Todd4State
04-03-2017, 01:22 AM
I've been out of town visiting Memphis- it just so happens that MSU played Memphis two days before the Battle of the Birds Exhibition game at Autozone Park between the St. Louis Cardinals and Memphis Redbirds. As a result I missed most of the Thursday night game with Ole Miss because I was watching the Cardinals blow out their AAA team. I also went to Graceland which was a lot better than I thought it would be. I can mark it off my bucket list I guess.
Our team is on a ROLL right now. We've won seven in a row and counting and our RPI has climbed up into the low 20's as I type this. Sure, it's too soon to talk about the postseason and those sorts of things- but at the same time we've put ourselves in a pretty good spot. Certainly we have a lot of work to do- but after losing to Oregon and Arkansas and all of the other things that have happened to our team, I'm very happy that we even have a chance at it at this point. You have to give Andy Cannizaro and Gary Henderson a lot of credit for that. He handed out some discipline after the Arkansas series and I think the players responded well to it. They know who the leader is and that they can't run over him. I think that will go a long way towards establishing our new culture under Cannizaro and after what I have seen this season I can't wait to see what he can do with a full pitching staff much less his own recruits and also I'm hopeful that he will keep more of our juniors as well. I'm very excited about the direction of our program and I think this weekend was confirmation of why we should be excited.
We have to get more out of our starting pitchers. Pilkington struck out a lot of guys on Thursday- but he didn't get deep in the game. Peyton Plumlee only got through 1/3 of an inning and that's because he picked a guy off. That said, major kudos to Jake Mangum for his start Saturday. He was locked in and he gave our bullpen a big boost on Saturday. Canniazaro and Henderson managed the pitching staff masterfully this weekend. He didn't hesitate to use the big guns in game one and didn't hold back like some managers would. They went for the win every time- and it worked every time as well. Riley Self was outstanding on Thursday and while I know a lot of fans don't like changing pitchers in the middle of an AB I can understand why it works- especially if you have a hitter that is in a 1-2 count and let's say you go from a fastball curve guy to a fastball slider guy. That gives the hitter really no time to adjust to the second pitcher which makes it more difficult to hit. Spencer Price pretty much owned Colby Bortles all weekend- until the last time they faced. Speaking of Price, he could very well be an All-SEC closer for us this year. He saved three games including two in high leverage situation where he came up big time and time again. Jacob Barton has been outstanding as well and won the Friday night game in relief of Plumlee and then you have the emergence of Cole Gordon as a pitcher who was also huge for us against Memphis. Denver McQuary battled and gave us three key innings against Ole Miss on Friday and held the lead for us until we could get to Gordon and Price. Graham Ashcraft was solid for us as well and he continues to progress and it was good to see Trey Jolley get his hitter out when called upon. I'm hopeful that Pilkington and Plumlee will be better at home and can go deep this weekend because obviously the deeper they can go the better it is for us. We should get Billingsley back soon- and I'm not sure if his role will be Sunday starter, midweek starter or bullpen guy although if it were me he would start on Sunday's out of necessity because the midweek is going to be Johnny Wholestaff no matter what we do. If he gets healthy we might be able to use Mangum in a relief role like CT Bradford or it wouldn't surprise me if we just start him like we have been because of the substitution rules in baseball with the DH and all of that. We do run the risk of subbing him out if we bring him out of the bullpen. I know the Shitbirds are 13th in the SEC in hitting- but this group did a great job of eliminating beer showers this weekend.
Josh Lovelady has been a big surprise to me. He has taken over the catching job- which is pretty thin as well as we're pretty down to two catchers. He went 3 for 9 and had a TRIPLE where he drove in a run and then he had a key sac fly on Saturday. He shut down their running game as well. He's hitting .306 right now and when I watched him in Memphis he smoked a double and took good AB's. You have to give Cann a lot of credit for his success. And then there's Brent Rooker. He might win SEC player of the week again. I like him at first base and I have long thought that was his best position. He made an outstanding play to complete the sweep on Saturday. He went 5 for 13 with three doubles and a home run that probably knocked the scarf off of some dude in the Ole Miss out field. Every hit he had did major damage and his home run was off of Ole Miss's ace. He almost hit a home run against Memphis too. Cody Brown also had a key home run for us and he has done a great job at second base for us. Hunter Stovall should come back soon and when he does and gets back up to speed we can move Cody Oquendo back to the outfield and it should make us better defensively and offensively as well. LA had a rough weekend- missing a base is not a Little League mistake- that's a T-Ball mistake. But I have to give him a lot of credit for playing through some injuries and I think that has affected his hitting and defense a little bit. Baserunning- no. Hopefully his finger will be healed up in a couple of weeks and he can move forward and get back up to speed. Gridley has been rock solid all year making nice plays at SS but he struggled some this weekend at the plate only going 1 for 10 so we need to get him going again.
I can tell that Ole Miss fans hate Jake Mangum. And I love the way that Mangum wants to beat them every time out. He went 4 for 13 with a double which isn't great by his standards but still pretty solid. I loved it when he bunted for a single just so that Ole Miss wouldn't be able to say that they held him hitless. Tanner Poole continues to be a solid player- he went 4 for 12 with a stolen base. Brant Blaylock is still struggling at the plate and went 0 for the weekend and we subbed out Vansau for him some. That said- he showed how athletic he is with his game saving play on Saturday to steal a double. Blaylock is going to be good when he puts it all together in a year or two. When Stovall gets back we can move Cody Brown back to the outfield and Stovall can hit in Blaylock's spot in the 9 hole where Stovall seems to thrive. That will give us another .300 hitter in the outfield and we won't lose too much defense in the outfield. Elijah MacNamee has locked down the DH spot for now and he had only two hits- including a pretty impressive single off of Feigl who pretty much shut us down.
We are all happy about sweeping Ole Miss and I do know that MSU fans typically proceed with caution. Yes, Ole Miss is one of the worst hitting teams in the SEC. That said, they also have one of the best pitching staffs in the SEC and sweeping a series in Oxford is not easy. But if we do well this weekend against Kentucky at home for Super Bulldog Weekend- a weekend where we typically play terrible baseball it seems like- and then go to South Carolina and win at least a game in Columbia we should be in good shape for the second half of the SEC season. Alabama and Georgia are both pretty bad. Auburn is a lot better and LSU is pretty good even though they are struggling right now and we have both of them at home. Then we have A&M in College Station and hopefully we can win at least one there. I think they are a little bit better than their SEC record indicates. We also should be able to win most of our OOC games- Ole Miss in Pearl is a toss up and our most likely loss, but then we have a South Alabama team we have already beaten once in Mobile and then Troy, Mississippi Valley State, and FIU in Starkville. FIU could certainly be a trap for us because we have to play them twice and they have a pretty good coach.
We may finish strong but we also could flame out because of our limited roster. My guess is at the very least we end up in a regional when it's all said and done even if we limp to the finish line. One thing that I do know is that Cann is going to get as much out of our guys as he possibly can. And we've been fun to watch the past two weeks. And that's all I can really ask for at this point- the opportunity to do something big.
Our team is on a ROLL right now. We've won seven in a row and counting and our RPI has climbed up into the low 20's as I type this. Sure, it's too soon to talk about the postseason and those sorts of things- but at the same time we've put ourselves in a pretty good spot. Certainly we have a lot of work to do- but after losing to Oregon and Arkansas and all of the other things that have happened to our team, I'm very happy that we even have a chance at it at this point. You have to give Andy Cannizaro and Gary Henderson a lot of credit for that. He handed out some discipline after the Arkansas series and I think the players responded well to it. They know who the leader is and that they can't run over him. I think that will go a long way towards establishing our new culture under Cannizaro and after what I have seen this season I can't wait to see what he can do with a full pitching staff much less his own recruits and also I'm hopeful that he will keep more of our juniors as well. I'm very excited about the direction of our program and I think this weekend was confirmation of why we should be excited.
We have to get more out of our starting pitchers. Pilkington struck out a lot of guys on Thursday- but he didn't get deep in the game. Peyton Plumlee only got through 1/3 of an inning and that's because he picked a guy off. That said, major kudos to Jake Mangum for his start Saturday. He was locked in and he gave our bullpen a big boost on Saturday. Canniazaro and Henderson managed the pitching staff masterfully this weekend. He didn't hesitate to use the big guns in game one and didn't hold back like some managers would. They went for the win every time- and it worked every time as well. Riley Self was outstanding on Thursday and while I know a lot of fans don't like changing pitchers in the middle of an AB I can understand why it works- especially if you have a hitter that is in a 1-2 count and let's say you go from a fastball curve guy to a fastball slider guy. That gives the hitter really no time to adjust to the second pitcher which makes it more difficult to hit. Spencer Price pretty much owned Colby Bortles all weekend- until the last time they faced. Speaking of Price, he could very well be an All-SEC closer for us this year. He saved three games including two in high leverage situation where he came up big time and time again. Jacob Barton has been outstanding as well and won the Friday night game in relief of Plumlee and then you have the emergence of Cole Gordon as a pitcher who was also huge for us against Memphis. Denver McQuary battled and gave us three key innings against Ole Miss on Friday and held the lead for us until we could get to Gordon and Price. Graham Ashcraft was solid for us as well and he continues to progress and it was good to see Trey Jolley get his hitter out when called upon. I'm hopeful that Pilkington and Plumlee will be better at home and can go deep this weekend because obviously the deeper they can go the better it is for us. We should get Billingsley back soon- and I'm not sure if his role will be Sunday starter, midweek starter or bullpen guy although if it were me he would start on Sunday's out of necessity because the midweek is going to be Johnny Wholestaff no matter what we do. If he gets healthy we might be able to use Mangum in a relief role like CT Bradford or it wouldn't surprise me if we just start him like we have been because of the substitution rules in baseball with the DH and all of that. We do run the risk of subbing him out if we bring him out of the bullpen. I know the Shitbirds are 13th in the SEC in hitting- but this group did a great job of eliminating beer showers this weekend.
Josh Lovelady has been a big surprise to me. He has taken over the catching job- which is pretty thin as well as we're pretty down to two catchers. He went 3 for 9 and had a TRIPLE where he drove in a run and then he had a key sac fly on Saturday. He shut down their running game as well. He's hitting .306 right now and when I watched him in Memphis he smoked a double and took good AB's. You have to give Cann a lot of credit for his success. And then there's Brent Rooker. He might win SEC player of the week again. I like him at first base and I have long thought that was his best position. He made an outstanding play to complete the sweep on Saturday. He went 5 for 13 with three doubles and a home run that probably knocked the scarf off of some dude in the Ole Miss out field. Every hit he had did major damage and his home run was off of Ole Miss's ace. He almost hit a home run against Memphis too. Cody Brown also had a key home run for us and he has done a great job at second base for us. Hunter Stovall should come back soon and when he does and gets back up to speed we can move Cody Oquendo back to the outfield and it should make us better defensively and offensively as well. LA had a rough weekend- missing a base is not a Little League mistake- that's a T-Ball mistake. But I have to give him a lot of credit for playing through some injuries and I think that has affected his hitting and defense a little bit. Baserunning- no. Hopefully his finger will be healed up in a couple of weeks and he can move forward and get back up to speed. Gridley has been rock solid all year making nice plays at SS but he struggled some this weekend at the plate only going 1 for 10 so we need to get him going again.
I can tell that Ole Miss fans hate Jake Mangum. And I love the way that Mangum wants to beat them every time out. He went 4 for 13 with a double which isn't great by his standards but still pretty solid. I loved it when he bunted for a single just so that Ole Miss wouldn't be able to say that they held him hitless. Tanner Poole continues to be a solid player- he went 4 for 12 with a stolen base. Brant Blaylock is still struggling at the plate and went 0 for the weekend and we subbed out Vansau for him some. That said- he showed how athletic he is with his game saving play on Saturday to steal a double. Blaylock is going to be good when he puts it all together in a year or two. When Stovall gets back we can move Cody Brown back to the outfield and Stovall can hit in Blaylock's spot in the 9 hole where Stovall seems to thrive. That will give us another .300 hitter in the outfield and we won't lose too much defense in the outfield. Elijah MacNamee has locked down the DH spot for now and he had only two hits- including a pretty impressive single off of Feigl who pretty much shut us down.
We are all happy about sweeping Ole Miss and I do know that MSU fans typically proceed with caution. Yes, Ole Miss is one of the worst hitting teams in the SEC. That said, they also have one of the best pitching staffs in the SEC and sweeping a series in Oxford is not easy. But if we do well this weekend against Kentucky at home for Super Bulldog Weekend- a weekend where we typically play terrible baseball it seems like- and then go to South Carolina and win at least a game in Columbia we should be in good shape for the second half of the SEC season. Alabama and Georgia are both pretty bad. Auburn is a lot better and LSU is pretty good even though they are struggling right now and we have both of them at home. Then we have A&M in College Station and hopefully we can win at least one there. I think they are a little bit better than their SEC record indicates. We also should be able to win most of our OOC games- Ole Miss in Pearl is a toss up and our most likely loss, but then we have a South Alabama team we have already beaten once in Mobile and then Troy, Mississippi Valley State, and FIU in Starkville. FIU could certainly be a trap for us because we have to play them twice and they have a pretty good coach.
We may finish strong but we also could flame out because of our limited roster. My guess is at the very least we end up in a regional when it's all said and done even if we limp to the finish line. One thing that I do know is that Cann is going to get as much out of our guys as he possibly can. And we've been fun to watch the past two weeks. And that's all I can really ask for at this point- the opportunity to do something big.