After 1 in Charlottesville it's 8-0 St. John. *
- Thread starter Duckmandawg
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SJU struggling to hold lead. top 3 still 8-3, but Rebels have 2nd and 3rd no outs. SJU pitcher serving up meat it sounds like.
To me the problem is not when he threw his guys, it's that their pitching isn't that great after Pomeranz. Even if he had saved Pomeranz, he would still probably have to beat Virginia twice, including once with the guy that went 2/3 of an inning today against St. John's.
If he throws Barrett and loses to St. John's- who is not a bad team at all- then he has to throw Pomeranz against VCU.
Like I've said, I do agree with saving your ace in the right situation, and that being a team that you should without a doubt beat without using your ace. I think MTSU 2003 qualifies. I don't think St. John's 2010 qualifies. They can hit, and they had an ace that had decent numbers himself.
If he throws Barrett and loses to St. John's- who is not a bad team at all- then he has to throw Pomeranz against VCU.
Like I've said, I do agree with saving your ace in the right situation, and that being a team that you should without a doubt beat without using your ace. I think MTSU 2003 qualifies. I don't think St. John's 2010 qualifies. They can hit, and they had an ace that had decent numbers himself.
St. Johns wasn't a pushover and to me, this game proves that you needed Pomeranz to beat them. If you save Pomeranz and lose, then you throw your ACE against VCU....?? What a waste of an outing.
And knowing Virginia was saving their ace for Saturday, you've got to save your ace. UM had a lot better chance of beating St. John's on a neutral field with Barrett pitching than they did of beating Virginia on the road with Barrett pitching. In fact, with them scoring 7 runs against UVA, I think they would have had a damn good chance to win if Pomeranz had pitched.
You really have to look at the pitchers you'd be facing in the first two games. If the #3 seed has a top-notch ace that you feel is going to give you problems, you have to throw your top guy (Pomeranz) not matter what. But if not, I think you have to take your chances with your #2 guy and save the ace for the potential winner's bracket game. And if you end up losing, you throw your #3 guy in the loser's bracket game assuming its the 4th seed, and use your ace to try to win the last loser's bracket game to get you to the Final 2 pairing.
BFB
BFB
You wouldn't have to face Virginia's ace, because St. John's would have to face him.
If you win, and you have to face him, you have to hope that your number two is good enough to give you a chance to win- and that's where I'm saying Ole Miss has the problem. If they throw Barrett and lose to St. John's, then they have to fight through the loser's bracket, and they don't have the pitching to do that. They also couldn't risk not throwing Pomeranz in the losers bracket game because if they were to be upset, then there would be a ton of backlash for not pitching their best guy at least once. And if they win the first game with Barrett, and Pomeranz wins the second game, I'm still not sure that they have enough pitching to win, unless St. John's were to upset Virginia.
Ole Miss scored 10 on St. John's, but they gave up 5- all in the last two innings if I remember correctly. They've already given up 10 today to them with their third guy, and I'm not totally convinced that Barrett and their bullpen would have held them to under 10 in the first game. They may have, but again, I think if there's any doubt, you have to pitch your ace.
If you win, and you have to face him, you have to hope that your number two is good enough to give you a chance to win- and that's where I'm saying Ole Miss has the problem. If they throw Barrett and lose to St. John's, then they have to fight through the loser's bracket, and they don't have the pitching to do that. They also couldn't risk not throwing Pomeranz in the losers bracket game because if they were to be upset, then there would be a ton of backlash for not pitching their best guy at least once. And if they win the first game with Barrett, and Pomeranz wins the second game, I'm still not sure that they have enough pitching to win, unless St. John's were to upset Virginia.
Ole Miss scored 10 on St. John's, but they gave up 5- all in the last two innings if I remember correctly. They've already given up 10 today to them with their third guy, and I'm not totally convinced that Barrett and their bullpen would have held them to under 10 in the first game. They may have, but again, I think if there's any doubt, you have to pitch your ace.
They "only" gave up 13 to the best team in the regional in a road game yesterday. They scored 10 against St. John's on Friday. That might have been enough even with Barrett starting against a weaker St. John's team. And with them scoring 7 vs. UVA on Saturday, if they've got Pomeranz on the hill, there's a good chance they're waiting for the winner of this afternoon's game instead of playing in it. Again, please explain to me how UM is better off for taking the almost certain loss against UVA on Saturday just to give them a slightly better chance of winning Friday? Even if the had lost Friday (which is questionable), they still wouldn't have been any worse off than they are now.
If I'm going to have to "hope" Barrett can win a game, I'd a hell of a lot rather hope he can beat the #3 seed than the #1 seed who's pitching their ace.</p>
If I'm going to have to "hope" Barrett can win a game, I'd a hell of a lot rather hope he can beat the #3 seed than the #1 seed who's pitching their ace.</p>
patdog said:
You can't assume that you're going to score seven agianst Virginia's ace either.
Even you are saying that it "might" have been enough. And that's my point- if there's any question, you don't do it. Believe me, if St. John's had an ace that was below average, I would definately have held Pomeranz.
Like I said, after Pomeranz and Barrett, I still don't think they would have had enough to win the thing. And that's the bottom line- no matter what they did, they just don't have enough.
But EVEN IF THEY DIDN'T they'd have been no worse off than they were by not flipping the rotation. Why do you think that if Barrett can't beat St. John's he had a chance in hell of beating Virginia? You have to go with the rotation that gives you the best chance to win. And pitching Barrett against Virginia, especiallyagainst their ace, is almost conceding the tournament before it even starts.
and I was right. I also am not sure that he would have beaten St. John's. You are right that they would be in the exact same situation, and that's partially my point- you flip guys when it would give you an advantage. Fipping the two likely means that they would have been eliminated by Virginia in the best case scenario. What good is that? It's moot because they had a very little chance of winning this in the first place.
Again, if Ole Miss had someone that was a capable number two guy and if St. John's was a worse baseball team, then it would have made sense. St. John's has beaten some pretty good teams like Louisville, Connecticut, Notre Dame and they won the Big East Tournament. It's not like they they're Grambling.
Again, if Ole Miss had someone that was a capable number two guy and if St. John's was a worse baseball team, then it would have made sense. St. John's has beaten some pretty good teams like Louisville, Connecticut, Notre Dame and they won the Big East Tournament. It's not like they they're Grambling.
How is it not an advantage to pitch your #2 pitcher against the #3 seed's ace instead of the #1 seed's ace?If I'm Bianco, I don't want to pitch him against anyone's ace, but Virginia forced him to when they flipped their rotation.The odds aren't real good either way, but they're definitely better if you pitchhim against the #3 seed. Let's just throw some hypotheticals out and see if this makes it clear. Assume that Pomeranz has a 90% chance of beating St. John's and a 40% chance of beating UVA, and #2 has a 60% chance of beating St. John's and a 10% chance of beating UVA. Your odds of going 2-0 by not flipping the rotation are 9% (90% * 10%). However, if you flip them, your odds go up to 24% (60% * 40%). You can change the numbers, but the result will always come out to be you're better off flipping the rotation.Todd4State said:
You are right that even if he had flipped therotation and it had worked, it would havejust meantthey would have been eliminated on Monday instead of Sunday.
is because I feel like St. John's ace was better than Barrett from looking at his stats. St. John's ace had an ERA of 3.09 and Barrett has an ERA of 4.16, and on top of that, and what really swayed my decision, was the fact that Barrett has really struggled a lot lately. His ERA was in the 1's early in the year, and now it has jumped up to the 4's. I really don't think that he would have beat St. John's- they're a good hitting team on top of that.
And yes, you can say that they were conceding a game to Virginia, and I won't really argue with that, because you would expect Virginia's ace to beat Ole Miss's number two.
But I think by not wasting Pomeranz on VCU, they put themselves in a position where their thin pitching staff was matched up against the other teams now thin pitching staff. So, essentially, it was a slugfest situation. And I think this also crossed Bianco's mind had they gotten hot and won the slugfests, that by pitching Pomeranz on Friday, he could bring him back on Monday for the Championship game. That's basically what he did last year.
Also, let's not forget- there was no guarantee that Pomeranz would have beaten Hultzen. Danny Hultzen is a pretty good prospect in his own right. And yes, I know in hindsight that he Hultzen gave up seven runs and Pomeranz pitched seven shutout innings, but again, that's not something that you would know going into a game. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Virginia was more familiar with Pomeranz than Barrett because they faced him last year in the SR, and I believe that game went to extra innings, and that may have factored in a little as well.
Now again, I do think it is an advantage IF your number two is as good as the three seeds ace, but I really don't think that was the case here. I think Bianco was hoping to get in the winner's bracket, maybe Barrett pitches the game of his life against UVA or Hultzen struggles and they get a win, if not, maybe they win a couple of slugfests and get this thing to Monday, and throw Pomeranz and Huber's arms off. And I'm basing that on what Bianco has done in the past.
And yes, you can say that they were conceding a game to Virginia, and I won't really argue with that, because you would expect Virginia's ace to beat Ole Miss's number two.
But I think by not wasting Pomeranz on VCU, they put themselves in a position where their thin pitching staff was matched up against the other teams now thin pitching staff. So, essentially, it was a slugfest situation. And I think this also crossed Bianco's mind had they gotten hot and won the slugfests, that by pitching Pomeranz on Friday, he could bring him back on Monday for the Championship game. That's basically what he did last year.
Also, let's not forget- there was no guarantee that Pomeranz would have beaten Hultzen. Danny Hultzen is a pretty good prospect in his own right. And yes, I know in hindsight that he Hultzen gave up seven runs and Pomeranz pitched seven shutout innings, but again, that's not something that you would know going into a game. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Virginia was more familiar with Pomeranz than Barrett because they faced him last year in the SR, and I believe that game went to extra innings, and that may have factored in a little as well.
Now again, I do think it is an advantage IF your number two is as good as the three seeds ace, but I really don't think that was the case here. I think Bianco was hoping to get in the winner's bracket, maybe Barrett pitches the game of his life against UVA or Hultzen struggles and they get a win, if not, maybe they win a couple of slugfests and get this thing to Monday, and throw Pomeranz and Huber's arms off. And I'm basing that on what Bianco has done in the past.
Given our poor pitching depth, the only hope Ole Miss had of winning that regional was for Pomeranz to throw Gm 1, Barret to throw Gm 2 (and hopefully win), Goforth & committee to throw Gm 3, Committee to throw Gm. 4, and if you extend to Monday or are extended to Monday, Pomeranz to come back and Pitch Gm 5 (a la last year with WKU). The only way that Ole Miss could win that regional was to have Barrett and Pomeranz throw against UVA. The only way for that to happen was for Pomeranz to pitch Friday and Monday. As it was, Barrett had a below average outing (we scored 6 runs on the ACC Pitcher of the Year) at a very inopportune time and the rest of our staff showed how poor they are.
Ole Miss was a team with a lights-out pitcher, a pretty good pitcher, a decent closer (a very good closer out with Tommy John), and little else (no pitching depth or hitting). In a three-game series that can take you a long way (see the first 8 weeks of SEC play). In a double-elimination tourney, that combination is disastrous. Ole Miss was lucky to have their best 3 days of hitting in a month. Otherwise, the regional would have been more embarrassing than it was.
Ole Miss was a team with a lights-out pitcher, a pretty good pitcher, a decent closer (a very good closer out with Tommy John), and little else (no pitching depth or hitting). In a three-game series that can take you a long way (see the first 8 weeks of SEC play). In a double-elimination tourney, that combination is disastrous. Ole Miss was lucky to have their best 3 days of hitting in a month. Otherwise, the regional would have been more embarrassing than it was.
and looking back, I noticed he did the same thing last year against Monmouth. It worked out for you last year, but I don't think that's exactly what Bianco had in mind, seeing how you were in the winner's seat and just happened to get knocked off by WKU in your third game. Pitching Pomeranz then, on three days rest,was a split second decision.
So you can't really say it's the same strategy. Too many risks after you've already got that one loss to Virginia - that's alot to assume (going through the loser's bracket) when you could have just put your best out there at the beginning to see if you can get in that driver's seat position. But I do agree with one thing - saving Pomeranz for the winner's bracket virtually guarantees you can only use him once the entire regional, unless you get fancy with the ice and rehab.
So you can't really say it's the same strategy. Too many risks after you've already got that one loss to Virginia - that's alot to assume (going through the loser's bracket) when you could have just put your best out there at the beginning to see if you can get in that driver's seat position. But I do agree with one thing - saving Pomeranz for the winner's bracket virtually guarantees you can only use him once the entire regional, unless you get fancy with the ice and rehab.