Baseball vs LSU - Game 2

[AU64 10,122]

8 hours ago, boomstick said:

He was good but not quite good enough tonight. For once, the loss can't be laid all at the feet of the offense. It needs to be better, but Keegan can't make that mistake after we've battled back into the game to tie it up. That's been his nemesis lately. Really sharp for much of the game and has one or two misses them at prove really costly. 

Letting them come back for 2 runs after we tied the score was a huge "fail"   ...Letting that first runner on base....

[Gowebb11 9,315]

8 hours ago, Mikey said:

What sacrifices do is kill the possibility of having a big inning. It would have taken six runs to win tonight's game. Bunts, even the rare successful ones, do not produce 6 runs in 9 innings.

Double plays and pop ups don't kill innings? I'm not saying bunt every inning but we stranded 41 runners in the Bama series and lost two 1 run games. Go back and watch those games and you'll note that Bama scored several runs set up by sac bunts. As a coach, you do what you have to do.  If you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting, and right now we are stranding way too many runners. 

[PowerOfDixieland 3,226]

11 hours ago, boomstick said:

He was good but not quite good enough tonight. For once, the loss can't be laid all at the feet of the offense. It needs to be better, but Keegan can't make that mistake after we've battled back into the game to tie it up. That's been his nemesis lately. Really sharp for much of the game and has one or two misses them at prove really costly. 

KT threw that pitch to Papierski, but being a catcher I put at least half the blame on Blake Logan.  He has been really good behind the plate for four years so I'm not beating him up, but when Thompson threw over to first about a dozen times Logan should have gone to the mound to jerk him back to reality.  That was a kid hitting just over .200 (not to mention from his much weaker left side) that hit a ball just over 330 feet that wound up being the game winner.  This program still has to learn to get to the place of complete mental focus.  I seriously believe they are giving 100% of their physical effort on every play and I for one can gladly live with that.

[mustache eagle 2,398]

I'd hate to face lsu in the post season

they seem to be coming in to form

[boomstick 1,315]

16 hours ago, PowerOfDixieland said:

KT threw that pitch to Papierski, but being a catcher I put at least half the blame on Blake Logan.  He has been really good behind the plate for four years so I'm not beating him up, but when Thompson threw over to first about a dozen times Logan should have gone to the mound to jerk him back to reality.  That was a kid hitting just over .200 (not to mention from his much weaker left side) that hit a ball just over 330 feet that wound up being the game winner.  This program still has to learn to get to the place of complete mental focus.  I seriously believe they are giving 100% of their physical effort on every play and I for one can gladly live with that.

Agree with all of that. And I think you make a good point about the effort being 100% physically because I'm not sure it's there mentally. That seems to be the problem right now. We don't seem to be in a very good place mentally right now. 

[Mikey 16,579]

23 hours ago, Gowebb11 said:

.......As a coach, you do what you have to do.  If you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting, and right now we are stranding way too many runners. 

There is a place and time for a well executed bunt. That comes in the 8th or 9th inning of a very close game, runner on 1st and zero outs. Any other time and situation and a sacrifice is a bad decision. Besides which, as noted by someone else above, as a team we are horrible at bunting. About the best we get out of it is when the batter fouls off the first two attempts and finally gets one good swing in.

A few "successful" sacrifices wouldn't have caused us to leave fewer runners on base. If you want to win a baseball game, somebody is going to have to hit the ball hard. Bunts reduce the chance of that happening.

[Gowebb11 9,315]

5 hours ago, Mikey said:

There is a place and time for a well executed bunt. That comes in the 8th or 9th inning of a very close game, runner on 1st and zero outs. Any other time and situation and a sacrifice is a bad decision. Besides which, as noted by someone else above, as a team we are horrible at bunting. About the best we get out of it is when the batter fouls off the first two attempts and finally gets one good swing in.

A few "successful" sacrifices wouldn't have caused us to leave fewer runners on base. If you want to win a baseball game, somebody is going to have to hit the ball hard. Bunts reduce the chance of that happening.

We will have to respectfully disagree on this one. Our lack of execution on bunts is not the only issue causing our current slide. We are not exceptional at any one thing but have been solid at most, helping us win a lot of ballgames. I am proud of this team's overall performance and excited about the future. This will not be Butch's most talented team. In a year or two we may have a lineup full of .350 hitters and home run threats. I would love to have guys hitting line drive ropes and home runs but we don't have that kind of talent right now.  

There are many opinions and approaches on the subtleties of baseball. It's obvious you're not a fan of small ball but plenty of teams play it and have great success. Vanderbilt and Virginia are two of the nations most prominent programs and they bunt all the time. They are a threat to do it in almost every situation. Joe Maddon is another proponent. We are hitting into a ton of double plays and hitting a lot of pop ups. An analogy: Gus Malzahn likes to run 70-80% on first down. When he's gaining 5 or 6 yards a pop that's not a problem. When teams start stuffing you for 1 yard gains, it's time to do something different. What I'm advocating is our coaches taking some chances and adapting their approach during our worst skid in over a decade. Right now, it can't hurt.