MSU moved up to #3 in D1 poll....guess they thought we should have sweep SC if we

[99jc]

had brought Sims in. just joking......Hail State!

[SaintDawg]

#3 is right where we should be.

[basedog]

Awesome, tough to sweep on the road in the Sec especially against a team that was playing for a potential regional host. Getting knocked off ones horse hopefully will make us better although we are getting better by the week.

Btw, some pitchers don't recover quickly after throwing say 30 pitches or more, just saying cause I don't think Sims was 100%. Time for a few relievers to man up and throw strikes and get their mojo back.

[Todd4State]

Awesome, tough to sweep on the road in the Sec especially against a team that was playing for a potential regional host. Getting knocked off ones horse hopefully will make us better although we are getting better by the week.

Btw, some pitchers don't recover quickly after throwing say 30 pitches or more, just saying cause I don't think Sims was 100%. Time for a few relievers to man up and throw strikes and get their mojo back.

Possibly. I think Lemonis wanted to avoid using him back to back days if possible. I don't totally disagree with Lemonis either way because having a reasonably fresh Sims in the postseason is to our benefit.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Possibly. I think Lemonis wanted to avoid using him back to back days if possible. I don't totally disagree with Lemonis either way because having a reasonably fresh Sims in the postseason is to our benefit.

What really hurt us was having to use him on Saturday in a game we had led 9-3 until we started booting balls and giving up bombs. Had we just done what we were supposed to do in that one we could've used him for the 9 out safe yesterday and got the sweep. But hindsight is 20/20 so no use dwelling on it. Let's sweep the next two and let the chips fall where they may.

[trob115]

Personally, I would have started the 9th with Brandon Smith. PJ wasn't sharp in the 8th and I thought we were going to make a change.

I understand Lemonis wasn't going to use Sims to try to keep him fresh for the postseason. I thought that was the difference in us playing for the SEC title vs trying to win in the postseason.

[Commercecomet24]

What really hurt us was having to use him on Saturday in a game we had led 9-3 until we started booting balls and giving up bombs. Had we just done what we were supposed to do in that one we could've used him for the 9 out safe yesterday and got the sweep. But hindsight is 20/20 so no use dwelling on it. Let's sweep the next two and let the chips fall where they may.

This. If we did what we were supposed to do saturday we could've saved Sims for Game 3. I do understand though that when they got it to 9-6 we needed to go ahead and slam the door to secure the series win for sure.

[Cooterpoot]

Sims threw 34 pitches Sat. He could've easily gone a couple outs to win it yesterday. We baby the hell out of our pitchers. Nobody else playing for a championship does that. We're obviously content with where we are and don't care about winning the SEC. Personally, I try to win the conference then rest everyone at the tournament.

[BrunswickDawg]

Sims threw 34 pitches Sat. He could've easily gone a couple outs to win it yesterday. We baby the hell out of our pitchers. Nobody else playing for a championship does that. We're obviously content with where we are and don't care about winning the SEC. Personally, I try to win the conference then rest everyone at the tournament.

I think the approach just shows that SEC Titles don't really matter. What matters is your seed moving into post season and how you have your team built for the tourney/CWS. We can debate the merits of that - but ultimately as competitive as the SEC is, I think most teams look at the SEC title as a bonus but not the goal. If it was the only way we could host, it would be totally different. Honestly though, I think that the next 2 weekends are when if you are in a position to fight for a title, you do it. This past weekend was borderline, simply because a win yesterday does give you a leg up going into the final two weeks. Either way, we are 1 game back with 6 to play, and have a path to win it. Not a bad position to be in.

[StarkVegasSteve]

I think the approach just shows that SEC Titles don't really matter. What matters is your seed moving into post season and how you have your team built for the tourney/CWS. We can debate the merits of that - but ultimately as competitive as the SEC is, I think most teams look at the SEC title as a bonus but not the goal. If it was the only way we could host, it would be totally different. Honestly though, I think that the next 2 weekends are when if you are in a position to fight for a title, you do it. This past weekend was borderline, simply because a win yesterday does give you a leg up going into the final two weeks. Either way, we are 1 game back with 6 to play, and have a path to win it. Not a bad position to be in.

I think this weekend will play a lot into it. If you get the sweep then depending on what happens with the Arky/UT and Vandy/OM series will determine how aggressively you play the Bama series in regards to going for the sweep.

[Jack Lambert]

Awesome, tough to sweep on the road in the Sec especially against a team that was playing for a potential regional host. Getting knocked off ones horse hopefully will make us better although we are getting better by the week.

Btw, some pitchers don't recover quickly after throwing say 30 pitches or more, just saying cause I don't think Sims was 100%. Time for a few relievers to man up and throw strikes and get their mojo back.

It's all about hosting and I totally agree why take a chance on hurting our best closer.

[CadaverDawg]

Yeah I think if this last weekend was the last weekend of the regular season and the same scenario played out but if we sweep we win the league...Sims is on the hill in the 9th. Lemonis is playing the long game, and ultimately if we win the National Title we will all give two shits about the SEC regular season crown. Lemonis knows if we're going to win it all, we HAVE to have another arm or two prove they're capable to step in and shut things down. We are still in a good spot to win the league, so let's see what happens. Hell, I was just hoping we could win 1 at SC, so winning the series was huge.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Yeah I think if this last weekend was the last weekend of the regular season and the same scenario played out but if we sweep we win the league...Sims is on the hill in the 9th. Lemonis is playing the long game, and ultimately if we win the National Title we will all give two shits about the SEC regular season crown. Lemonis knows if we're going to win it all, we HAVE to have another arm or two prove they're capable to step in and shut things down. We are still in a good spot to win the league, so let's see what happens. Hell, I was just hoping we could win 1 at SC, so winning the series was huge.

This is the biggest piece to everything. We need to know that we have between 3-6 guys that can step up in high leverage situations and get outs. Lemonis knows we're going to need a Brandon Smith or a Stone Simmons or a Cam Tullar to be able to bridge things to get to Sims at some point. Right now I'd say we have 5-6 relievers outside of Sims that I can trust to go out there and get an out. That'd be Preston Johnson, Parker Stinnett, Smith, Simmons, Tullar, and I think Cade Smith could be a guy like that for us with a couple more appearances. Go back to 2019 and the reason we faltered in that Louisville game was that we had no one who could bridge it to Cole and had to use him early. Leibelt had been struggling for two weeks and Barlow just wasn't a reliable matchup guy.

[basedog]

Here was the biggest problem Sunday, walks by our middle relivers. Reason being is it turns over the batting order for SC such as in the late inning there middle of the order comes to the plate. Walks and yes errors are a killer but if our middle relive and late inning guys throw strikes, game over!

[Commercecomet24]

Here was the biggest problem Sunday, walks by our middle relivers. Reason being is it turns over the batting order for SC such as in the late inning there middle of the order comes to the plate. Walks and yes errors are a killer but if our middle relive and late inning guys throw strikes, game over!

Yep the one thing you don't want relievers to do is issue walks, always a killer.

[BrunswickDawg]

Yeah I think if this last weekend was the last weekend of the regular season and the same scenario played out but if we sweep we win the league...Sims is on the hill in the 9th. Lemonis is playing the long game, and ultimately if we win the National Title we will all give two shits about the SEC regular season crown. Lemonis knows if we're going to win it all, we HAVE to have another arm or two prove they're capable to step in and shut things down. We are still in a good spot to win the league, so let's see what happens. Hell, I was just hoping we could win 1 at SC, so winning the series was huge.

I think 2019 was a huge season for Lemonis, and is going to pay dividends for MSU over the long haul. At Louisville, he learned what it takes to get to Omaha for a non-SEC school. And he managed that way successfully in '19 - but learned how much more of a grind the SEC season is than any other league. And THEN we had that damn 17 inning marathon at the SEC T. Thankfully, we had a pretty weak regional - but you could tell our pen was toast and the starters were not far behind and then our bats just hammered a Stanford team whose starters were already DOA. If it works - we could have a whole lot of strong arms to choose from in Omaha.

[R2Dawg]

#3 is right where we should be.

Agree. We can finish strong and go even higher depending on how we and other teams do next two weeks.

[Cowbell]

Yep the one thing you don't want relievers to do is issue walks, always a killer.

Especially walks to the number 9 hitter or in this case HBPs.

[basedog]

Gonna be interesting to see who gets the start Thursday. I can see Harding starting but I'd rather see Cade, LOL! Perfect time for him to get some Sec action against Missouri, JMO!

[StarkVegasSteve]

Gonna be interesting to see who gets the start Thursday. I can see Harding starting but I'd rather see Cade, LOL! Perfect time for him to get some Sec action against Missouri, JMO!

I wouldn't mind seeing Cade or Harding. I think recency bias would lean towards giving the ball to Cade and letting him try to get 5 innings and then go to Harding

[preachermatt83]

Gonna be interesting to see who gets the start Thursday. I can see Harding starting but I'd rather see Cade, LOL! Perfect time for him to get some Sec action against Missouri, JMO!

McCloud will start

[Homedawg]

McCloud will start

correct

[Ezsoil]

This is the biggest piece to everything. We need to know that we have between 3-6 guys that can step up in high leverage situations and get outs. Lemonis knows we're going to need a Brandon Smith or a Stone Simmons or a Cam Tullar to be able to bridge things to get to Sims at some point. Right now I'd say we have 5-6 relievers outside of Sims that I can trust to go out there and get an out. That'd be Preston Johnson, Parker Stinnett, Smith, Simmons, Tullar, and I think Cade Smith could be a guy like that for us with a couple more appearances. Go back to 2019 and the reason we faltered in that Louisville game was that we had no one who could bridge it to Cole and had to use him early. Leibelt had been struggling for two weeks and Barlow just wasn't a reliable matchup guy.

That UL game was not a good example...Leibelt did a great job he just got squeezed by that ump..even kyle Peterson agreed.