First off, I'm thrilled with our performance today.
I have said all year that walks and errors are the only things that can beat this team. The only other is bad coaching moves. And typically those have to happen in the same inning to really hurt us.
That being said, we only had one bad inning today and it was the first inning, so I'm going to break it down.
There were SEVERAL screw ups in inning #1....
First off, I was worried about starting a RHP against a team that was 33-0 against RHP's this season. Glad that worked out.
Secondly, I am absolutely clueless as to why you would start Armstrong at DH. It makes no sense. But even if you DO start him, he should only bunt. He can't hit.
That being said, I think we are missing the boat on our DH spot. We should do like Vandy does and pencil in our next day's starting pitcher as the DH. That way, if the first time the DH spot comes up we have a bunt situation, you can put in a guy like Armstrong to bunt. But if you need a big RBI or if they have made an early pitching change to a RHP, you can hit Porter. It keeps you from being handcuffed into a certain guy having to hit that first time or get burned for the game.
Okay, now to actual "in game" mistakes.
When we had runners at 1st and 3rd with 1 out and CT up...you have got to bunt him and squeeze in that run. CT rarely hits a fly ball deep enough to tag on, he hits lots of ground balls which are perfect for DPs, and he strikes out a lot....so your chances of him getting that run in are slim considering he is slumping so a hit against a LHP is not likely. I thought we wasted a big chance at getting a 3rd run that inning, but luckily it didn't cost us. It could tomorrow.
Next, we had the walk. Graveman gave up the bomb and then the double, but the walk is what really hurt us. If they beat you by hitting you, fine, but don't give them runs. That walk just so happened to be the 3rd run of the inning...the GO AHEAD run. And it was a run that we had 3 chances to negate. First, we could have squeezed Renfroe in the inning before to where a 3rd run would only tie it....second, we shouldn't have walked him...and third, Henderson CAN NOT miss play that pop up in LF to allow the walked batter to get in scoring position.
I know I am being VERY picky after a win, and it's only because there wasn't much to complain about, so I wanted to analyze the only bad inning. I still think we played great. I just want to point out how we give up runs. When our pitchers throw strikes and we play defense, I'm not so sure we aren't one of the best few teams in the country...because nobody strings together hits against us and scores runs unless we mix in walks and errors.
So this long post (sorry), was just to show that we are damn good baseball team, and when we aren't beating ourselves, I don't think there is a team in the country we cannot beat. If we clean up the errors and walks, I see no reason to believe we can't go to Omaha and win a few games.
I have said all year that walks and errors are the only things that can beat this team. The only other is bad coaching moves. And typically those have to happen in the same inning to really hurt us.
That being said, we only had one bad inning today and it was the first inning, so I'm going to break it down.
There were SEVERAL screw ups in inning #1....
First off, I was worried about starting a RHP against a team that was 33-0 against RHP's this season. Glad that worked out.
Secondly, I am absolutely clueless as to why you would start Armstrong at DH. It makes no sense. But even if you DO start him, he should only bunt. He can't hit.
That being said, I think we are missing the boat on our DH spot. We should do like Vandy does and pencil in our next day's starting pitcher as the DH. That way, if the first time the DH spot comes up we have a bunt situation, you can put in a guy like Armstrong to bunt. But if you need a big RBI or if they have made an early pitching change to a RHP, you can hit Porter. It keeps you from being handcuffed into a certain guy having to hit that first time or get burned for the game.
Okay, now to actual "in game" mistakes.
When we had runners at 1st and 3rd with 1 out and CT up...you have got to bunt him and squeeze in that run. CT rarely hits a fly ball deep enough to tag on, he hits lots of ground balls which are perfect for DPs, and he strikes out a lot....so your chances of him getting that run in are slim considering he is slumping so a hit against a LHP is not likely. I thought we wasted a big chance at getting a 3rd run that inning, but luckily it didn't cost us. It could tomorrow.
Next, we had the walk. Graveman gave up the bomb and then the double, but the walk is what really hurt us. If they beat you by hitting you, fine, but don't give them runs. That walk just so happened to be the 3rd run of the inning...the GO AHEAD run. And it was a run that we had 3 chances to negate. First, we could have squeezed Renfroe in the inning before to where a 3rd run would only tie it....second, we shouldn't have walked him...and third, Henderson CAN NOT miss play that pop up in LF to allow the walked batter to get in scoring position.
I know I am being VERY picky after a win, and it's only because there wasn't much to complain about, so I wanted to analyze the only bad inning. I still think we played great. I just want to point out how we give up runs. When our pitchers throw strikes and we play defense, I'm not so sure we aren't one of the best few teams in the country...because nobody strings together hits against us and scores runs unless we mix in walks and errors.
So this long post (sorry), was just to show that we are damn good baseball team, and when we aren't beating ourselves, I don't think there is a team in the country we cannot beat. If we clean up the errors and walks, I see no reason to believe we can't go to Omaha and win a few games.
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