen to get out. Smart guy.

Meh. I think we will be OK. Remember last year we lost to Florida Atlantic. It's just a matter of finding out who can really do what at this point in the season. Like last year I think the Oregon series will tell us how good we are or are not. I was impressed with Barton- if he keeps pitching like that our bullpen is suddenly one of the better ones in the SEC.

As everyone else has said, we need to tweak the lineup some.

C- Lovelady/Marrero
1B- Gordon- for now.
2B- Stovall
3B- Skelton
SS- LA
LF- Poole
CF- Mangum
RF- Cody Brown
DH- Rooker

That's probably our best lineup right now IMO. We'll see how the rest of the weekend goes and re-evaluate. We need Plumlee to step up and we need to win tomorrow. I also thought Riley Self looked good too.

[MarketingBully]

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken crap. This team isn't going to be good. Lost too much, too many arms hurt, and new coaches. And next year we lose our home games. Hell of a time for Cohen to get out. Smart guy.

I don't think you can say that after one game against a top 20 team. After all, we are two pitches away from winning this game 2-1. We had bases loaded twice in the final two innings and just couldn't get the hit to bring them home. Tech got lucky gambled and won the gamble pitching Rooker a two strike fastball like they did. If he swings instead of looking at strike three, the game is tied at the very least as he would have hit that ball a long way. Their pitchers gambled and threw two strike fastballs that we didn't handle. Our guys threw two two strike fastballs and they got four runs out of it.

[CadaverDawg]

Meh. I think we will be OK. Remember last year we lost to Florida Atlantic. It's just a matter of finding out who can really do what at this point in the season. Like last year I think the Oregon series will tell us how good we are or are not. I was impressed with Barton- if he keeps pitching like that our bullpen is suddenly one of the better ones in the SEC.

As everyone else has said, we need to tweak the lineup some.

C- Lovelady/Marrero
1B- Gordon- for now.
2B- Stovall
3B- Skelton
SS- LA
LF- Poole
CF- Mangum
RF- Cody Brown
DH- Rooker

That's probably our best lineup right now IMO. We'll see how the rest of the weekend goes and re-evaluate. We need Plumlee to step up and we need to win tomorrow. I also thought Riley Self looked good too.

Todd, you know I respect your baseball views, but taking Gridley out of our lineup right now would be the craziest move next to removing Rooker or Mangum. I agree that Gridley doesn't cover much ground at SS, but whether he crushed it at the plate in game 1 or not...he is one of our best bats, and is our most experienced player. Gotta have him in the lineup imo.

[I seen it dawg]

9 muther****ing innings...9!!! Some of you need to leave baseball alone because you have zero ****ing clue. 9 ****ing innings played and we aren't impressed with the coach, player won't help us, player can't hit, player shouldn't get abs, pitcher can't pitch. ****ing stupid ****s.

[CadaverDawg]

9 muther****ing innings...9!!! Some of you need to leave baseball alone because you have zero ****ing clue. 9 ****ing innings played and we aren't impressed with the coach, player won't help us, player can't hit, player shouldn't get abs, pitcher can't pitch. ****ing stupid ****s.

Yep

[msstate7]

My biggest concern from today is pilk leaving so early. He continued to struggle 2nd time thru lineup just like last year. If he can't make the adjustments to get deeper into games, this season is in trouble

[InTheIttaBenaHotSun]

Not pumpin sunshine just stating fact. We've still got a shot at going 3-1 this weekend. I'll be it a long shot but it's still a shot. Let's at least wait till Sunday evening before we start bitching.

[wasabaka]

Todd, you know I respect your baseball views, but taking Gridley out of our lineup right now would be the craziest move next to removing Rooker or Mangum. I agree that Gridley doesn't cover much ground at SS, but whether he crushed it at the plate in game 1 or not...he is one of our best bats, and is our most experienced player. Gotta have him in the lineup imo.

Totally agree. Having Gridley at SS and LA at 3rd gives us the best of both worlds.

[Bothrops]

We had too much roster turnover to have big expectations this year. Some of those guys leaving screwed us.

[HSVDawg]

My biggest concern from today is pilk leaving so early. He continued to struggle 2nd time thru lineup just like last year. If he can't make the adjustments to get deeper into games, this season is in trouble

I never did get the "Pilk is a legit SEC ace talk" that people repeated enough times that they believed it. When has he proven he had Dakota Hudson / Chris Stratton type stuff for 2-3 times through the lineup? Not saying he won't improve, but shit the guy only went longer than 4-5 innings once or twice last year. I don't see why he was expected to just transform into a Friday night stud. And I don't really care what he did in summer ball or fall practice. Until he does it in games that matter, it's an unknown. I view his ceiling this year as being equivalent to a decent SEC Saturday guy. But he is our Friday guy, which is a problem.

[HSVDawg]

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken crap. This team isn't going to be good. Lost too much, too many arms hurt, and new coaches. And next year we lose our home games. Hell of a time for Cohen to get out. Smart guy.

This team has talent, but it's likely going to take a while to even start putting it together. As I said a week ago, anything over .500 is good with me and I really just want to see a much better team at the end of the year than today.

[Todd4State]

I never did get the "Pilk is a legit SEC ace talk" that people repeated enough times that they believed it. When has he proven he had Dakota Hudson / Chris Stratton type stuff for 2-3 times through the lineup? Not saying he won't improve, but shit the guy only went longer than 4-5 innings once or twice last year. I don't see why he was expected to just transform into a Friday night stud. And I don't really care what he did in summer ball or fall practice. Until he does it in games that matter, it's an unknown. I view his ceiling this year as being equivalent to a decent SEC Saturday guy. But he is our Friday guy, which is a problem.

He dominated the Cape Cod League. D1Baseball.com which I doubt reads any MSU message boards named him the number three draft prospect for his class two days ago. He had a bad inning where an OF took a bad route on a fly ball and the inning fell apart. I think he had what was it? Eight K's through 3 IP against a pretty good Big 12 team. Hudson got worked out of the game last year by FAU and if I recall correctly he had some command issues leading to people questioning him and about whether he was an ace or not too.

[LC Dawg]

9 muther****ing innings...9!!! Some of you need to leave baseball alone because you have zero ****ing clue. 9 ****ing innings played and we aren't impressed with the coach, player won't help us, player can't hit, player shouldn't get abs, pitcher can't pitch. ****ing stupid ****s.

I didn't get to watch today because of some civic duty but this is what I was thinking while reading this thread. Damn, people.

[Todd4State]

Todd, you know I respect your baseball views, but taking Gridley out of our lineup right now would be the craziest move next to removing Rooker or Mangum. I agree that Gridley doesn't cover much ground at SS, but whether he crushed it at the plate in game 1 or not...he is one of our best bats, and is our most experienced player. Gotta have him in the lineup imo.

LA and Stovall are better than Gridley- and don't get me wrong Gridley is a good player. LA is actually the best of the three overall. Gridley is OK at SS- it's not like he's a liability there. The real problem is we need to find a legit third baseman that can hit and defend which is something we haven't had since Jarrod Parks graduated so that we don't have to weaken our MIF defense because we have a guy that can't field his position or throw from there. I know it's one game- but Gridley needs to start playing a little bit better because LA and Stovall are outperforming him right now.

Although after Stovall's baserunning blunder right now I wouldn't have a problem at all with the coaches sitting him for that and playing Gridley in his place.

[Todd4State]

I don't think you can say that after one game against a top 20 team. After all, we are two pitches away from winning this game 2-1. We had bases loaded twice in the final two innings and just couldn't get the hit to bring them home. Tech got lucky gambled and won the gamble pitching Rooker a two strike fastball like they did. If he swings instead of looking at strike three, the game is tied at the very least as he would have hit that ball a long way. Their pitchers gambled and threw two strike fastballs that we didn't handle. Our guys threw two two strike fastballs and they got four runs out of it.

We lost this game because we took a bad route on a ball in the OF....at home. With a guy that has been here for four years. And then we had a rally going and we had a runner run through a stop sign and get thrown out at home for the first out and only got one run out of it. That totally changed the complexion of that inning for us. The way I look at that- right or wrong- we essentially made them get us out twice because we ran ourselves out of that inning. I don't know if we would have gotten four runs back that inning or not and there's no way to know that- but without question it cost us at least two.

It sucks tonight- but at the same time we did some good things. I was very pleased with Barton and Self on the mound. If we have to piece this thing together with the bullpen- so be it. We've certainly done it before. We played a team that has a chance to be Nationally ranked at the end of the year and we went head to head with them and were in the game where we had a chance to come back on them. Unfortunately the lesson we had to learn tonight was that we can't make bad mistakes in the field and on the base paths to beat a team like this. Coach Cann needs to figure out what our lineup is and that's probably going to go on until after Oregon.

[JohnnyQuid]

9 muther****ing innings...9!!! Some of you need to leave baseball alone because you have zero ****ing clue. 9 ****ing innings played and we aren't impressed with the coach, player won't help us, player can't hit, player shouldn't get abs, pitcher can't pitch. ****ing stupid ****s.

whole buncha this

[msstate7]

Coach Can has to sit Stovall today, right? I don't think Andy can let that slide so early in his coaching career... players have to respect the 3b coach

[maroonmania]

Coach Can has to sit Stovall today, right? I don't think Andy can let that slide so early in his coaching career... players have to respect the 3b coach

Well, he didn't pull him out of the game yesterday after it happened so I doubt he would necessarily sit him today because of it. We had mucho base running blunders under Cohen and it looks like that tradition will continue under Cannizaro. Stovall actually made 2 dumb outs yesterday on the bases.

[TNDawg35]

Today is a new day. Hopefully Henderson sat down with the pitchers and jumped their ass for gutting 2 strike fastballs. We cant have that and it pretty much cost us the game yesterday.

Overall tho, I was pleased with Barton and with Self. Both looked really good. Hopefully the line up is tweaked some today also... Got a long yr and alot of games left. Plenty of time for this team to gel. We played like crap against a very good team in Tech, and still had plenty of chances in the end to make the outcome different.

[Cooterpoot]

I look for Pilk to lose the Friday starter role at some point, and that's not a bad thing. He's just not that good. Anxious to see what pitching looks like the rest of the weekend. Hitting will come around some. Defense is going to be inconsistent all year I think. Shitastic base running has to end.

[CadaverDawg]

I look for Pilk to lose the Friday starter role at some point, and that's not a bad thing. He's just not that good. Anxious to see what pitching looks like the rest of the weekend. Hitting will come around some. Defense is going to be inconsistent all year I think. Shitastic base running has to end.

Your first two sentences are idiotic to say after just one game. Good grief, our fans go ape shit hinging on every pitch & every at bat. It's a long loooong season guys.

[basedog]

One game and we are done.****

I knew it wouldn't take long.

[preachermatt83]

Your first two sentences are idiotic to say after just one game. Good grief, our fans go ape shit hinging on every pitch & every at bat. It's a long loooong season guys.

Pilk was fine. 7ks in 3 1/3 innings against an outstanding hitting team. Can't fuss abt that at all.

[hailstate17]

We had 13 strikeouts against a really good offensive team. Pilkington will be fine. Our team will be fine. I'd be completely surprised if we hosting or won anything big this year just based off arm injuries. But we will be a good regional team. Quit hitting the panic button after one game. Did any of you ever play baseball? It's an incredibly hard sport and everybody has bad days at the plate

[maroonmania]

We had 13 strikeouts against a really good offensive team. Pilkington will be fine. Our team will be fine. I'd be completely surprised if we hosting or won anything big this year just based off arm injuries. But we will be a good regional team. Quit hitting the panic button after one game. Did any of you ever play baseball? It's an incredibly hard sport and everybody has bad days at the plate

I don't think many are hitting the panic button yet. My biggest gripe from yesterday is that I don't believe the lineup we put out there yesterday gave us the best chance to win. And THAT is the primary job of a HC, giving his team the best possible opportunity to win.

[tcdog70]

We have to make sure Rooker has the opportunity to have more bats than Gridley. Please bat Rooker third. Gordon looked pretty bad against a lefty, maybe Platoon Him righty vs Lefty. Too many strike outs with ducks on the pond Lets see what happens today.

[I seen it dawg]

We have to make sure Rooker has the opportunity to have more bats than Gridley. Please bat Rooker third. Gordon looked pretty bad against a lefty, maybe Platoon Him righty vs Lefty. Too many strike outs with ducks on the pond Lets see what happens today.

Yeah why don't we let a dozen or so games happen with virtually all new lineup and a new coach....

[smootness]

Pilk was fine. 7ks in 3 1/3 innings against an outstanding hitting team. Can't fuss abt that at all.

The strikeouts were great to see, but he's going to have to be more efficient to be a true Friday night guy. TT is good offensively, but he struggled with his efficiency last year. He has a chance to be really, really good, but he's definitely not near that Stratton/Hudson level yet. Which is not really a criticism.

[NewDawg]

This year is going to be a down year. Lost too many and too many hurt. New coaches to boot.

[HSVDawg]

He dominated the Cape Cod League. D1Baseball.com which I doubt reads any MSU message boards named him the number three draft prospect for his class two days ago. He had a bad inning where an OF took a bad route on a fly ball and the inning fell apart. I think he had what was it? Eight K's through 3 IP against a pretty good Big 12 team. Hudson got worked out of the game last year by FAU and if I recall correctly he had some command issues leading to people questioning him and about whether he was an ace or not too.

I never said the guy wasn't talented or didn't have the potential to become an ace at some point. But you can't just declare he is at that point based on what he did in the ****ing Cape Cod league. He has to prove it in the SEC weekends before you can reasonably expect that level of performance.

And overall, people need to quit comparing this team to the 2016 team and saying that we are going to be awesome because "we had more question marks last year!" or "Hudson struggled early too!". Last year was an anomoly of biblical proportions. Taking the leap from last in the SEC to SEC champs requires a lot of shit to line up that just isn't going to happen on a regular basis.

[tcdog70]

This year is going to be a down year. Lost too many and too many hurt. New coaches to boot.

And you figured that out after 1 game. I will be disappointed if this is a down Year. I am going to give Us a few games before I start to mully grubbing, why don't you give it a try.

[Todd4State]

I never said the guy wasn't talented or didn't have the potential to become an ace at some point. But you can't just declare he is at that point based on what he did in the ****ing Cape Cod league. He has to prove it in the SEC weekends before you can reasonably expect that level of performance.

And overall, people need to quit comparing this team to the 2016 team and saying that we are going to be awesome because "we had more question marks last year!" or "Hudson struggled early too!". Last year was an anomoly of biblical proportions. Taking the leap from last in the SEC to SEC champs requires a lot of shit to line up that just isn't going to happen on a regular basis.

The Cape Cod League is about as good a predictor for success as anything I have found. There is actually more talent in that league than the SEC and MLB scouts have used it for decades to evaluate players. Playing in that league almost guarantees that you are going to be drafted- and there aren't very many sophomores that get to play in that league. Stratton dominated there before he busted out. Same with Lindgren and Hudson. Except that Pilkington dominated a year earlier than any of those pitchers. There is a lot more evidence pointing towards Pilkington becoming an ace than not.

No one is saying that we are going to win the SEC. The point is that we've only played one game and while we have to grow in certain areas- all teams do- we have a very good chance of being better at the end of the year and also that you can't read too much into one game. Especially against a team that a lot of experts think is better than we are right now. Winning the SEC and SEC Tournament is nice and no doubt enjoyable. But the main thing is what we do in postseason- and we don't have to win the SEC to do that. If we get in we can make some noise if our team progresses- but it's way too soon to declare that someone is or isn't this or that.

Like I said- we won't know until we play Oregon and we have some more IP's and AB's and everyone gets a shot to show what they can do.

[The Federalist Engineer]

looking at the box score and taking in the facts, I don't necessarily think losing 2-5 to a good club is that bad. It's probably better than winning 20-1 vs. a SWAC team - in the long run. If TTU is not ultimately overrated this is a Super Regional caliber matchup.

Despite batting our #8 hitter in the 3 hole, DH'ing with a Mendoza-hitting catcher, starting a platoon 1B, PH with a lumber jack, and putting a DH in the outfield...we still could tied or won the ball game!