Sunday Evening Thoughts and Speculation

[Coach34]

1. Good basketball hire. Gotta give credit to our AD for making the decision to move on 2 months ago when the writing was on the wall. Did his homework and hired a quality HC. Ultimately it will be judged on the guy's ultimate success 4-5 years from now, but going in- it's well done. Jan has a rep for being very organized and driven plus known as a good floor coach. His team this March played extremely hard.

2. That being said- I'll be surprised if we have much different results than what we just had with Howland and the last half of Stands. There are so many teams just like us in NCAA basketball- with NIL deals becoming a bigger and bigger part of things- I dont think we'll move the needle much. For 16 years now- we have been basically an NIT team that threatens to make the dance every now and then sans The Ray Error. With constant transfers and NIL in college basketball- it will take a monumental effort to bring us up a notch.

3. One thing we could possibly see with the new coaching staff is adding a couple more polished basketball players instead of a team of athletes that are constantly hoping to develop. We had Carter and Q who were pretty polished all around- just not enough of guys like that.

4. We scored 31 runs this weekend in Georgia and lost 2/3. As I said before the series- the line-up is coming around but the pitching will determine where we land. Georgia's Friday night guy is pretty damn good, but we unloaded on their other 2 SP's. PFS blowing up really hurt- but in the end the defense cost us the game Sat. Vet guys let us down. Got to tighten that up. We gonna end up around 15-15 in the SEC and a low 2 or high 3 seed somewhere come June. Probably be a nightmare match-up for someone.

5. Havent been that excited about alot of Lemon's shuffling and we are seeing why. After hardly playing for 18 games- we suddenly go with Davis in CF and he is looking good. Between letting him rot on the pine and wasting time not playing Yeager- we've cost ourselves 3-4 wins. We stuck with Dubrule when he struggled last year but didnt do that with these guys who were proven as well. Gonna hurt come seeding time

6. As with last season and every season- you are only as good as your veteran players. Our season will be determined by Hancock, Tanner, James, Cumbest, Yeager, Clark, Johnson, PFS, C. Smith, B. Smith, Tullar.....Hines is outstanding for a Freshman but he will have some ups and downs. We need Kohn to do well but will be more of the same with him. There's no excuse in Cumbest hitting 50 points higher than Hancock and Tanner 1/3 of the way in. Yeager and Clark had terrible starts yet they are now hitting around what the other 2 are. Yeager has more HR's than Tanner and Hancock combined. Vets have to perform- especially ones considered to be Top 50 picks

7. I'm heading in this weekend hoping to see us swing the bat and win a series. Yesssssss, a sweep would be huge but this team simply needs a series win right now. Get some positive momentum. We should have walked away today upbeat and hopefully it bleeds into next weekend. HailState

[shoeless joe]

Good post.

On Hancock…he needs to release the bat head. He’s so concerned with staying inside the ball that the barrel drags thru the zone. Which is why he hits a lot of fly balls to the left side. This has been a struggle for him since SEC started last season. I’ll take a few more K’s if it means a few more balls driven to the gap and the stands.

Pitching is mentally weak…that sums it up. And not everyone, but in general. No excuse to miss with the same pitch in the same spot repeatedly like we do.

But like you said just get in as a 2-3 seed and hope to be playing our best ball.

Agree on basketball.

[Homedawg]

Actually we sat dubrule for the entire weekend at auburn. But otherwise pretty spot on

[Homedawg]

Good post.

On Hancock…he needs to release the bat head. He’s so concerned with staying inside the ball that the barrel drags thru the zone. Which is why he hits a lot of fly balls to the left side. This has been a struggle for him since SEC started last season. I’ll take a few more K’s if it means a few more balls driven to the gap and the stands.

Pitching is mentally weak…that sums it up. And not everyone, but in general. No excuse to miss with the same pitch in the same spot repeatedly like we do.

But like you said just get in as a 2-3 seed and hope to be playing our best ball.

Agree on basketball.

He had 3 hits yesterday and scorched 2 on the ground to the right side today.

[shoeless joe]

He had 3 hits yesterday and scorched 2 on the ground to the right side today.

Fair enough. I wasn’t able to watch but very little this weekend and his only at bat I saw was a first pitch fly out to left center with bases loaded directly after a 4 pitch walk.

I hope he picks it up. I’ve liked him since tryin to find ways to consistently get him out while he was mashing for Houston.

Legit question: how many homers has he hit since SEC play started last yr? I honestly don’t know…

[Coach34]

Good post.
Pitching is mentally weak…that sums it up. And not everyone, but in general. No excuse to miss with the same pitch in the same spot repeatedly like we do.

Yeah this is a huge problem that has to be solved by Fox and the guys themselves. ISeenIt had a great take about our RP's. Damn near every one of them that comes in the game to relieve throws Ball 1 to the 1st hitter they face. None of them come in throwing strikes. That's a def sign of being mentally weak.

[Tripp McNeely]

Good post.

On Hancock…he needs to release the bat head. He’s so concerned with staying inside the ball that the barrel drags thru the zone. Which is why he hits a lot of fly balls to the left side. This has been a struggle for him since SEC started last season. I’ll take a few more K’s if it means a few more balls driven to the gap and the stands.

Pitching is mentally weak…that sums it up. And not everyone, but in general. No excuse to miss with the same pitch in the same spot repeatedly like we do.

But like you said just get in as a 2-3 seed and hope to be playing our best ball.

Agree on basketball.

Hancock laced a double down the right field line yesterday.

[Todd4State]

Our team is coming together. I think pitching injuries have messed some things up and we're having to sort some things out. But I think we're close to figuring it out. I'm hoping we see either Hunt and/or Walling against Southern. We know where Jack Walker is and starting him again doesn't really help us too much IMO. He needs to go off this summer and work things out. We need to figure out where Walling is. And if Hunt is healthy we need to get him some innings to see where he is.

I'm an advocate of switching Stinnett and Johnson in the rotation. Hopefully we can slide Hunt either into the bullpen or into the rotation into Preston's spot. If Hunt isn't back in three weeks he just isn't going to be able to contribute very much.

The biggest thing though if I'm in Lemonis's shoes I'm focusing big time on defense. If we catch a fly ball- we win Saturday. If we eliminate any two errors we win big. In the grand scheme of things winning one on the road against a team like Georgia is acceptable. But it's still disappointing because we should have won the series.

The lineup is fine as is but I might consider dropping Kam James down and moving Yeager to second in the order as well.

I think we have a good week this week we see more things start to come together.

[Todd4State]

Good post.

On Hancock…he needs to release the bat head. He’s so concerned with staying inside the ball that the barrel drags thru the zone. Which is why he hits a lot of fly balls to the left side. This has been a struggle for him since SEC started last season. I’ll take a few more K’s if it means a few more balls driven to the gap and the stands.

Pitching is mentally weak…that sums it up. And not everyone, but in general. No excuse to miss with the same pitch in the same spot repeatedly like we do.

But like you said just get in as a 2-3 seed and hope to be playing our best ball.

Agree on basketball.

I wonder how Hancock is being pitched? He may need to change where he standing in the box some as well.

[somebodyshotmypaw]

Kam James leads the team in AVG and OBP. But he has only 2 extra base hits (one double and one homer). That has to change.