Todd4State
06-17-2019, 12:50 AM
THAT WAS AMAZING! That will be one of the all time MSU games and one of the most memorable MSU baseball games of all time. It seemed like nothing went right for 8 innings. And then the 9th inning happened.
First the Mayor hammered a double off of a guy that had the best slider of his lifetime going. Then Auburn's heroes of the game started to kick the ball around on the infield. And then Big hit Mac did what he does- he got yet another big hit. And then Auburn kicked the ball around on the infield again. Finally Marshall Gilbert delivered the coup de gras off the pitchers glove and of course it went right by their second baseman who was doing his best Roberto Alomar impression all night long.
I'm going to say it- it looked like a LSU CWS baseball win. Just this time it was the good guys.
I think Butch got a little too cute at the end. He put in a guy who was making his first relief appearance with a guy who is our biggest stolen base threat on second and who on top of that had a shoulder injury. And Liverpool- THAT is why you don't throw a guy who is injured. He completely melted down and it was really over when we tied it because Auburn had used their best bullpen arms up at that point and we had only used Cole Gordon for an inning and had Colby White still in tow.
Ethan was good but not his usual untouchable self and then getting squeezed by the umpire didn't help matters. Still- congrats on setting the school record for K's in a season. You know you're good when it's really only one guy that is hitting you. The bullpen was very good. Riley Self looked the best I have seen him all year. Leibelt was solid and the one run he allowed wasn't totally his fault. Cole Gordon was nasty. Pitching Small was the right choice. Now we can maximize using him. And good job by Lemonis for not riding him out after he threw a lot of pitches against Stanford. A lot of coaches would have.
Skelton had a great night at the plate. A complete 180 from last year when Oregon State abused him. Now he's scoring the game winning run and taking really good at bats. The Marlins are getting a steal. Owens was a tough match up for Tanner Allen but he still managed to get on base three times tonight. Foscue had a tough night. He has to be a little bit better defensively and take some better at bats. Gilbert also had a tough night defensively but as usual he makes up for it at the plate. His one hit was the biggest of the game for us. Good job of hitting it right up the middle and good fortune that their pitcher didn't glove it. Westburg had some tough at bats and had some good and some bad.
Mangum and MacNamee were seniors tonight. They absolutely stepped up when we needed them to and in the toughest moments. Their leadership has been incredibly valuable this year and they will be missed. They had both of our extra base hits tonight- and we need to start getting more guys to tap into their power so that we can reach our full potential. We got hits and we walked a lot- 6 walks to only 3 K's on the night is good. But too often we swung at pitches that they wanted us to swing at and got weak contact. Rowdey didn't really do a lot tonight other than get IBB. Our two DH's pitched in and got a couple of hits and Halter was able to get enough of the barrel on a ball to drive in a run for us.
I'm still enjoying and processing what happened and haven't really thought about Vandy that much less than three hours later after the end of the game. I don't know who we will pitch- but I'm good with either Ginn or Plumlee. I will say that we need to keep our normal approach and not be overaggressive or Kumar is going to strike out another 19 guys. Winning the second game is to me almost as important as winning game one. Win on Tuesday and we're going to have two shots to get to the National Finals. It's a good things that we have tomorrow off because I need to enjoy this for a day.
Hail State!
First the Mayor hammered a double off of a guy that had the best slider of his lifetime going. Then Auburn's heroes of the game started to kick the ball around on the infield. And then Big hit Mac did what he does- he got yet another big hit. And then Auburn kicked the ball around on the infield again. Finally Marshall Gilbert delivered the coup de gras off the pitchers glove and of course it went right by their second baseman who was doing his best Roberto Alomar impression all night long.
I'm going to say it- it looked like a LSU CWS baseball win. Just this time it was the good guys.
I think Butch got a little too cute at the end. He put in a guy who was making his first relief appearance with a guy who is our biggest stolen base threat on second and who on top of that had a shoulder injury. And Liverpool- THAT is why you don't throw a guy who is injured. He completely melted down and it was really over when we tied it because Auburn had used their best bullpen arms up at that point and we had only used Cole Gordon for an inning and had Colby White still in tow.
Ethan was good but not his usual untouchable self and then getting squeezed by the umpire didn't help matters. Still- congrats on setting the school record for K's in a season. You know you're good when it's really only one guy that is hitting you. The bullpen was very good. Riley Self looked the best I have seen him all year. Leibelt was solid and the one run he allowed wasn't totally his fault. Cole Gordon was nasty. Pitching Small was the right choice. Now we can maximize using him. And good job by Lemonis for not riding him out after he threw a lot of pitches against Stanford. A lot of coaches would have.
Skelton had a great night at the plate. A complete 180 from last year when Oregon State abused him. Now he's scoring the game winning run and taking really good at bats. The Marlins are getting a steal. Owens was a tough match up for Tanner Allen but he still managed to get on base three times tonight. Foscue had a tough night. He has to be a little bit better defensively and take some better at bats. Gilbert also had a tough night defensively but as usual he makes up for it at the plate. His one hit was the biggest of the game for us. Good job of hitting it right up the middle and good fortune that their pitcher didn't glove it. Westburg had some tough at bats and had some good and some bad.
Mangum and MacNamee were seniors tonight. They absolutely stepped up when we needed them to and in the toughest moments. Their leadership has been incredibly valuable this year and they will be missed. They had both of our extra base hits tonight- and we need to start getting more guys to tap into their power so that we can reach our full potential. We got hits and we walked a lot- 6 walks to only 3 K's on the night is good. But too often we swung at pitches that they wanted us to swing at and got weak contact. Rowdey didn't really do a lot tonight other than get IBB. Our two DH's pitched in and got a couple of hits and Halter was able to get enough of the barrel on a ball to drive in a run for us.
I'm still enjoying and processing what happened and haven't really thought about Vandy that much less than three hours later after the end of the game. I don't know who we will pitch- but I'm good with either Ginn or Plumlee. I will say that we need to keep our normal approach and not be overaggressive or Kumar is going to strike out another 19 guys. Winning the second game is to me almost as important as winning game one. Win on Tuesday and we're going to have two shots to get to the National Finals. It's a good things that we have tomorrow off because I need to enjoy this for a day.
Hail State!