Todd4State
05-13-2019, 05:24 AM
This weekend was a very good one for MSU baseball. We cemented a regional host bid and we're pretty close to completely slam dunking a National Seed. Probably one win over South Carolina makes it a slam dunk. To go on the road and do what we did to Ole Miss is part of what makes this team special. The team slogan for this weekend was "let them know"- and I would say that we certainly accomplished that this weekend.
Jake Mangum plays against Ole Miss how I would envision myself playing against Ole Miss if I had SEC baseball talent. 14-2 while hitting .411 against Ole Miss with countless great defensive plays and just causing havoc against them. I don't think I've ever seen a MSU player in Ole Miss's heads more than Jake in ANY sport. You can tell that they dislike him very much and they just don't know what to do about him. They intentionally walk him and he just scores the game winning run against them like he did in the Governor's Cup last year. If he tried to sac bunt against them I would not be shocked if it turned into a Little League home run. That's how much he is in their heads.
The starting pitching was mostly good outside of a couple of innings. Small was outstanding and oddly enough the fog delay may benefit him because it probably allowed him a chance to rest up some. Ginn settled down after the first inning and Plumlee has really emerged as the third starter which we will need for the regionals. I still can't believe that Bianco said that he was nothing special publicly. He really probably should apologize for that comment- but the sweep will do. We do need to find a fourth starter for the SEC Tournament and possibly the regionals and we get one more shot to find one against La Tech. I'll be interested to see which direction the coaches go- Brandon Smith? Back to Cerentola? Tyler Spring? Keegan?
Along with the staff rounding out we have seen the bullpen emerge and develop. We have two closer/set-up guys in Cole Gordon and Colby White. Both have gotten back on track. I personally prefer Colby because I like my closers to be flamethrowers that dominate. But Cole is also very good too. Jared Leibelt has emerged as the fireman who can go multiple innings and get outs. We also have Barlow, Self, and Eagan who can match up against LH/RH which is a luxury and then Brandon Smith has done a good job for us as well.
Our entire starting infield is hitting over .300 right now. Skelton had a very good day on Sunday at the plate and his improvement has been remarkable. Tanner Allen is a player of the week candidate and is now up to .322 and he had several big hits this weekend. Foscue had a double and has stabilized second base for us. He also drew a nice charge on Saturday to help Ginn get out of trouble. Marshall Gilbert took good at bats all weekend and seemed to score every time he got on just about. He also made some nice plays at third base. Westburg had some tough moments but he had two big hits on Friday night and was one of our better hitters that day.
As far as the outfielders go- I am in agreement that we need to let MacNamee heal up this week. Not really much benefit to forcing him out there at this point. Epecially with Hatcher and Cumbest playing reasonably well and as I said it could benefit us to get them some AB's to make us even deeper as a team. Mangum- see above. God bless you Jake Mangum. Rowdey had good games Sat and Sun driving in four on the weekend and picking up three hits. Gunner Halter has improved as the year has gone along and he had hits in every game this weekend. Luke Hancock has really been impressive though. He had a nice opposite field hit and he's hitting close to .400 right now. We have a lot of good options on the bench that have contributed this year.
One more week during the regular season! We play La Tech in a game that really is almost for charity given their situation. As I said it is important for us to come out and find a fourth starter and hopefully we do that. La Tech has been struggling but they got into a skirmish with Western Kentucky at the end of the game one of that series and then they came back and won the next two. South Carolina is senior weekend for us and one win probably makes us a slam dunk National Seed and gets us a bye in the SEC Tournament. We are still technically in the SEC and SEC West race as well. Unlikely that we win the league and now A&M will be without Asa Lacey because he got ejected from a game arguing with an umpire so that makes it easier on Arkansas. I'd like to win the SEC or even the SEC West- but we do have our eyes on bigger prizes as well. It's pretty remarkable that we are in this position given the difficulty of our schedule especially when you compare it to Vanderbilt and I wish the SEC would address this but they probably won't. It is what it is.
We put a big dent in Ole Miss's chances to host a regional. They're going to have to rebound on the road to get a bid- and that still may not be enough. Their number one ranked recruiting class has only beaten us once- and they will now graduate without beating MSU in Oxford going into their money year. My thoughts on that and other Ole Miss things about Bianco has already been made known and if you want to read it again see below.
https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?74380-Can-Ole-Miss-get-a-coach-better-then-Bianco/page2
See y'all next week and enjoy wearing your maroon proudly to work this week. Life is just awesome when MSU baseball is great and you have to enjoy it while it lasts! And thanks to Coach Lemonis and the baseball team for letting Ole Miss know. Hail State!
Jake Mangum plays against Ole Miss how I would envision myself playing against Ole Miss if I had SEC baseball talent. 14-2 while hitting .411 against Ole Miss with countless great defensive plays and just causing havoc against them. I don't think I've ever seen a MSU player in Ole Miss's heads more than Jake in ANY sport. You can tell that they dislike him very much and they just don't know what to do about him. They intentionally walk him and he just scores the game winning run against them like he did in the Governor's Cup last year. If he tried to sac bunt against them I would not be shocked if it turned into a Little League home run. That's how much he is in their heads.
The starting pitching was mostly good outside of a couple of innings. Small was outstanding and oddly enough the fog delay may benefit him because it probably allowed him a chance to rest up some. Ginn settled down after the first inning and Plumlee has really emerged as the third starter which we will need for the regionals. I still can't believe that Bianco said that he was nothing special publicly. He really probably should apologize for that comment- but the sweep will do. We do need to find a fourth starter for the SEC Tournament and possibly the regionals and we get one more shot to find one against La Tech. I'll be interested to see which direction the coaches go- Brandon Smith? Back to Cerentola? Tyler Spring? Keegan?
Along with the staff rounding out we have seen the bullpen emerge and develop. We have two closer/set-up guys in Cole Gordon and Colby White. Both have gotten back on track. I personally prefer Colby because I like my closers to be flamethrowers that dominate. But Cole is also very good too. Jared Leibelt has emerged as the fireman who can go multiple innings and get outs. We also have Barlow, Self, and Eagan who can match up against LH/RH which is a luxury and then Brandon Smith has done a good job for us as well.
Our entire starting infield is hitting over .300 right now. Skelton had a very good day on Sunday at the plate and his improvement has been remarkable. Tanner Allen is a player of the week candidate and is now up to .322 and he had several big hits this weekend. Foscue had a double and has stabilized second base for us. He also drew a nice charge on Saturday to help Ginn get out of trouble. Marshall Gilbert took good at bats all weekend and seemed to score every time he got on just about. He also made some nice plays at third base. Westburg had some tough moments but he had two big hits on Friday night and was one of our better hitters that day.
As far as the outfielders go- I am in agreement that we need to let MacNamee heal up this week. Not really much benefit to forcing him out there at this point. Epecially with Hatcher and Cumbest playing reasonably well and as I said it could benefit us to get them some AB's to make us even deeper as a team. Mangum- see above. God bless you Jake Mangum. Rowdey had good games Sat and Sun driving in four on the weekend and picking up three hits. Gunner Halter has improved as the year has gone along and he had hits in every game this weekend. Luke Hancock has really been impressive though. He had a nice opposite field hit and he's hitting close to .400 right now. We have a lot of good options on the bench that have contributed this year.
One more week during the regular season! We play La Tech in a game that really is almost for charity given their situation. As I said it is important for us to come out and find a fourth starter and hopefully we do that. La Tech has been struggling but they got into a skirmish with Western Kentucky at the end of the game one of that series and then they came back and won the next two. South Carolina is senior weekend for us and one win probably makes us a slam dunk National Seed and gets us a bye in the SEC Tournament. We are still technically in the SEC and SEC West race as well. Unlikely that we win the league and now A&M will be without Asa Lacey because he got ejected from a game arguing with an umpire so that makes it easier on Arkansas. I'd like to win the SEC or even the SEC West- but we do have our eyes on bigger prizes as well. It's pretty remarkable that we are in this position given the difficulty of our schedule especially when you compare it to Vanderbilt and I wish the SEC would address this but they probably won't. It is what it is.
We put a big dent in Ole Miss's chances to host a regional. They're going to have to rebound on the road to get a bid- and that still may not be enough. Their number one ranked recruiting class has only beaten us once- and they will now graduate without beating MSU in Oxford going into their money year. My thoughts on that and other Ole Miss things about Bianco has already been made known and if you want to read it again see below.
https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?74380-Can-Ole-Miss-get-a-coach-better-then-Bianco/page2
See y'all next week and enjoy wearing your maroon proudly to work this week. Life is just awesome when MSU baseball is great and you have to enjoy it while it lasts! And thanks to Coach Lemonis and the baseball team for letting Ole Miss know. Hail State!