Softball Hitting versus Last Year

[OlderWhiskey 954]

There have been numerous negative and pessimistic comments regarding the hitting performance of this year's softball team.  I have made some of them.  Today I took a quick look at how we're hitting with 4 SEC series to go, compared to last year's full season numbers.  The team batting average right now is .290, compared to .299 at the end of last year.  The same three players - McCondichie, Packer, and Peralta - top both lists.  Last year, they hit .325 as a group.  Right now, they're at .336, in a slightly different order.  Bri Ellis hit .302 for the season last year; she's at .302 right now.  One notable difference is that last year, Sydney Cox was the 4th leading hitter at .310; since Bryant took over third and relegated Cox to the bench, Cox is way down the list.  Bryant is hitting .317.

Home run production is definitely lower this year.  Last year we hit 1.51 homers per game; this year we're at 1.20.  Blaine and Ellis hit 29 homers combined last year; this year they've hit 12.  Overall, considering that averages are likely to drop further as we complete our SEC schedule, it seems that team hitting performance is down overall, but a group of players is pretty much maintaining what they did last year.  One side note:  Peralta's fielding percentage has improved from .868 to .957.  All this infornation may be found at auburntigers.com softball page.  

[AUBwins 10,075]

Thanks for the run down.  Interesting for sure.  

[ArgoEagle 1,792]

Unimpressive last year.

Unimpressive this year.

[AUBwins 10,075]

 

I think this is the best piece of hitting we have had in a game this year.  7 runs and no HRs.  An error by Troy helped with a run or 2, but overall encouraging performance.  Let's see if we can string this together with more games like this during the weekend series.

[warladytigers 182]

Stats are interesting and I like to look and compare.

However, IMO we are getting better contact this year compared to last even tho' we don't have as many home runs.

Last year's team would probably lost yesterday's game against LSU......just sayin"!

[EagleEye67 1,940]

Cox's BA has fallen off a cliff since she stopped being an everyday player.  Hope she can right the ship. 

[Golden Eagle 370]

On 4/9/2023 at 11:48 AM, OlderWhiskey said:

There have been numerous negative and pessimistic comments regarding the hitting performance of this year's softball team.  I have made some of them.  Today I took a quick look at how we're hitting with 4 SEC series to go, compared to last year's full season numbers.  The team batting average right now is .290, compared to .299 at the end of last year.  The same three players - McCondichie, Packer, and Peralta - top both lists.  Last year, they hit .325 as a group.  Right now, they're at .336, in a slightly different order.  Bri Ellis hit .302 for the season last year; she's at .302 right now.  One notable difference is that last year, Sydney Cox was the 4th leading hitter at .310; since Bryant took over third and relegated Cox to the bench, Cox is way down the list.  Bryant is hitting .317.

Home run production is definitely lower this year.  Last year we hit 1.51 homers per game; this year we're at 1.20.  Blaine and Ellis hit 29 homers combined last year; this year they've hit 12.  Overall, considering that averages are likely to drop further as we complete our SEC schedule, it seems that team hitting performance is down overall, but a group of players is pretty much maintaining what they did last year.  One side note:  Peralta's fielding percentage has improved from .868 to .957.  All this infornation may be found at auburntigers.com softball page.  

Thanks for posting this - always good to get some perspective.

Count me among those who have been frustrated with Auburn's offensive approach and results this year.  And compounding the frustration for me is that we haven't seen improvement during CMD's tenure.  AU didn't play a particularly difficult pre-conference schedule which, IMHO, contributed to the 'high' early-season batting averages and maybe set a false expectation for the team themselves about how effective they were at the plate.  But when they have faced a very good pitcher the batters often seemed lost - swinging for the fences, short at bats (didn't foul off pitches when they were down 2 strikes while waiting for something good to hit...and therefore, didn't make the pitcher work/drive up her pitch count), lots of poor bunt attempts (popups for outs), etc.  The exception to this pattern was Peralta who leads the team (conference?) in walks.  It was hard to tell without any inside info whether the problem was the players themselves, the coaching, the in-game batting instructions from Lenti or ???

Auburn (9-6 in conference play) has played 5 SEC series this year.  They swept Missouri (4-14 in conference play); won 2 of 3 against Ole Miss (5-10 in conference play) and LSU (7-8 in conference play; and won 1 of 3 against Georgia (12-5 in conference play) and Florida (8-7 in conference play).

Remaining conference series are against Alabama (9-6 in conference play - note, 3 of those wins came last weekend against Mississippi State who has lost 9 in a row...), South Carolina (7-8 in conference play), and Mississippi State (3-11 in conference play).

So while we have had good wins against GA, FL, and LSU we have one of the easier SEC schedules this year (which doesn't help our ranking or RPI).

Having said all of that, Auburn's defense and pitching are good enough (especially if Shelby Lowe can get back in the rotation without limit) for Auburn to be competitive in every game they play if they can perform at the plate.  I think they showed more discipline during the Florida series and that continued through the Troy game and the LSU series.  When CMD was interviewed briefly during game 3 of the LSU series he said the batters needed to 'look out and then come in' based on how LSU was pitching to them.  Commentator Michelle Smith then expanded on CMD's remark and agreed with his assessment.  I don't doubt that the coaches know the intricacies of the game - the question is whether they can leverage their knowledge and observations into effective coaching of Auburn's batters.  I'm hopeful that that has started to happen.