UK going with Strickland on the mound. Little surprised. Only his 3rd start.
He’s missing the zone so far. Walked two of first 3 batters.
He’s missing the zone so far. Walked two of first 3 batters.
Game 2 vs LSU - must win
- Thread starter maysvilleky
- Start date
3 fly balls and UK gets out of the inning without giving up anything. Need to put some runs up and grab some momentum.
Made a HUGE mistake starting . Would have gone with Smith.
Yeah I don’t like starting someone that only had 2 starts this year.
Now playing catch-up down 5-1.
Williams...REALLY? GOOD GRIEF. 3rd pitching mistake in two days. Does this guy not know his staff?
Game-saving diving catch by McCarthy to end the lsu half of the 8th. Williams making me nervous with every pitch.
DK...just no clutch hitters on this team . Been competitive today just too many missed opportunities. Don't think we get this call either.
Yep. Walk him and load the bases. Maybe you turn two and get out of the inning and minimize damage.
I supported the decision to start Strick. He has been our second best pitcher over the last month (behind Mason Moore). He just didn't show up in the brightest of lights, and that is disappointing. But he has performed well against the best competition (his start against UF was excellent), so I didn't fault Ming for this decision.
Our inability to get a clutch hit killed our chances. We had every opportunity to win this game, but just couldn't get anyone to step up. Their starting pitcher stunk, we should have done more against him. Very disappointing game, as it would have been interesting to take it to game 3, but still a very good year for the cats.
Our inability to get a clutch hit killed our chances. We had every opportunity to win this game, but just couldn't get anyone to step up. Their starting pitcher stunk, we should have done more against him. Very disappointing game, as it would have been interesting to take it to game 3, but still a very good year for the cats.
I didn’t like going with someone who had only started twice this year. I also didn’t understand the move from Giles to Cotto and then leaving Cotto in there.
I think, in short... the issue was that UK just had no actual starters that they could confidently rely on.
They had no Skenes that you knew would go out there and dominate. Rather, we started the year with Martin and Bosma on Friday/Saturday and both either struggled or had some injuries. So, with those struggles/injuries UK was forced to kind of figure it out in terms of starters. Smith stepped up but was inconsistent as you might expect from a freshman. Lee did very well, but if we're really honest here... Lee has certainly had ups and downs and doesn't have an overly long record of top level success. So, the issue there is then who do you turn to?
Well, Strickland had two pretty darn good outings in high level situations, so it made sense that he could do it again. I think for the most part he did. I think he wasn't overly sharp yesterday, but I think the coaches also hung him out to dry a bit with the call to throw high heat to Beloso on a 0-2 count when Stricky could have buried that sinker for a K, a pitch he'd shown better control of. I think that was worse than the decision to start him and I think he did a decent job other than that pitch being called.
The decision to take out Giles was weird. Cotto is a strikeout type pitcher who struggles with control. We needed a strikeout to get to 1 out and keep the runners at 1st and 2nd. We could have gone to Cotto there. Would have made some sense, but scary given Cotto's track record. Instead, we went to Giles, whose delivery is more conducive of getting ground ball outs. He gets a K. Well, to me, it then makes sense to leave him in and hope he can get them to roll over on one for that double play. So, if we make the change it seems like we did it backwards and once we went to Giles and he got the big out, it made sense to me to stick with that and not change. So, I definitely think that was a poor coaching decision there.