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How concerned should we be about Hudson? 3 straight starts where he's been hammered pretty good. Is this the real Hudson, or will we see the early season Huddy again? The more I see him get hit, the less confident I am that we can make a deep postseason run.
Thoughts?
He's fine in my opinion. Florida, A&m, LSU, are tough customers.
I'm more concerned with Rigby giving up the grand slam. Hudson is, and always will be, a head case.Quote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
Tough customers who all had several weakly hit balls find holes... I'll be more worried when teams start stringing together hard hit balls in the gap and over the fence.
But yes, you will not find better competition than what we've faced the last three weeks.
He's not being hit hard. ok he's not getting swing and misses but he had a few Ks in huge spots when he NEEDED it.
hudson is fine - it's the sec and lsu at home. also, no ace is always on. in reality he gave up 4 in 7+. the grand slam was an anomaly on a night where rigby just didn't have it.
TLDR - full confidence in hudson
True, i hope that's all it is. Seems like he needs to get back to pitching like Hump where he knows he throws gas, so he dares you to catch up with it. Seems like that would make his cutter much more difficult to hit. Right now it's like teams are just sitting on his off speed stuff bc he throws it too much. When you throw 96+, throw 96+ a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by gravedigger
I may be way off though. I listened on the radio to the first 5 innings or so, so I didn't see the pitches they were ripping...just basing it off of Fla & A&M
it's one night where he was obviously rattled. he'll be fine tooQuote:
Originally Posted by Skydawg1
I think Rigby let the moment get the best of him. Better in a win than a loss. He just jumped onto the scene, so it will be a good learning experience. I think he'll be fine. If we see another bad outing, I'll start to worry some...but he was due for a shaky outing. Dude has been nails this year out of nowhereQuote:
Originally Posted by Skydawg1
Im probably going to regret this cause my pastor reads this board, but im less dissapointed in rigby giving up the granny than i am in him missing their heads.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skydawg1
EggggsssactlyQuote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
LOL. by how their fans reacted might as well done that. ****ers shoulda been cheeringQuote:
Originally Posted by gravedigger
Haha, well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by gravedigger
when u have elite stuff I'd rather a guy challenge ppl early and get ahead - and if they hit u fine. getting 2-0 3-1 on guys early immediately gives them a leg up no matter how good u are.Quote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
he's gone 2-0 a ton the past 3 weeks.
so yea totally agree
They were hitting him more and more but people have occasionally hit him all year. Teams are just getting the scouting reports on him now and know his cutter is filthy so they sit fastball. I think he would have given a stronger outing had Collins not dropped that line drive that hit off his glove. We should have been out of the inning their with LSU not scoring. That's what started the rally
Hudson keeps nibbling the plate instead of pumping 96 mph and challenging the hitters on first strike. He needs to get ahead in the counts and then throw the cutter/slider that ends up being a ball. The hitters are forced to swing when they're behind in counts. Basically he's not being aggressive enough.
Also runs up your pitch count and keeps you from getting deeper into games, although that hasn't been a huge problem for Huddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyQuid
Remember Hudson hasn't been a full time starter in his career. We've stretched him out a lot this year. I'm concerned he's experiencing fatigue.
Yep. He's hitting a little bit of a midseason wall. Still think he's going to be fine though.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
He really didn't pitch bad last night. Collins had what should have been an error at 3rd that cost us 2 runs and the double play that the little fat guy hit into that they called safe at first cost us runs as well. He ran out of gas in the 7th as his pitch count elevated and Cohen waited a little long to pull him. He had a bunch of softly hit ground balls find holes. I'm not worried about him.
Last 3 starts combined...Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
18.1 ip 30 h 16 er 6 bb 14 k
That's an era of 7.96 and a whip of 1.99.
You may not be concerned, but I am... Those are horrible numbers
Most if those hits were ground balls that normal would be outs, but were unreal in how they were in the gaps.
I'm no pitching coach and my opinion is for shit but I have watched the last 3 games online and each game it seems teams are just hitting opposite field grouders or singles to the outfield on him a ton. That must be the scouting report. The announcers even said this in each game. For you gurus, what is Hudson doing that these teams have caught on to and are taking advantage of?
Remember the first runs were caused by an error (scorer gave a hit) by Collins.Quote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
Hudson isn't my only concern though... We've given up 10, 10, 10, and 8 in our last 4 sec games. We desperately need sexton to get our pitching staff going in the right direction today
Collins should've made the play, but it was a rocket.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawgoneyall
Haha seriously. I'm pretty sure I saw a 90 year old man with a walker beating his chest, ready to fight Rigby.Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyQuid
He's not getting hammered. He got a lot of ground balls last night....which is also a credit to LSU.Quote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
Lsu is 2nd in conference play with hitting. Aggies are #1. Hudson will be fine.
Throw Florida in there too... They're all good hitting teams, but Hudson is just as good of a pitcher as they are at hitting... He's just not getting it done. I'm hoping it's just a funk and not fatigue.Quote:
Originally Posted by basedog
It really is unreal how LSU reloads. They lost their whole lineup last year and come back with newcomers and still rake.Quote:
Originally Posted by basedog
I hate corn dog baseball for this very reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
If you watch his ball placement, Hudson has given up almost all his bigger hits by getting "up" in the strike zone. Having been a pitcher myself, years ago admittedly, that is an indication of tired legs. A pitcher gets both his power and accuracy from his body mechanics, and that starts with his legs and hips. If he can't rotate his hips fully, it makes the ball go higher. He also added a cut fastball this year, which is most effective delivered on the corners at the knees and forcing the batter to go fishing for it. If it is delivered too high, it takes both a little bend off and speed off and has been hit. The umpires the last few outings have not been kind to him, frequently calling perfect cutters at the corners balls, which forced him to also bring the pitch up.
In short, if I were the pitching coach, I would have him on the bike until the day prior to an outing. I'd also make him wear weights on his ankles all season, with them taken off during warmups and the day prior to an outing. The greatest fastball pitchers know where their power comes from. They had great arms, but strong legs and hips.
This is what I was seeing with Hudson last night. He appeared to be using the fastball almost exclusively two times through the lineup and that is when he was giving up the hard grounders through the infield. I was telling myself that he needs to start mixing it up and when he finally did, LSU quit hitting him the way they were early in the game. I'm sure that is a game plan that they were following.
Another thing with Hudson is that he is going to do some head scratching shit from time to time. Trying to flip it home with his glove on the safety squeeze was a bed shitting moment. Still early enough in the game that you just take the out. I was curious as to why lsu made that move, but they might have been seeing if we would screw it up, which we did.
It also seems that he goes through spurts where his command just leaves him for awhile. It seems like we get a lot of good arms that are inconsistent.
I was at the game last night and I will say this, if LSU was allowed to stand on home plate and throw the ball instead of hit it, they couldn't have placed their hits in better spots. I realize it is what good hitters do but they just simply hit ground balls where our players weren't.
Hudson is fine....I also think he got rattled by their fans last night too. It was so damn loud and he started to unravel a bit.
He will be fine.
My bigger concern is our fielding right now. Collins misses that liner, yes it was screaming, but he had his glove up and just missed it. Plus Gridley and Stovall can't turn what should have been 2 routine double plays. When you are battling a top 10 team at their house, especially at a place like the Box, help your damn pitcher out.
We make those 3 plays and we smoke LSU last night.
I am also a little baffled at how we continue to mess the sheets damn near every time we attempt to field a bunt. I just don't get it.
Lot of fun last night watching the crowd unravel as they realized we were going to lose.
Yep and now that its this far into the season all of the teams have film and notes on him. He and the coaches need to make minor adjustments.Quote:
Originally Posted by gravedigger
This has kinda been my thinking too. Which is why I wish we had managed him a little better a month ago. But it's already done, gotta find a way to work through it.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
We miss Belmont really bad. Gridley has zero range and the arm strength of a wet noodle at SS. He needs to be at 2B. Collins is a bad DH, i.e. can hit the occasional bomb but won't crack .260. He's gotten better defensively, but he couldn't have gotten much worse. Cutting Reynolds was just a really dumb decision on so many levels. But no use beating the dead horse, got to find another way to fix it. Belmont getting healthy should go a long way. If no one at 2B is gonna hit, might as well go back to Belmont and our best defensive lineup. We're pretty much screwed at 3B unless we want to give Stovall a shot.Quote:
Originally Posted by weblow
The numbers may not be good (and he did get lit up by A&M), but he did not pitch bad last night. If you watched the game you saw a bunch of softly hit ground balls that found a hole, and you saw our infielders not turning routine double plays and dropping line drives that hit them right in the glove.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
He's keeping the ball up, falling behind in counts and is very average from his goofy stretch. It all flows from keeping the ball up, which could be a minor mechanics issue or a tired arm. I'm concerned.
PS I hate mid-season "awards". They are almost always a harbinger of late season setbacks.
In his earlier in the year starts, he came out blazing throwing fastballs and 60+% strikes. Now he is hitting batters and walking players in no-out situations in the 1st 3-4 innings which forces him out of the full windup. I think he is very weak from the stretch and loses too much off the fast ball. Somebody can do the stats but I would bet over 50% of his hits against come off him pitching from the stretch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbaen