I think I speak for everyone when I say this was a weekend to forget but I cant help but wonder. What exactly happened?? Was it a breakdown of epic proportions? Are we not as good as we thought? Just bad luck?? Starting 0-3 in conference play sucks but luckily there are 27 more games. But it makes things really difficult to win a conference championship.
So What Happened?
- Thread starter Big_Blue_1018
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A combo of a red hot Arky team, at home, and poor pitching from UK. Did not think we would get swept however.
Watching first 17 games I think we are a bit overated...will know much more by the end of the month.
Well we know Lewis and Hjelle are very good and I think they've just struggled a bit. Still, that happens sometimes. They just have to settle in and especially stop gifting homeruns.
I think our lineup is just poor. I will preach it until in blue in the face that Becker shouldn't be hitting 3-5 and Aklinski should also be moved down. Heck I'd even be ok with Becker hitting second and Pompey hitting third. I don't understand why the heck Cottam hit 8th in game 3 while Becker was still hitting 4th. Cottam, Collett and Heyer should be hitting 4, 5, 6. Heck, I might even consider hitting Heyer third and moving Pompey to second. We're talking about these guys having 23 home runs between them... they shouldn't be hitting 6 and 7 and as low as 8th.
Strikeouts have to come down. We're averaging almost 2 more strikeouts per game than a year ago. Making that worse is that we've done this against some weaker opponents. First game we struck out 11 times against Wofford. 10 times against Xavier. 10 against Northern Kentucky. We had 30 in the three games against Tech and 31 against Arkansas. Not hard to see why we lost many of these games or struggled to win some of them.
I think our lineup is just poor. I will preach it until in blue in the face that Becker shouldn't be hitting 3-5 and Aklinski should also be moved down. Heck I'd even be ok with Becker hitting second and Pompey hitting third. I don't understand why the heck Cottam hit 8th in game 3 while Becker was still hitting 4th. Cottam, Collett and Heyer should be hitting 4, 5, 6. Heck, I might even consider hitting Heyer third and moving Pompey to second. We're talking about these guys having 23 home runs between them... they shouldn't be hitting 6 and 7 and as low as 8th.
Strikeouts have to come down. We're averaging almost 2 more strikeouts per game than a year ago. Making that worse is that we've done this against some weaker opponents. First game we struck out 11 times against Wofford. 10 times against Xavier. 10 against Northern Kentucky. We had 30 in the three games against Tech and 31 against Arkansas. Not hard to see why we lost many of these games or struggled to win some of them.
I have confidence in Mingione,but this performance at Arkansas seems to be an all systems failure. Since I didn’t get to watch the games,my impressions are that the team must have quit competing,to be beaten so badly. This is very concerning,and not typical of a Mingione coached team. I have confidence that Mingione will review and evaluate the games and the problems ,that allowed Arkansas to curb stomp us so completely!
It was ugly!! It looked like their hitters were sitting on pitches and made it looked like batting practice. I think their #9 hole hitter was like 6/9 w/2hrs and several rbis
They didn't quit competing. They just got outplayed and out coached in all phases. They were down 7-0 in game 3 and battled back to within 2 runs, before Arkansas blew it open again. That's not quitting. I'll agree that it was very disappointing. I don't have a problem with our line-up. But our middle relief is very suspect. Starters got hammered by a good lineup that will hammer alot of pitchers. Now we have to see how they bounce back starting Tuesday at Xavier. Then Friday night against one of the hottest arms in Auburn's Casey Mize. SEC not for the faint of heart. Comebakatz3 is right. We have to cut down on the Ks.
This could get ugly quickly with Auburn coming in, Florida in April, etc. Yikes. I'm hoping last weekend was an aberration.
I like the way the schedule sets up. Auburn is hot for sure but if we could get 2 wins this weekend at home, then we have at Alabama, South Carolina, and at Georgia before hosting Florida. Those three series' are very winnable, even sweepable (is that even a word?). Got to get the starting pitching back to where it was, and I think we will.
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anon_j0hjgb7us6s1a
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You have so many good players, just be patient
So many things went our way this weekend...baseball is a crazy sport
So many things went our way this weekend...baseball is a crazy sport
From an outside observer, I just wanted to say I wouldn’t read too much into this past weekend. Arkansas has been hit or miss all year and when they hit, there have been some offensive explosions. Obviously, they hit all weekend.
I watched every pitch of every game and I did not see any "quit" in your team. Some of your pitching decisions may have been questionable, but other than that, the Cats kept fighting until the end even though the Hogs were in a hitting zone like a slow pitch softball game.
You guys will be alright, your team is loaded with talent.