Florida game 1 thread

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Originally Posted by Saltydog

Price is a one trick pony too. He's got nothing but a breaking pitch right now. The injury really took a toll on him. His FB is only 84-85 right now, tops.

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We know the Achilles heel of this team - until we get a full strength price or develop someone else (Spring or Eagan) this bullpen is scary vs elite teams

We NEED Gordon to deliver

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Originally Posted by BuckyIsAB****

And you've still got Self, he has gotten it done before I know he needs another pitch but you cant argue with results

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Self is not healthy and would get mauled by SEC teams. He is BP material for USM.

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

Self is not healthy and would get mauled by SEC teams. He is BP material for USM.

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Plus he gave up two hits to Grambling. He looked better to me- but he's still a work in progress at this point.

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

We know the Achilles heel of this team - until we get a full strength price or develop someone else (Spring or Eagan) this bullpen is scary vs elite teams

We NEED Gordon to deliver

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I don't know that I would say that it's an Achilles heel or not. Leibelt, White, Barlow, and Smith have all been reliable. Cole needs to understand whether or not an umpire is calling breaking balls strikes or not and adjust- which he will know by the 9th inning. In both the Maine game and tonight the umpires weren't calling it. So he should have relied more on his fastball to get ahead. Or whoever is calling pitches for us needs to understand that. When Gordon made the adjustment he worked his way out of it including with a couple of K's and was getting ahead of hitters.

Also we have some others that haven't pitched a lot like Tyler Spring that may be able to help along with possibly Plumlee at least some weekends. And if he develops a little bit better command maybe even Cerentola. I expect our team to evolve some as the year goes on and the good news is we're pretty solid overall. Which is why we've been able to minimize the losses so far.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I don't know that I would say that it's an Achilles heel or not. Leibelt, White, Barlow, and Smith have all been reliable. Cole needs to understand whether or not an umpire is calling breaking balls strikes or not and adjust- which he will know by the 9th inning. In both the Maine game and tonight the umpires weren't calling it. So he should have relied more on his fastball to get ahead. Or whoever is calling pitches for us needs to understand that. When Gordon made the adjustment he worked his way out of it including with a couple of K's and was getting ahead of hitters.

Also we have some others that haven't pitched a lot like Tyler Spring that may be able to help along with possibly Plumlee at least some weekends. And if he develops a little bit better command maybe even Cerentola. I expect our team to evolve some as the year goes on and the good news is we're pretty solid overall. Which is why we've been able to minimize the losses so far.

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If Cerantola could become a Sunday starter, we could use Keegan James out of the pen. I like Keegan better as a reliever. That may be asking too much of Cerantola though.

Great first night win. Did just enough to win. This team is 17-1 and 1-0. Mac was the MVP of that game with an incredible catch and then a clutch 2-RBI double. Win tomorrow with Ginn and the rest of the weekend is gravy.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

If Cerantola could become a Sunday starter, we could use Keegan James out of the pen. I like Keegan better as a reliever. That may be asking too much of Cerantola though.

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Ding ding ding.

Cerantola becoming an impact starter or even reliever on the weekend will be huge for us.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

If Cerantola could become a Sunday starter, we could use Keegan James out of the pen. I like Keegan better as a reliever. That may be asking too much of Cerantola though.

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I agree. And Cerentola isn't ready yet. But I think we're going to try to progress him into a bigger role for later on potentially. If he can. I'm guessing that we will use Plumlee out of the pen at some point tonight and maybe start Cerentola against UALR on Tuesday with Plumlee going up against Samford on Weds.

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Originally Posted by IMissJack

Although it has worked for us so far, I am not a big fan of bringing in a pitcher for an inning then switch for another inning, so on. If a pitcher is on, leave him in, until he needs to be relieved. When you change pitchers often, for the sake of always pitching that guy only one inning, all it takes is one of the pitchers being "off" to ruin a very good evening.

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Absolutely. This makes me have a heart attack every time we do it. Liebelt throws 9 pitches and looks totally in control and you pull him. It ended up working but I just hate that strategy. You are depending way too much on someone else not having their stuff, like CG. I am a big fan of pitching people until they give you a reason not to pitch them in games. However, 17-1 speaks for itself.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

To be fair- White gave up a run too and I think that may have factored in to the decision. Although as I have said I would have liked to have seen White go back out there for the 9th with a four run lead.

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Liebelt should've been allowed to come back out for the 8th after throwing 9 pitches in a clean 1-2-3 7th inning. That could've really made a difference b/c he was "on."