Some of you need to chill about our hitting this weekend.....

[War Machine Dawg]

It's way too early to panic about our offense. Remember, we only returned 3 players that had significant ABs last season: CT, Brownlee, and Frazier. Norris, Stark, and Renfroe all got a few ABs, but not many. We have plenty of talent, but it's going to take some time for these guys to adjust and hit the way they're capable. I really don't expect us to know what we've got this season offensively until mid-April. Wouldn't surprise me to see us go on a tear for the last 4-6 weeks of the season as these guys get the ABs under their belts. Plus, we haven't seen Woodruff or Henderson yet.

I could be wrong, but I think we're going to be a good offensive team before this season is finished. I really like the pieces we have. Rea, Porter, Norris, Renfroe, and possibly Stark are going to give us some pop in the lineup. CT, Brownlee, and Frazier are all pretty good contact hitters that can run. If Woodruff takes over an OF spot and plays like a 5th RD Draft Pick and Henderson lives up to the billing to take Britton out of the regular lineup, we should be deep and capable of scoring with most teams in the SEC. We're just really young right now and it's going to take time for all that youth to gel. But compared to Cohen's first 3 teams, the talent level is undeniably better. Hell, I think we'll be better just by not having Anti-Clutch Collins in the lineup anymore.

 

[mstatefan88]

People are freaking out because we lost 1 game. Of course we had our opportunities to win it, but we didn't. Doesn't mean it's an omen for the rest of the year, especially since it was in game 2 of the season. Give these guys some time to actually play a few games before we start going nuts.

Cohen is going to mix and match, and I'm sure we will see more of some guys we saw very little of this weekend. We've got 4 games coming up this weekend, and I would imagine we are going to see a lot of different lineup combinations.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

Some of our fans just don't understand college baseball very well. Unlike the MLB, there is no Spring Training to play with your lineup and see what you've got. So instead, you're forced to play with it for the first month or so of the season before SEC play. Really, the only guy who's spot in the lineup is absolutely written in stone is CT leading off. I'd suspect Porter & Rea will be fixtures at 4 & 5, but that's just a guess. Other than that, we're going to play a bunch of guys & bat them in a bunch of different spots. We'll have a pretty good idea of what the lineup will look like by the 2nd SEC series. But until then, there's just no point in panicking over our hitting. Sure, I'd have loved to have gotten the sweep. But WSU isn't exactly terrible, so taking 2 of 3 was a good accomplishment this weekend. It was also nice to win one in a comeback, something we were good at last year. Shows me that we still have that Never Say Die mentality, not that I'd expect any differently from Cohen's teams.

 

[MSUArrowCS]

I'll admit that this happens to me every year as the school year progresses from football (where one loss can make or break a season) to basketball (where a bad loss can be balanced out by a good win) to baseball, where even the best teams aim for series wins. Even though series are often decided by a one-game swing, dropping a game to a bad team doesn't necessarily say much about your team, because there are so many variables at play. I also have to remind myself that it takes much more to hold a lead in baseball than other sports, especially with college bullpens and the 3-game series. Sometimes that works to your advantage and sometimes it doesn't.

I also can't believe that the prevailing opinion seems to be that we "pissed away" Game 2 this weekend. We were the ones down 4-1, and while we might have pissed away plenty of opportunities, we never even led the game. In fact, we didn't blow a lead the entire weekend. I thought we battled pretty well to overcome what we did in the last two games. Solid pitching and defense go a little further than they used to in college baseball.

 

[Tds & Beer]

.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

...timely hits in all 3 games yesterday. Especially game 3.


Seems to me, at least so far, this team will hit as good, if not better, than last year's team.


Brownlee, Bradford & Rea will knock the laces off the ball before the year is over. So will Fraizer, Porter & some players I'm remiss to remember at the moment.


I don't know who created the myth this team will not hit (probably todd4state, who gets everything wrong) but this team will hit. Of course, some days they will face a pitcher who has wicked stuff & not do anything. But as the wise guru once said, "That's baseball."


This squad not lead the league in HR's, but they will get their hits.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

Sure, we blew chances in Game 2. But as you point out, we never had the lead at any point. Also worth noting is we scored 6, 5, and 5 this weekend. If we score 5 a night, we're going to be a pretty good team. Yet I've seen a bunch of posts saying we won't hit any better than last year, will struggle scoring runs, etc. As I said above, if we aren't hitting better as a whole by mid-April, then I'll get worried. Until then, just lay back and enjoy the ride.

 

[maroonmania]

for about 4 of the last 5 innings seemingly we had guys in scoring position (several times at 3rd) with less than 2 outs to win the game and couldn't get anyone home. Meanwhile, during those same innings, WSU couldn't even hardly manage a baserunner against Reed until the last inning where they got 2 runs on 2 singles and 2 walks. Of course, the real killer was not winning the game in the inning when we GOT the 2 out hit with men on 2nd and 3rd that should have won it but our runner at 2nd couldn't get out of the way of the batted ball. That is a very rare thing to see anyway much less on what should have been a game winning hit. Just horrible Bulldog luck I guess.

 

[windcrysmary]

Hitting will more than likely have a better opportunity to improve than pitching ...not saying we'll end up a top 10 Scoring team but I'd be a lot more worried at this point had we stumbled on the hill vs too many bad at bats

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

Now....if we "average" more than 5 per game, we may actually win the 35 games that I am predicting. Because we are going to score 12, 14 maybe even 15 or more in a few games. But we are also going to score 4 or less in several games this year.

It seems that teams that score around 5 per game against SEC competition, end up losing more that they win. That is not a statistical "fact", just a perception from watching a lot of SEC Baseball for the past 41 years.

We do have the Big Ball Park Syndrome working FOR us.**

I actually fell pretty good about being 2 and 1 right now with that many new position players. And I believe we had 14, 14, and 10 hits in the 3 games. Just gotta string em together to get a couple of big innings per game and in our park a big inning is 3 or more.

 

[Todd4State]

But WSU does not have elite type pitchers for the most part. When we face SEC pitching, it's going to be a struggle at times.

I really like your last point- I do think that by the end of the year, we will have a pretty good offensive team and that we will build off of that going into next year.

I also trust John Cohen because he is one of the better hitting coaches in the country.

 

[Todd4State]

you would have seen that I said that I was not as worried as some people about the hitting early in the season.

 

[MediaRelatinDawg]

I have heard complaints that they were disappointed in Hunter's hitting when it counted the most. Remember, he had a double and a single before being walked twice with men on base. The first walk was intentional. They know how good a hitter he is. As for Bradford, we needn't worry about CT. He proved as a freshman last year how good he is and will continue to be. Rea and Norris will get their damage done as well. Overall, the talent level in this lineup dwarfs that of any time in Cohen's tenure.

 

[MSDawg34]

Because anyone at the game could see he was making high school level mistakes and seemed lost at the plate. Example swinging at a 2-0 ball in the dirt. Not getting ct in from 3rd with one out, another k, and forgetting how many outs there were when he actually got on gave me pause. These are not mistakes an sec starter should be making

 

[Todd4State]

very raw. The only way to learn what to do and not to do is play at a high level sometimes.

I'm encouraged by Hunter Renfroe because last year he was completely lost. This year he at least looks like he belongs out there- when he is not screwing up. At any rate, he won't hit .150 this year.