mcgufcm

Trace with a dominant inning. He looks good right now.

We moved Cole Foster from the two hole. We should've moved Rambo out of the lead-off spot. He's killing us. Rambo has four swinging strikeouts. None of them have been on strikes. Then, he reached on an error and got picked off at first.

Good. Grief. Rambo is beyond lost at the plate. ANOTHER swinging strikeout on a ball waaaaaaay outside the zone (high and outside).

Y'all crazy. Trace looks good. That two-out RBI was on a breaking ball buried four inches inside, and he somehow turned on it and barely caught the line. Good hitting and a bit of blind luck. I don't recall all this "Gonzalez sucks" nonsense when he gave up two in the first. We're in the exact same position starting pitching wise. Trace isn't a knockout pitcher right now, but he keeps you in games. The bigger issue (by far) is at the plate.

Still getting less than zero from the 1 and 7 spots. This ballpark begs for stringing hits together. That's impossible when you have automatic outs in those spots.

Third swinging K on a ball outside the zone. Foster with a two-out double to get us started after that!

Bad start. Two strikeouts. Both swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. Looked exactly like OM. If all three guys stand still, we have two runners on with one out. At some point, we'll either stop doing the pitcher's work for him or we'll pack our bags tonight.

Let's get the bats going a bit and let Trace chew up a few good innings. Let's go boys! Let's go win the Pac 12 title and give them the same treatment we gave to UCLA and Oregon State!

I mean, I guess some hit first pitches. Elko did. Harris jumped Skip’s first pitch. Alderman’s RBI in the first came on a 2-2 count. McCants’ RBI in the sixth came on a 1-1. I took less issue with our first pitch approach than I did with our undisciplined zone after the first pitch. Waaaaaay too many guys swinging at the fastball at their collarbone. Then, we started diving for sliders late. I bet we had more swinging strikes on balls outside the strike zone than any game in the last two months. Maybe the entire season. The problem with that is that the ump gradually expanded his zone because we kept reinforcing that all these pitches are close when they were 8-10 inches off the plate or high. When hitters are that liberally umps get influenced too. I hope we shorten up and establish a better zone in the next one. That’ll give us a chance at the plate. This park will give up a HR, but it rewards teams that can string good ABs together more than power teams.

It’s pretty amazing to sit back and look at the winners’ bracket. Not one nationally seeded team on either side. Incredible. TAMU looks like the first seeded team to get a win at this CWS, and they’re bouncing one of the two betting favorites. Hopefully, we do the same tomorrow. They looked awful Game 1 so that should be encouraging.

I assume that’s 100% accurate.

Well. Bad start. Now we have to do something we’ve never done. Beat Stanford in Omaha. 0-4 against that team in the CWS. But this is a tough team. We’ll show up.

But OM is FULL of good ole boy Delta WASPs!

I grew up in Starkville, and I’d say games are more annoying in Starkville. The fabs are all kinds of bandwagon (and these are my best friends!!) and the cowbells are a joke.

Just hoping for good ABs. Start seeing the ball and carry it into the next one.

It’s true, but the 1 & 7 hitters being 0-fer is different than other guys hitting .200. If those two don’t lengthen our lineup, we’re going 2 and out.

Yes. Great play.

That’s a lot better than Rambo and Kason. Those two struggling like they are (0-30 I believe) shrinks our lineup to the point where we cannot have rallies. It’s walk/hit and HR or bust.

That’s just not true. I deal with OM folks all the time. Not true at all.

Taking first pitch and swinging at everything regardless of location after that.

Two more swinging strikeouts on balls outside the strike zone. Embarrassing plate awareness and approach tonight. We were sunk from the jump.

Bello’s reads have been amazingly bad.

That ball to Pierce wasn’t hit in a tough spot. He took two steps back. Completely misread it. That’s the only reason it was a tough play. Unfortunately, it won’t matter with our plate approach today.

True. Although I thought the rule change for CBB had been adopted already and would go into effect this year. Might've made that up in my mind though.

That's a good point. I won't be surprised to see Butch stay with Trace, but Sheehan has been good to round out the year. Hope we get a third game to find out!