First Week Thoughts

[Comebakatz3]

I wanted to add my thoughts after 4 games. It will likely be all over the place and unorganized, but it’s early in the season so you’ll have to excuse me. Please add yours as well.

Good:
Bullpen pitching: You could probably just make this pitching in general, but overall the bullpen has been studly. Our overall ERA is a 3.00 after 4 games. I believe we’ve used 8 guys out of the bullpen and only one of them has given up an earned run (Harper gave up 2). Opponents are hitting .129 against our bullpen after 4 games, and half of the pitchers so far have not given up a hit. They have struck out 27 and walked just 9. Extremely impressive start for them as an entire group. Harper was the only one that struggled in his outing on Friday, but he bounced back on Sunday.

Clutch/Late game hitting:
First game: UK was up 3-2 and Estep got a 2 out home run to make it 4-2. In the 5th, UK down 4-6 and Harris singled with the bases loaded and 2 outs to score two runs and tie the game. Anu struck out just before him with 1 out, so that hurts that we didn’t put it in play there, but last year we might have gotten nothing in that situation. Top of the 6th, tie game and UK gets a walk and 3 two out singles to get the 8-6 lead. Top of the 9th and UK gets a couple people on, Thrasher walked with 2 outs and Ritter and Jump single back to back to score two runs to put us up 10-8 for good. So, for those counting at home… that’s 7 hits with 2 outs that scored 8 of our 10 runs on Friday. That right there is winning baseball.

Game 2: Bases loaded in the first with 1 out and while it wasn’t a hit, Estep put the ball in play with a pop up into shallow right that helped score 2 runs and put UK up early. They struggled through the middle innings in this game, but in the top of the 9th they put it away with 3 singles and a walk. Took advantage of a bad bullpen.

Game 3: Wasn’t real pretty until late when we scored 12 runs in the last two frames. Again, taking advantage of a weak bullpen. That is how you draw that up.

Game 4: We all remember those heroics in the bottom of the 9th. Again taking advantage of a pretty weak bullpen.

Meat of Lineup: By this I mean, Anu, Harris, Plastiak, and Estep. Others are doing well also, but those guys seem to be carrying the load. These 4 have scored 19 of Kentucky’s 34 runs and have a combined 18 of the team’s 31 RBIs. They have hit 4 of the 5 home runs, 1 of 2 triples, and 3 of the 7 doubles. Right now, sans Fogel, it is a murder’s row when you get to Plastiak and have to get all the way through to the 7 hole, Harris.

Base running plays: So far it sounds like UK is putting a lot of players in motion, more than in year’s past. Not really stealing, but trying for hit and runs and trying to go from 1st to third as often as possible. It backfires sometimes (i.e. Ritter being doubled off last night), but it has also helped us plate some runs. I believe Estep scored from first last night. So, while we aren’t stealing much, we’re still using the speed to get extra bases.

Strikeouts: Outside of game 1, I think UK has cut down on strikeouts. We didn’t hit well against Bellarmine, but we only struck out 4 times. So, we put the ball in play most of the time. Have to do that. Only 1 game with strikeouts above 6. I’ll take that.

Wins: 4-0

 

[Comebakatz3]

Not as good:

Defense: It has been not so great in my opinion. Estep has 2 errors in 4 games and could have been credited with a third. Thrasher has one and could be credited with another. We have some mental errors and/or communication errors that have hurt us at times. Possibly even some hustle play mistakes that have helped give up extra bases. We have some highlight plays (i.e. Harris), but he also just dropped an easy one. So, just need to clean that up. It’s early, we will see how that goes.

CF: Four games and we’ve had 3 guys play the position. They are all hitting .200 and under. Fogel now hitting .125 with 5 strikeouts in 16 ABs. McCarthy had the grand slam late, but outside of the 1 mistake pitch, I don’t think he put great wood on the ball. So, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with CF and who plays there and how they mix up the outfield. Also, how they shake up the lineup with Fogel struggling at the 4. Thrasher has an OF error, and couple conceivably have had another one in just 2 games. So, we're not getting good production out of CF hitting and at least one of the 3 we've had play the position have struggled defensively as well.

Substitutions: I felt like, with UK up big and dominating the Sunday game, UK could have gone to the bench earlier and could have actually gotten at bats for guys like Felker and Pitre rather than putting them in as pinch runners. But for us having a monster inning with the starters, a lot of those guys wouldn’t have seen action at all in the first 4 games.

Bunting: We didn’t do it a ton, but we only got I think the one bunt down. That one almost makes up for it all. Mingione loves his suicide squeeze. Too much really, as he called it twice and we were 50/50 on it.

Some hitting: Yesterday we struggled for 8 innings. 2 hit through 8. Not good. We broke through, but I don’t want to let that blind us to the fact that we were 2 hit through 8. On Sunday, similarly, we were not great until the 6th. Tie game until the 6th inning, and it stayed close until we broke it open in the 8th and 9th, and even a lot of that damage was helped with walks and not necessarily hits, we had 3 hits in each of those big innings. So, that is good and bad. We took advantage of mistakes and made them pay, but we didn’t necessarily rake. Again, feels a bit more like we took advantage of bad bullpens rather than controlling the last two games.

Starters: I am not saying they were bad. They pitched a combined 18 innings over 4 games and had a combined ERA of 5.00. Stupp really struggled, going just 4 innings and giving up 6 earned. The reason I am putting them in the, ‘bad,’ group really isn’t because they were necessarily bad. They weren’t. Moreso, they could have been better. Specifically, on getting at least 1 or 2 more innings. It is early, that will likely come, but you typically want to see your starter at least get through 6 instead of 5, or 4 in the case of both Cotto and Stupp. Logue yesterday gave up a lot of hits and they hit .286 against him, but the good thing was that he limited damage and got 6 strikeouts to ensure that they didn’t score many runs, and had just the 1 earned. Another positive for them was that they largely threw strikes and only walked a combined 5 hitters, with just Bosma walking more than 1. So, they didn’t do awful by any means, but it wasn’t the greatest starting week for them either. Look for that to turn around starting tomorrow.

OOC Schedule: Man, this thing is absolutely awful. Our opponents across all OOC games went a combined 15-35 (%) in their games this past week. Just 4 teams have a winning record (TCU (2-1), Tennessee Tech (3-0), Dayton (3-0), and Western Kentucky (2-1).

I think that is all I have for now. I think the positives so far do outweigh the negatives, but it is early and the competition wasn’t amazing by any means. Right now our RPI is 99th overall with a SOS of 144th. Of course, that is heavily skewed and I’m giving that little to no weight, but just providing that information. I don't know that this weekend will provide us much new information as it seems like Western Michigan is all sorts of bad. They played Bradley this past weekend and they gave up a combined 35 runs this weekend enroute to a 1-2 start, and needed 19 runs to win the Sunday game. So, expect UK hitting to dominate this weekend and I'd hope to see pitching do the same. The weekend of March 4th when we play TCU will be the only real test we get before the SEC schedule hits.

 

[SeanCain]

Not as good:

Defense: It has been not so great in my opinion. Estep has 2 errors in 4 games and could have been credited with a third. Thrasher has one and could be credited with another. We have some mental errors and/or communication errors that have hurt us at times. Possibly even some hustle play mistakes that have helped give up extra bases. We have some highlight plays (i.e. Harris), but he also just dropped an easy one. So, just need to clean that up. It’s early, we will see how that goes.

CF: Four games and we’ve had 3 guys play the position. They are all hitting .200 and under. Fogel now hitting .125 with 5 strikeouts in 16 ABs. McCarthy had the grand slam late, but outside of the 1 mistake pitch, I don’t think he put great wood on the ball. So, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with CF and who plays there and how they mix up the outfield. Also, how they shake up the lineup with Fogel struggling at the 4. Thrasher has an OF error, and couple conceivably have had another one in just 2 games. So, we're not getting good production out of CF hitting and at least one of the 3 we've had play the position have struggled defensively as well.

Substitutions: I felt like, with UK up big and dominating the Sunday game, UK could have gone to the bench earlier and could have actually gotten at bats for guys like Felker and Pitre rather than putting them in as pinch runners. But for us having a monster inning with the starters, a lot of those guys wouldn’t have seen action at all in the first 4 games.

Bunting: We didn’t do it a ton, but we only got I think the one bunt down. That one almost makes up for it all. Mingione loves his suicide squeeze. Too much really, as he called it twice and we were 50/50 on it.

Some hitting: Yesterday we struggled for 8 innings. 2 hit through 8. Not good. We broke through, but I don’t want to let that blind us to the fact that we were 2 hit through 8. On Sunday, similarly, we were not great until the 6th. Tie game until the 6th inning, and it stayed close until we broke it open in the 8th and 9th, and even a lot of that damage was helped with walks and not necessarily hits, we had 3 hits in each of those big innings. So, that is good and bad. We took advantage of mistakes and made them pay, but we didn’t necessarily rake. Again, feels a bit more like we took advantage of bad bullpens rather than controlling the last two games.

Starters: I am not saying they were bad. They pitched a combined 18 innings over 4 games and had a combined ERA of 5.00. Stupp really struggled, going just 4 innings and giving up 6 earned. The reason I am putting them in the, ‘bad,’ group really isn’t because they were necessarily bad. They weren’t. Moreso, they could have been better. Specifically, on getting at least 1 or 2 more innings. It is early, that will likely come, but you typically want to see your starter at least get through 6 instead of 5, or 4 in the case of both Cotto and Stupp. Logue yesterday gave up a lot of hits and they hit .286 against him, but the good thing was that he limited damage and got 6 strikeouts to ensure that they didn’t score many runs, and had just the 1 earned. Another positive for them was that they largely threw strikes and only walked a combined 5 hitters, with just Bosma walking more than 1. So, they didn’t do awful by any means, but it wasn’t the greatest starting week for them either. Look for that to turn around starting tomorrow.

OOC Schedule: Man, this thing is absolutely awful. Our opponents across all OOC games went a combined 15-35 (%) in their games this past week. Just 4 teams have a winning record (TCU (2-1), Tennessee Tech (3-0), Dayton (3-0), and Western Kentucky (2-1).

I think that is all I have for now. I think the positives so far do outweigh the negatives, but it is early and the competition wasn’t amazing by any means. Right now our RPI is 99th overall with a SOS of 144th. Of course, that is heavily skewed and I’m giving that little to no weight, but just providing that information. I don't know that this weekend will provide us much new information as it seems like Western Michigan is all sorts of bad. They played Bradley this past weekend and they gave up a combined 35 runs this weekend enroute to a 1-2 start, and needed 19 runs to win the Sunday game. So, expect UK hitting to dominate this weekend and I'd hope to see pitching do the same. The weekend of March 4th when we play TCU will be the only real test we get before the SEC schedule hits.

OOC schedule is why I’m still holding off commenting much. That’s a weak group and no where near SEC level. We’ll see how we are against Arkansas in a few weeks.

 

[dtjr]

Not as good:

Defense: It has been not so great in my opinion. Estep has 2 errors in 4 games and could have been credited with a third. Thrasher has one and could be credited with another. We have some mental errors and/or communication errors that have hurt us at times. Possibly even some hustle play mistakes that have helped give up extra bases. We have some highlight plays (i.e. Harris), but he also just dropped an easy one. So, just need to clean that up. It’s early, we will see how that goes.

CF: Four games and we’ve had 3 guys play the position. They are all hitting .200 and under. Fogel now hitting .125 with 5 strikeouts in 16 ABs. McCarthy had the grand slam late, but outside of the 1 mistake pitch, I don’t think he put great wood on the ball. So, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with CF and who plays there and how they mix up the outfield. Also, how they shake up the lineup with Fogel struggling at the 4. Thrasher has an OF error, and couple conceivably have had another one in just 2 games. So, we're not getting good production out of CF hitting and at least one of the 3 we've had play the position have struggled defensively as well.

Substitutions: I felt like, with UK up big and dominating the Sunday game, UK could have gone to the bench earlier and could have actually gotten at bats for guys like Felker and Pitre rather than putting them in as pinch runners. But for us having a monster inning with the starters, a lot of those guys wouldn’t have seen action at all in the first 4 games.

Bunting: We didn’t do it a ton, but we only got I think the one bunt down. That one almost makes up for it all. Mingione loves his suicide squeeze. Too much really, as he called it twice and we were 50/50 on it.

Some hitting: Yesterday we struggled for 8 innings. 2 hit through 8. Not good. We broke through, but I don’t want to let that blind us to the fact that we were 2 hit through 8. On Sunday, similarly, we were not great until the 6th. Tie game until the 6th inning, and it stayed close until we broke it open in the 8th and 9th, and even a lot of that damage was helped with walks and not necessarily hits, we had 3 hits in each of those big innings. So, that is good and bad. We took advantage of mistakes and made them pay, but we didn’t necessarily rake. Again, feels a bit more like we took advantage of bad bullpens rather than controlling the last two games.

Starters: I am not saying they were bad. They pitched a combined 18 innings over 4 games and had a combined ERA of 5.00. Stupp really struggled, going just 4 innings and giving up 6 earned. The reason I am putting them in the, ‘bad,’ group really isn’t because they were necessarily bad. They weren’t. Moreso, they could have been better. Specifically, on getting at least 1 or 2 more innings. It is early, that will likely come, but you typically want to see your starter at least get through 6 instead of 5, or 4 in the case of both Cotto and Stupp. Logue yesterday gave up a lot of hits and they hit .286 against him, but the good thing was that he limited damage and got 6 strikeouts to ensure that they didn’t score many runs, and had just the 1 earned. Another positive for them was that they largely threw strikes and only walked a combined 5 hitters, with just Bosma walking more than 1. So, they didn’t do awful by any means, but it wasn’t the greatest starting week for them either. Look for that to turn around starting tomorrow.

OOC Schedule: Man, this thing is absolutely awful. Our opponents across all OOC games went a combined 15-35 (%) in their games this past week. Just 4 teams have a winning record (TCU (2-1), Tennessee Tech (3-0), Dayton (3-0), and Western Kentucky (2-1).

I think that is all I have for now. I think the positives so far do outweigh the negatives, but it is early and the competition wasn’t amazing by any means. Right now our RPI is 99th overall with a SOS of 144th. Of course, that is heavily skewed and I’m giving that little to no weight, but just providing that information. I don't know that this weekend will provide us much new information as it seems like Western Michigan is all sorts of bad. They played Bradley this past weekend and they gave up a combined 35 runs this weekend enroute to a 1-2 start, and needed 19 runs to win the Sunday game. So, expect UK hitting to dominate this weekend and I'd hope to see pitching do the same. The weekend of March 4th when we play TCU will be the only real test we get before the SEC schedule hits.

Thanks for the report. As usual very thorough and accurate.

I will say I am glad we are 4-0 but we should be.

Lots of things to clean up hitting wise and starting pitching wise but I assume when they made this schedule they knew we would be inconsistent to start the year hopefully gaining confidence by SEC play.

 

[maysvilleky]

The way these games have gone against low level competition leaves a lot more questions than answers. Also seems they’ve gotten some strike outs to get out of jams. Just wonder if they get that against better teams?

 

[parrott]

Given the number of new players/positions and the inability to get outdoors in KY this time of year, I am pleased with 4-0. In particular the pitching - especially relief (seems to be a well-rounded pen). Clutch hitting seems to be better this year than last so that’s a plus.