WCWS vs. LSU - game thread

[AU64 10,122]

Let's look at our team:

Batting average, somewhere in the top five. Home runs, somewhere in the top five. Runs scored, somewhere in the top five. Defense, somewhere in the top five....Pitching, 102nd. Does something jump out at you there?

When a team gets into tournament play pitching becomes paramount. I don't know how or why we pitched so well in Baton Rouge, both against LSU and in the SEC tournament. That carried over into the regional and then went away. We've now reverted to mid-season form and that's not a good thing. Remember bammer scoring 31 runs in three games in Auburn? That's been closer to the norm than not. When everybody has good pitchers a team cannot depend on having to score runs in bunches to win. This is a world series and everybody but Auburn has outstanding pitchers.

Is it impossible that we win out? Of course not, but when the first thought about a team is "If the pitchers can just..." it's not a good sign.

Sorry..but gotta disagree Mikey...instead, let's look at our batting average lately, and the LOBs lately and home runs lately....and notice the individual batting averages that have plummeted in the past month.

Now maybe that's a matter of opposing pitching....but our pitching was good enough to get us to Oky City...and the recent scoring drought was why it was so hard to close out the season.

True, it's likely that we will probably give up 3 or 4 ERs in a game...but if you look at the season....and the stats you quoted, that should provide enough runs for AU to win. BUT....if we can only score one or two runs in the next game....it's probably going to be a short trip to Oky CIty.

[Cat4AU 0]

The bats need to fire up. Don't know what has happened to our hitting but it has hit a down hill skid. I think they will come back and win tomorrow. Got the jitters out of the way. War Eagle ladies and get the bats hot.

[around4ever 4,139]

Our pitchers have lived on getting ground balls all season. I think LSU only had four ground balls today and only two of those were outs. Not a typical outing for Harper and Walters.

Maybe I'm drinking the koolaid but lots of these stats about coming from the losers bracket are from the days when a team had one "ace" who pretty much pitched every day.....saw that last year with Lexi pitching several games in a row ....just got worn out.

We have the staff to put a relatively fresh pitcher on the mound each game and get a solid performance.

The two errors hurt us but no way we were going to win by scoring just one run. I think the big thing for Saturday is to see some hitting again.

Agreed. With our pitching staff and offensive potential, I see no reason we can't buck the trend of loser's bracket failures. We just have to get hits with runners in scoring position.

[Mikey 16,614]

The bats have cooled off because it's tournament time. That always happens because of facing better pitchers.

We do not have a pitcher on our team that would be #1 on any other team in the WCWS. "We have three pitchers" is not a good thing. It's like having two quarterbacks...you do not have a first teamer. We have now given up a total of 20 runs in the most recent three games.

I have taken teams just like ours to tournaments. I have also taken lesser all-around teams that had a couple of top pitchers. Without fail the lesser teams with better pitching went farther. Yes, that was baseball instead of softball but I see no difference for the purpose of this discussion.

[AU64 10,122]

The bats have cooled off because it's tournament time. That always happens because of facing better pitchers.

We do not have a pitcher on our team that would be #1 on any other team in the WCWS. "We have three pitchers" is not a good thing. It's like having two quarterbacks...you do not have a first teamer. We have now given up a total of 20 runs in the most recent three games.

I have taken teams just like ours to tournaments. I have also taken lesser all-around teams that had a couple of top pitchers. Without fail the lesser teams with better pitching went farther. Yes, that was baseball instead of softball but I see no difference for the purpose of this discussion.

Actually there is quite a difference IMO...the AU baseball team at the moment has one pitcher.....which is probably going to be two too few to go very far in the Regional or Super Regional. Would be very nice to have 3 plus a couple solid relievers like many other teams in the tourney.

Meanwhile in Oky City ...four teams saw their best pitchers lose their first game....so will be interesting to see if they pitch those same ladies again today or step down to their next one. .

[WarTiger 3,907]

The bats have cooled off because it's tournament time. That always happens because of facing better pitchers.

We do not have a pitcher on our team that would be #1 on any other team in the WCWS. "We have three pitchers" is not a good thing. It's like having two quarterbacks...you do not have a first teamer. We have now given up a total of 20 runs in the most recent three games.

I have taken teams just like ours to tournaments. I have also taken lesser all-around teams that had a couple of top pitchers. Without fail the lesser teams with better pitching went farther. Yes, that was baseball instead of softball but I see no difference for the purpose of this discussion.

That's just ridiculous. It's also a HORRIBLE comparison. I would much rather have 3 pitchers that we can put out there than to have one that we absolutely have to use to win a game. We can win with any of the three we have and have proven that all season. Comparing it to having two quarterbacks is ludicrous and not even in the same league.

You make it sound like one top pitcher is going to just come out every time and shut the other team down. Reality is, that's simply not true. Probably the best pitcher in the game right now is the girl that pitched last night for Oregon. She got SHELLED and gave up 7 runs and Oregon is in the losers bracket. Having one pitcher and riding her the whole way is NOT a good thing like you seem to think it is.

[Mikey 16,614]

Just about every measurable of our team is in the top 5 or 10 nationally except the pitching is 102nd. And our pitching isn't the problem? Ok then.

Nobody else uses one pitcher exclusively. That's not what I'm suggesting. The others in OkC have their top gun and some decent backups. We have three decent backups, no top gun. Our team ERA of 3.6 pretty much backs that up.

[Mikey 16,614]

Meanwhile in Oky City ...four teams saw their best pitchers lose their first game....so will be interesting to see if they pitch those same ladies again today or step down to their next one. .

Of course four teams had their best pitcher lose. Also, four teams had their best pitcher win. That's what happens when four games are played.

In the super regional, UAT's top gun threw roughly 375 pitches in three games over two days. (I stopped counting at around 340, 375 is an approximation.) This is different from baseball pitching.

[AU64 10,122]

Meanwhile in Oky City ...four teams saw their best pitchers lose their first game....so will be interesting to see if they pitch those same ladies again today or step down to their next one. .

Of course four teams had their best pitcher lose. Also, four teams had their best pitcher win. That's what happens when four games are played.

In the super regional, UAT's top gun threw roughly 375 pitches in three games over two days. (I stopped counting at around 340, 375 is an approximation.) This is different from baseball pitching.

I was just pointing out that 4 of the best pitchers each gave up 5 to 7 runs....not that they lost....and that it is possible to score ..even hit grand slams off the "best" pitchers. If the "best pitchers' always dominated the hitters the games would have been 1-0 or 2-1 perhaps....and not 7-2 or whatever.