Todd4State
02-28-2019, 12:06 AM
The payback tour is over! We beat Polk and UAB. Then we took two of three from USM. Then we beat JSU and their "equipment was the wrong color" coach, and tonight we took out our nemesis SELU.
Plumlee was outstanding tonight- and probably would have had an even better tonight had the rain delay not forced him out. Colby White, Jack Eagan, and Jared Leibelt continue to be nice surprises. It will be interesting to see if Lemonis has Plumlee start against ECU next week on Tuesday or if he rolls with Cerentola. Our staff is much improved- 10 K's in the first nine games so far.
Skelton looks so much better than he did last year. SELU was 14-18 in stolen base attempts coming in and Skelton throw out two runners trying to steal on him. He's not a liability anymore. Hayden Jones also got in late and had a hit although he also threw one into CF. Our infield had a great night in the field and at the plate. Foscue crushed his fourth home run for a grand slam, Gunner Halter got a home run into the Adkerson Plaza, and Tanner Allen got a double. The only guy that didn't get an extra base hit among the infielders was Westburg and he had two hits and scored three runs. Rowdey got a couple of hits including a double and Mangum had his typical two hit night- although he did have a baserunning mistake that cost us a run as well. MacNamee didn't get a hit but he did get an RBI and scored a run for us. Gilbert is DHing while he is hot and he got a hit tonight. Good to see Cumbest, Landon Jordan, Josh Hatcher, and Luke Hancock get into the game and get some action as well.
On offense I really like how we have typically pretty disciplined AB's- 8 BB's to 6 K's and along with the power we are also stealing bases. We have 12 already this year compared to 34 for the entire season last year. We've only been caught stealing 3 times as well- so we've been efficient. We've also done a good job executing hit and runs- those are all things that add variety to your lineup and make a powerful lineup that much more dangerous.
The Frisco Tournament that we are about to play in is pretty high profile for college baseball although I don't think it's up there with the Shriner's Classic or the Dodger Classic we have played in recently. But this weekend is a good chance for us to make some noise and move up in the polls. Sam Houston State is a good mid-major and they were beating TCU tonight but had to cancel the game because of fog. They have swept a usually pretty good ULL team that is missing their ace and has struggled early so I'm not sure what to take away from that. Texas Tech is number one in early RPI and is a CWS contender and we play them in the marquee game on Saturday. And yes, I think we stay with Small on Friday and Ginn on Saturday. Both games are equally important to us right now. Sunday we play a Nebraska team that may be better than their record indicates- they are 3-5 but four of those are to Oregon State.
And then looking ahead after that we play a typically good East Carolina team midweek and then go on a run where we have two SWAC teams and a winless Maine team to make some corrections and iron out wrinkles before SEC play. I like the way we look right now. It's time for us to make a statement this weekend.
Plumlee was outstanding tonight- and probably would have had an even better tonight had the rain delay not forced him out. Colby White, Jack Eagan, and Jared Leibelt continue to be nice surprises. It will be interesting to see if Lemonis has Plumlee start against ECU next week on Tuesday or if he rolls with Cerentola. Our staff is much improved- 10 K's in the first nine games so far.
Skelton looks so much better than he did last year. SELU was 14-18 in stolen base attempts coming in and Skelton throw out two runners trying to steal on him. He's not a liability anymore. Hayden Jones also got in late and had a hit although he also threw one into CF. Our infield had a great night in the field and at the plate. Foscue crushed his fourth home run for a grand slam, Gunner Halter got a home run into the Adkerson Plaza, and Tanner Allen got a double. The only guy that didn't get an extra base hit among the infielders was Westburg and he had two hits and scored three runs. Rowdey got a couple of hits including a double and Mangum had his typical two hit night- although he did have a baserunning mistake that cost us a run as well. MacNamee didn't get a hit but he did get an RBI and scored a run for us. Gilbert is DHing while he is hot and he got a hit tonight. Good to see Cumbest, Landon Jordan, Josh Hatcher, and Luke Hancock get into the game and get some action as well.
On offense I really like how we have typically pretty disciplined AB's- 8 BB's to 6 K's and along with the power we are also stealing bases. We have 12 already this year compared to 34 for the entire season last year. We've only been caught stealing 3 times as well- so we've been efficient. We've also done a good job executing hit and runs- those are all things that add variety to your lineup and make a powerful lineup that much more dangerous.
The Frisco Tournament that we are about to play in is pretty high profile for college baseball although I don't think it's up there with the Shriner's Classic or the Dodger Classic we have played in recently. But this weekend is a good chance for us to make some noise and move up in the polls. Sam Houston State is a good mid-major and they were beating TCU tonight but had to cancel the game because of fog. They have swept a usually pretty good ULL team that is missing their ace and has struggled early so I'm not sure what to take away from that. Texas Tech is number one in early RPI and is a CWS contender and we play them in the marquee game on Saturday. And yes, I think we stay with Small on Friday and Ginn on Saturday. Both games are equally important to us right now. Sunday we play a Nebraska team that may be better than their record indicates- they are 3-5 but four of those are to Oregon State.
And then looking ahead after that we play a typically good East Carolina team midweek and then go on a run where we have two SWAC teams and a winless Maine team to make some corrections and iron out wrinkles before SEC play. I like the way we look right now. It's time for us to make a statement this weekend.