RPI Watch- Tony Vitello Isn't Walking Through That Door
As we sit here awaiting the Tennessee series MSU's RPI is 12 which is within striking distance of a potential national seed with a strong finish and in good shape to host a regional basically by winning at the pace we are currently. So, we're in good shape. Of course, there is over half of the SEC season left and there is still work to do to finish the job. This weekend MSU needs to rebound from getting swept by Georgia with at least a series win against Tennessee. And I do think MSU will play pretty well. The approach at the plate against a pretty good UAB team which I think has a good chance of making a regional, was much better and the exit velocities were where we would want them to be to hit well. We just had a lot of balls that were right at people or died at the wall. Someone told me we had 10 balls that were hit over 100 MPH and didn't go for hits. In theory that should even out. Tennessee has also struggled on the road as they are 1-5 in true road games this year although they are also 2-1 at neutral sites and 3 of those losses on the road were some really wild losses against Vanderbilt. So, maybe the road stat is misleading.
That said, I think our pitching will perform much better against Tennessee compared to Georgia because Tennessee is in the lower half of the SEC in hitting. The issue for MSU of course is who will step up in place of Ryan McPherson this week? I fear that will be Charlie Foster again. Hopefully we get the Ole Miss version of him rather than the Georgia version but that's a complete crapshoot. They have not announced the rotation yet, but I suspect that they'll start Tico on Friday, Duke on Saturday, and then go with Foster on Sunday. I hope I am surprised and they let Maddox Miller start on Sunday or maybe they decide to roll with Chris Billingsley who has been very good lately. Our last four midweek games are against three teams with losing records and then the Governor's Cup which of course is against Ole Miss. We could certainly start Miller or Tyler Pitzer those games and be fine. The bullpen has pitched well overall. I suspect we'll see Jack Bauer at some point against Tennessee this weekend but against UAB Davis, Webb, and Pitzer all worked around traffic and did the job.
As far as in the field, Milewski played much better against UAB than he did against Georgia. We have to get Reed Stallman going again or use Bevis or Noah Sullivan there until he can get hot again. Frei, Reese, and Woodson have been solid and have come through at times despite not being hot right now. I don't expect Aiden Teel to play against Tennessee but I'm guessing he will be back by South Carolina. We're fine with Parker, Chance, and Vito though.
As far as National Seeds go- we have the same SEC record that we had in 2019 at 7-5, and we were 8-4 in 2016 and 2021. So, we're pretty close to being on pace with some of our National Seed teams in the past. I think these next three series are critical because we need to stack SEC wins and then win the Governor's Cup while at the same time avoiding bad losses to Samford and Memphis. I think 13 SEC wins will be enough to simply get us in a regional and 16 plus a Governor's Cup win probably will be good enough to host or at least get us on the bubble. 17+ should be safely hosting and 18 gets us in the National Seed discussion. Anything above 19 SEC wins and we should be a lock for a National Seed.
So, to break it down.
6-12 the rest of the SEC season gets us in a regional.
11-7 and we're hosting safely.
12-6 and we're a safe National Seed.
