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1-6 in extra inning games. What does it mean?

B

bamamick

All-American
Feb 22, 2005
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Does it mean that our guys just can't handle the pressure? That our staff doesn't know how to handle these games? Or does it mean that we are just that close to being a good team?

We have lost extra inning games to Louisville (x2), Ole Miss, LSU, and State (x2), all teams rated higher than us in rpi, and all teams that will definitely be playing in the NCAA tournament later this month. 30% of our losses are in extra innings to really, really good teams.

Personally I felt that the staff mismanaged every game this weekend as far as the pitchers go. We do not play situational baseball at all with our pitchers. We just send someone out there and hope for the best. I am still trying to figure out what happened in game #1. Spencer is getting slapped all over the place with Keller, Hawley, and Oz sitting over there not playing. I know that Hawley wound up losing game 3, but you couldn't know that in game 1, and when we cut the lead to two we STILL trotted Spencer back out there? In game two we ran a true freshman out there and essentially told him it was his to win or lose? Just stay out there until something happens? And in game 3? Do we ever even warm up more than one guy at a time?

I am not saying that the staff lost these games. State isn't #10 in rpi for nothin'. They are good, and it's hard to win at their place. But this is the story of 2013 and it just too frustrating to have this happen two weeks after it happened against LSU. If it was just breaks you'd think they'd even out at some point, right?

On the plus side, our guys are facing these challenges and fighting hard. I expected us to crumble when we were down 8-0, but we didn't. We fought hard and came back. Definitely something to be proud of.

I guess what I am asking is this: if we stay this course will it get better? Will we once again be an upper echelon team in this league? Will we have a legit shot at making it to Omaha once again? My inclination is that the answer is 'no', that it will take a major change in the program to get us there again. Unlike many, I feel that we DO have the talent. We just don't have the know how. Thoughts?

rtr
 
Good post: Dont agree with it all, but good post:

1) Think the reason we kept running him back out in G1, was b/c it was G1, hate to go to the pen and drain the pen that early in the series. Right or wrong, I think that was the reasoning, and reasoning a lot of coaches would make.

2) Another reason why I think he left him in there, is b/c we really dont have tons of depth in our pen.

3) I think reason why we lose a lot of extra inning games, is b/c we dont have the firepower to have a big inning. We dont have a guy that can run it out for a 3-HR and get us a big number. Also we dont have swing and miss arms in the pen. The game's we've lost in extras usually the other team has a better guy pitching in those extra innings than we do.

4) totally agree, team plays hard

5) totally disagree, we dont have enough talent, and the talent we have is too young. You dont start 4-5 freshman and expect to be good in the SEC.
 
bamamick said:
Personally I felt that the staff mismanaged every game this weekend
Click to expand...

That about sums it up.

Of course, did the head coach personally shoulder any of the blame for the losses or in any way acknowledge that his poor decisions contributed at all? Nope, just threw the players under the bus, as usual.



Have to disagree with you on the talent, though. We do not have the talent, at least offensively. There is absolutely no depth. We are DH'ing guys who have no business being on an SEC roster.
 
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rolltydebb said:
Good post: Dont agree with it all, but good post:

3) I think reason why we lose a lot of extra inning games, is b/c we dont have the firepower to have a big inning. We dont have a guy that can run it out for a 3-HR and get us a big number.
Click to expand...


We had our cleanup hitter sacrifice bunt in extra innings.

Regardless of whether it was the correct call under the circumstances, that's just sad.
 
I guess what I meant by talent is that we obviously have enough talent to hang with these guys - because we ARE. We haven't really been blown out in a series and seem to at least be in all of these games. I think we certainly have some pitching talent, if not the depth some would like. 10-3 in the middies (iirc) tells me that we do have at least a little pitching depth.

rtr
 
There's definitely talent on the pitching staff and some depth. The staff's overall improvement from last season has been pretty remarkable when you consider just how awful the pitching was in 2012. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the hitters, whose production has declined in each of the past three seasons.

There just aren't enough players who can hit, period. The staff has failed to recruit enough offensive talent and failed to develop the hitters they have brought into the program. Obviously, something is not working, and we're way past the point of needing a change in order to turn things around. As mentioned in another thread, the inane decision to hire the grossly under-qualified Phillips set the program back years.
 
There are some good points made in the posts above. The hitting is my only concern right now. I think the talent is there but geared down. Look at the three freshmen Salem, White and Overstreet...all three had power in high school. Until White's homerun this weekend none of the three had come close. Sure D1 pitching has a lot to do with it, but all three have shown hardly any arm extension in their swings. I understand the compact swing, but you have to have arm extension in the swing to deliver the power. It looks like their swings have been geared down. Maybe its part of a process, but why reteach a swing to a player who has shown they can swing a bat and deliver power at every level they have played up to now?
 
Play Ball! said:
There are some good points made in the posts above. The hitting is my only concern right now. I think the talent is there but geared down. Look at the three freshmen Salem, White and Overstreet...all three had power in high school. Until White's homerun this weekend none of the three had come close. Sure D1 pitching has a lot to do with it, but all three have shown hardly any arm extension in their swings. I understand the compact swing, but you have to have arm extension in the swing to deliver the power. It looks like their swings have been geared down. Maybe its part of a process, but why reteach a swing to a player who has shown they can swing a bat and deliver power at every level they have played up to now?
Click to expand...

Short compact swings don't take power away if they are mechanically sound. Extending the arms typically leads to a long looping swing which when solid contact is made can generate power but for the most part those types of swings are successful with lower tier pitching where the bat can get around through the strike zone.
 
Play Ball! said:
There are some good points made in the posts above. The hitting is my only concern right now. I think the talent is there but geared down. Look at the three freshmen Salem, White and Overstreet...all three had power in high school. Until White's homerun this weekend none of the three had come close. Sure D1 pitching has a lot to do with it, but all three have shown hardly any arm extension in their swings. I understand the compact swing, but you have to have arm extension in the swing to deliver the power. It looks like their swings have been geared down. Maybe its part of a process, but why reteach a swing to a player who has shown they can swing a bat and deliver power at every level they have played up to now?
Click to expand...

Agreed. The lack of extra-base pop throughout the lineup has been killing this team. You need those crooked numbers to win ballgames; relying almost entirely on singles, especially when you don't steal very many bases, makes it tough to put runs on the board. Nobody expected this team to hit a ton of homers, but there's been a glaring lack of doubles, leading to an unacceptably low team slugging percentage of .318. The current #3 hitter, Overstreet, is "slugging" .315 and still waiting on his first home run. Salem (.305 SLG), a guy with plenty of speed on the bases, has all of five doubles, with no triples or homers. White has actually improved his production in recent weeks, and is still slugging just .308.

Granted, slugging percentage is hardly the most important statistic in the book, but it can be somewhat useful. The aforementioned freshmen are not the only ones whose production in this department has been low:

Moore: .423, hardly ideal, but tolerable; down slightly from '12
Booth: .378 and falling
Smith: .410, improving, but still not good enough

No other hitters are above the SEC average of .378.

Roberts: .322
Miller: .252
Vincent: .138
Blanchard: .192
Carlisle: .191
Cole: .190
 
JoJoforHeisman said:
Agreed. The lack of extra-base pop throughout the lineup has been killing this team. You need those crooked numbers to win ballgames; relying almost entirely on singles, especially when you don't steal very many bases, makes it tough to put runs on the board. Nobody expected this team to hit a ton of homers, but there's been a glaring lack of doubles, leading to an unacceptably low team slugging percentage of .318. The current #3 hitter, Overstreet, is "slugging" .315 and still waiting on his first home run. Salem (.305 SLG), a guy with plenty of speed on the bases, has all of five doubles, with no triples or homers. White has actually improved his production in recent weeks, and is still slugging just .308.

Granted, slugging percentage is hardly the most important statistic in the book, but it can be somewhat useful. The aforementioned freshmen are not the only ones whose production in this department has been low:

Moore: .423, hardly ideal, but tolerable; down slightly from '12
Booth: .378 and falling
Smith: .410, improving, but still not good enough

No other hitters are above the SEC average of .378.

Roberts: .322
Miller: .252
Vincent: .138
Blanchard: .192
Carlisle: .191
Cole: .190
Click to expand...


JoJo ... was our '04 team this bad offensively?
 
As an aside, we are now 1-6 against teams ranked in the top ten. Four of those games went to extra innings, and four of our six losses were by one run. I really don't know what to make of it. Obviously we have heart and the desire to win, but we play just well enough to lose close. It reminds me of the Mike Shula era in football more than anything else. There's no denying the effort this year. And obviously we don't have the horses. I just don't know if we should be fussing or patting everyone on the back?

rtr
 
Mike Shula is an apt comparison.

Mike Shula didn't get rid of his Bob Connelly and it cost him. If Mitch doesn't get rid of his (Andy), then it'll set us back even further.
 
You know after reading this thread and the comparison to the Shula error I have come to a conclusion. I think when you lose a lot of close ballgames you can place most of the blame on the coaches. A lot of close losses to me signal that the players are holding up their end of the bargain by playing hard to the end and not giving up. In reality that is about all they can provide in the game. Strategy and game management come from the coaches. Coaches put players in a position to win if the players play hard until the end. Playing hard and losing close tells me the coach had either an inadequate gameplan or made poor adjustments at critical points in the game.

Lots of close losses with Shula turned into a lot of wins with CNS with basically the same roster. Alot of the players Shula was losing with in 2006 CNS went 12-2 in 2008 and won a NC in 2009.

A million men arent usually wrong - the trajectory of our baseball program shouts that we need new coaching.
 
Everybody should be happier. We won, in extra innings, top team, G argued, no dogpile, but on the flip side no hat for Dax and I heard home plate is missing. Rtr
 
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