Looks like a pretty solid baseball team. I think they are pitching Tyler Watkins on Friday- and for you people from Petal, yes, that is the baseball coach, Larry Watkins, son.
Their fielding PCT is about the same as ours is right now, so they may not be that great of a fielding team either.
They are coached by former PRCC HC Jay Artigues, and they are 4-0 right now. They have beaten Eastern Illinois three times, and Valley once- all at home.
Since I am wooly about the baseball team, I'll go ahead and predict a sweep. Anything less the two out of three would really disappoint me.
The things that I am looking for this weekend are:
A good start from Nick Routt and Tyler Whitney. I'd like to see at least five innings with no more than two earned runs allowed.
Improvement in the defense. Especially third base. I'll give Ryan Collins the benefit of the doubt since he has never been a bad defender until last weekend. Now, Sneed and Butler get less of a pass from me right now. Between those three players, that accounts for 70% of our team errors so far. And on top of that, only one error so far from a Cohen recruit- Nick Vickerson. Wait until we get Cohen's players in here. Thankfully, after turning over half of the roster from last year, that won't take long.
The rest of the freshman pitchers to continue to have quality outings. Really, only Luke Bole had a rough outing, and he was let down by the defense somewhat. I can certainly live with that. Our guys have some good stuff, and after seeing them perform against some live competition, I have a feeling that they are going to have more good outings than bad this year. As a sidenote, I'd also like to see Luke Bole get some at bats this year and see what he can do as a pinch hitter. It's worth looking at since he had 20 home runs last year in high school.
On that last note, the way this group of freshmen has looked compared to most of the recent groups of freshmen is unbelievable as far as where they were coming into the season, with a few exceptions like Ed Easley, Matt Lea, and Jeffrey Rea to name a few.
Their fielding PCT is about the same as ours is right now, so they may not be that great of a fielding team either.
They are coached by former PRCC HC Jay Artigues, and they are 4-0 right now. They have beaten Eastern Illinois three times, and Valley once- all at home.
Since I am wooly about the baseball team, I'll go ahead and predict a sweep. Anything less the two out of three would really disappoint me.
The things that I am looking for this weekend are:
A good start from Nick Routt and Tyler Whitney. I'd like to see at least five innings with no more than two earned runs allowed.
Improvement in the defense. Especially third base. I'll give Ryan Collins the benefit of the doubt since he has never been a bad defender until last weekend. Now, Sneed and Butler get less of a pass from me right now. Between those three players, that accounts for 70% of our team errors so far. And on top of that, only one error so far from a Cohen recruit- Nick Vickerson. Wait until we get Cohen's players in here. Thankfully, after turning over half of the roster from last year, that won't take long.
The rest of the freshman pitchers to continue to have quality outings. Really, only Luke Bole had a rough outing, and he was let down by the defense somewhat. I can certainly live with that. Our guys have some good stuff, and after seeing them perform against some live competition, I have a feeling that they are going to have more good outings than bad this year. As a sidenote, I'd also like to see Luke Bole get some at bats this year and see what he can do as a pinch hitter. It's worth looking at since he had 20 home runs last year in high school.
On that last note, the way this group of freshmen has looked compared to most of the recent groups of freshmen is unbelievable as far as where they were coming into the season, with a few exceptions like Ed Easley, Matt Lea, and Jeffrey Rea to name a few.
