That loss lies solely on our terrible catching

Seinfeld

All-American
Nov 30, 2006
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That definitely played a part, but when we kept stranding guys in scoring position over and over again in the first 6 innings, I had a feeling that it was going to come back to bite us. 3-17 tonight with runners in scoring position... not to mention the 3 errors, the passed ball in the 9th, and the ball that Bradford dropped in center field that could have been an error as well. Memphis took advantage of mistakes while we blew too many opportunities all night.

Just played like *** tonight, but luckily it's just one game with many more to go
 

coach66

Junior
Mar 5, 2009
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I would assume that passed ball in the ninth was a breaking pitch in

the dirt which is his strike out pitch. How bad was the miss by the catcher surely he wasn't crossed up?
 

coach66

Junior
Mar 5, 2009
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I would add that I think Lindgren deserved the right to finish the ninth. He

was dealing big time. I would have had Holder heated and ready but Jacob was really pitching well. It's hard to question ever putting Holder in but those were my thoughts at the time.
 

rynodawg

Senior
May 29, 2007
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The catcher wanted a high fastball out of the zone and actually stood up almost like a pitchout before Holder pitched to encourage that. Holder threw it high but it was close enough to get the batter to swing, and the catcher just missed it. The runner should have been out a second time on the delayed steal attempt. The catcher blocked the ball in the dirt perfectly but then sailed it into center field.
 

Seinfeld

All-American
Nov 30, 2006
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Quite frankly, I felt that Bracewell was pulled a little early as well. He had thrown just 77 pitches through 6 innings and was showing no signs of losing speed or control. I agree that it wasn't nearly as bad as the Lindgren yank though... Faced 4 batters and struck out all 4 on 19 pitches. Even if we had wild thing Vaughan in the bullpen, I don't know why you pull a guy that's pitching that well.

All in all, last night was extremely frustrating because that game should have been somewhere around 8-1 State in the 7th inning, but we knew that there'd be games like this early in the season. Cohen tinkered with the lineup a lot last night, Memphis took full advantage of our sloppy defensive play, and we couldn't seem to come through with hits in key situations at all. Here's a stat for you... We had 7 innings last night in which we managed to get at least one runner into scoring position. Out of those, we actually scored in just one.

Gotta give Memphis credit for doing what they had to do to win, but if there was ever a game in which we beat ourselves, it was last night. The good news is that we played about as bad as the team's capable of playing, yet they still clearly had a chance to win.
 

Lefthandersrule

Redshirt
Mar 11, 2013
76
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I believe they pulled Ben on a pitch count mindset this early in the season. Our starters don't need to go 90-100 pitches right out of the box.
 

patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
56,861
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I absolutely HATE the way managers just automatically pull a pitcher to put the closer in to start the 9th. Closers are WAY too pampered these days. In last night's case, you had a pitcher who was just mowing batters down and had a low pitch count. Why pull a pitcher in that situation? A much better strategy would be to let Lindgren start the 9th with Holder warming up, and bring Holder in if anyone reached base.