Listen, overall I am reasonably happy with the progress being made with the baseball program. Certainly wish it could be faster but I understand the state Polk left the program and I also understand our limitations with relation to available scholarship money as compared with schools in other states that have state wide scholarship money.
But with that said, we continue to have in game decisions made by our coaches that just leave me scratching my head. Here are 2 examples from this past weekend. First, in Saturday's game, up 5-3 in the bottom of the eighth we get the bases loaded with 2 outs when our batter (Ogden?) gets walked on four straight balls by the pitcher. Up comes our weakest hitter in the lineup in Adam Frazier (.218) who promptly swings on the FIRST pitch and hits an easy grounder to second base that has us leave the bases loaded for the second straight inning without scoring. WHY would a coach not tell the hitter in that case to MAKE the pitcher throw a strike BEFORE you start swinging. We won the game anyway but an extra run there could have made it more comfortable. Moving to Sunday, and I admit I didn't keep up in detail as much with this game since it wasn't on TV, but in the fourth with the game still in the balance we decide to relieve Devin Jones with Victor Diaz? Not Graveman, not Stark, not Mitchell, but Diaz who frankly I can't even remember the last time the guy pitched or was remotely effective in a game. Anyway, by the time the inning was over we are down 6-3 and the game is pretty much out of reach. Now there is no guarantee that any of the other guys would have been better but why would you choose to go with Diaz there? Makes no sense. These types of things all along, added with the horrible decision on the Friday night Arkansas game to not use Reed, still gives me concern to understand what our coaching staff is thinking in certain situations. I'm probably no baseball expert but normally when I see coaches making decisions during a game I tend to follow the logic but when I see some of our moves and decisions, not so much.
But with that said, we continue to have in game decisions made by our coaches that just leave me scratching my head. Here are 2 examples from this past weekend. First, in Saturday's game, up 5-3 in the bottom of the eighth we get the bases loaded with 2 outs when our batter (Ogden?) gets walked on four straight balls by the pitcher. Up comes our weakest hitter in the lineup in Adam Frazier (.218) who promptly swings on the FIRST pitch and hits an easy grounder to second base that has us leave the bases loaded for the second straight inning without scoring. WHY would a coach not tell the hitter in that case to MAKE the pitcher throw a strike BEFORE you start swinging. We won the game anyway but an extra run there could have made it more comfortable. Moving to Sunday, and I admit I didn't keep up in detail as much with this game since it wasn't on TV, but in the fourth with the game still in the balance we decide to relieve Devin Jones with Victor Diaz? Not Graveman, not Stark, not Mitchell, but Diaz who frankly I can't even remember the last time the guy pitched or was remotely effective in a game. Anyway, by the time the inning was over we are down 6-3 and the game is pretty much out of reach. Now there is no guarantee that any of the other guys would have been better but why would you choose to go with Diaz there? Makes no sense. These types of things all along, added with the horrible decision on the Friday night Arkansas game to not use Reed, still gives me concern to understand what our coaching staff is thinking in certain situations. I'm probably no baseball expert but normally when I see coaches making decisions during a game I tend to follow the logic but when I see some of our moves and decisions, not so much.