Just another huge victory.... here are some thoughts.
- It's reasonable to believe that, if Huge Sack & Dohm don't get injured, we're an easy host & possible top 8 seed. They are core players that greatly enhance the team.
- Holy smokes does A&M & Arkansas have firepower in the bullpen. Those 2 teams & Tennessee are the 3 most talented teams in the country. I think teams 4-10 are up for debate & we're in that group. The A&M & Arkansas bullpens are what ours should look like & hopefully will soon.
- What Nate Dohm brings to our bullpen is just incredible. I stated earlier in season that we were a Nate Dohm in the stopper role away from being an Omaha caliber team & I might be right. We really need 1 more reliever to step up though. That's possibly Auger or Pico since we don't need 4 starters. I would probably rest Dohm for a week now & see if we can't get his best stuff back for the regional. His fastball command is a real separator though.
- I haven't seen Mershon's splits, but I'm not really sure why he doesn't just hit right handed. He's got substantially more power & better bat to ball skills from the right side yet chooses to take most of his ABs from the left side. Not sure I understand it. Might be a decision he has to make in pro ball.
- Ok, let's talk about the elephant in the room. The middle of our order sucks right now &, frankly, those two figuring it out is what is going to decide if we go to Omaha or not.
So what do you do? There are no clear answers to this dilemma as "nut up" & "be clutch" isn't really going to fix the problem.
The easiest thing to do is what Pete Rose would do: Change your positioning in the batter's box rather than your swing
For Hines: He's pulling off the ball & can't cover the slider on the outer half, so he should crowd the plate & make teams beat him inside & any breaking ball that starts in the middle, take it because it'll be outside. If I'm Hines, I'm moving up on the plate.
For DJ: I'm moving up in the box. By moving up in the box, he can takeaway the snap on the breaking ball & force teams to try & throw it by him with their fastball.
It's a complicated problem with no guarantee of being fixed as both player's confidence appears shot at this point, but you've got to make some sort of adjustment. You've got to give them some tool to snap out of it. Just continuing to do the same thing with no adjustment isn't likely to solve this soon, & we need it solved soon. We can't wait.
- It's reasonable to believe that, if Huge Sack & Dohm don't get injured, we're an easy host & possible top 8 seed. They are core players that greatly enhance the team.
- Holy smokes does A&M & Arkansas have firepower in the bullpen. Those 2 teams & Tennessee are the 3 most talented teams in the country. I think teams 4-10 are up for debate & we're in that group. The A&M & Arkansas bullpens are what ours should look like & hopefully will soon.
- What Nate Dohm brings to our bullpen is just incredible. I stated earlier in season that we were a Nate Dohm in the stopper role away from being an Omaha caliber team & I might be right. We really need 1 more reliever to step up though. That's possibly Auger or Pico since we don't need 4 starters. I would probably rest Dohm for a week now & see if we can't get his best stuff back for the regional. His fastball command is a real separator though.
- I haven't seen Mershon's splits, but I'm not really sure why he doesn't just hit right handed. He's got substantially more power & better bat to ball skills from the right side yet chooses to take most of his ABs from the left side. Not sure I understand it. Might be a decision he has to make in pro ball.
- Ok, let's talk about the elephant in the room. The middle of our order sucks right now &, frankly, those two figuring it out is what is going to decide if we go to Omaha or not.
So what do you do? There are no clear answers to this dilemma as "nut up" & "be clutch" isn't really going to fix the problem.
The easiest thing to do is what Pete Rose would do: Change your positioning in the batter's box rather than your swing
For Hines: He's pulling off the ball & can't cover the slider on the outer half, so he should crowd the plate & make teams beat him inside & any breaking ball that starts in the middle, take it because it'll be outside. If I'm Hines, I'm moving up on the plate.
For DJ: I'm moving up in the box. By moving up in the box, he can takeaway the snap on the breaking ball & force teams to try & throw it by him with their fastball.
It's a complicated problem with no guarantee of being fixed as both player's confidence appears shot at this point, but you've got to make some sort of adjustment. You've got to give them some tool to snap out of it. Just continuing to do the same thing with no adjustment isn't likely to solve this soon, & we need it solved soon. We can't wait.
