WKU Game 2

oxpatchreb · Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:08 pm

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!??!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!

I turn on gametracker to find that Bukvich has given up 3 HRS IN THE FIRST INNING!?!?!!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

I don't care how HOT THEIR HITTING IS, 3 hrs in the first inning to a team that BLOWS in NOT power SEC baseball. Bukvich, you better fix this crap NOW!!!!!!!!

I cannot do this all season. Fix it MB, and FIX IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:11 am

Drink much coffee do ya?

oxfordrebel · Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:02 am

cajunrebel wrote:Drink much coffee do ya?

LOL

To be fair, Buk has been injured and he made his first start of the season last night. Looks like he has some work to do.

I think weekends we're going to be ok. TCU was the first road trip of the season and a good team, so not surprising we dropped that series. Came within a breath of sweeping them though. Lynn is doing just what we thought he would this season. Satterwhite is running hot and cold, but he also wasn't 100% against TCU. Baker...I'm not sure. I haven't got to see him pitch yet this year. Statistically he's the worst of the weekend starters, but he still has an ERA of just 4.11 and holding opponents to a .271 BA, so he's not bad by any means. And how about Bittle out of the pen in middle/late relief?? 0.00 ERA, 2 hits and 0 runs. 3 BB to 28 Ks. Opponents are hitting a .045 on him. And all 14.0 innings of work! WOW!!

But mid-week's going to be a struggle. Irwin is inconsistent sometimes looking brilliant and sometimes not. I think Pomeranz would be a great mid-week starter, but you really need him in the pen. McKean has had his moments of struggling, but overall has been on his game this season. He started against USM last Tuesday and did a good job. But again, you need him in the pen. IMHO, and I'm no coach, I think you take either Pomeranz or McKean and make them a mid-week starter along with Irwin as the other mid-week guy. Pomeranz or McKean will eventually make their way into the weekend rotation. Probably Pomeranz. Mid-week is a good place for him to start in his starting role and grow into the weekend role.

Redbluedude · Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:13 am

Have you seen Jake Morgan pitch yet? It seems that he's done a good job when he's come into the game. I know the other day he was hitting in the low 90's with his fastball. Could he start midweek and give 4-5 good innings?

I think you keep Pomeranz and maybe Mckean rested for the weekends. Maybe some mid relief during the week, but the more important weekend games they need to be rested and ready.

Also, we need to start hitting like we did earlier in the year. The bats have definitely cooled down.

oxpatchreb · Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:26 am

We can speculate all we want about pitching strengths and weaknesses, hitting streaks and defensive prowess but it comes to this.

Swagger.

This team should take every hit.... every base runner..... every single instance of ball on bat contact by the other teams hitters as an insult. The guys at the plate for us in the bottom of the 1st should have been ready to EXPLODE on this team for even THINKING they could come in here and win.
Granted Overbeck had it, and no one else came with him. We left MOB again.
We half-*beep*ed it through the rest of the game. Run here, Run there.
THAT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!!!!!!! Great teams play great. We aren't playing like a great team. If the other teams pitchers are un-hittable, the WE have to be un-hittable and win the game 1-0 in 12 innings.

THAT is swagger. And we don't have it. If we don't get it, and I mean NOW, we're all going to be VERY disappointed this season...... again.

oxfordrebel · Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:39 am

Morgan has done very well, I agree. Forgot about him and he could be a big part of this staff too. We have a bunch of guys who haven't seen much time and probably for good reason. I also can't help but think that I'm not there during practice so there's got to be a reason why Bianco starts and throws some of the guys he does. I'm sure he's putting his best out there. He's never been scared to start a Freshman over a Senior.

You're probably right about Pomeranz and McKean about keeping them for the weekend. I was thinking more about Pomeranz's potential and getting him used to the starting role. I don't think there's any doubt he'll be part of the weekend rotation in the future and has the potential to be the staff ace. But at the same time, we need him in the pen this year for the weekend series like you said.

Pitching brings up a good issue. I think we're going to see programs forced to really focus on pitchers in recruiting from now on. When you have to play 5 games a week minimum due to a shortened season you need 5 good starters and a very solid pen behind them.

john_avery_fast · Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:41 am

I feel we are far too dependent on the big inning (3 plus runs). we have enough speed at the top of the order, and consistent enough bats in the middle to bottom of the order to play small ball at times. Henry, Guerrero (sp?), Hubbard, and F. Smith all have the speed to bunt for base hits and/or turn sac bunts. getting men to second changes the entire approach from the mound.
not saying we need to change our whole philosophy, but as we saw this last weekend, and to a lesser extent last night, you are not always gonna get the big inning, even when the opportunity is staring you right in the face (like two men in scoring position with one or less outs).
Still believe we will be in the hunt for Omaha at the end. Hiccups are gonna happen, plus TCU and WKU are not slouch programs; not in our league overall, but solid, so not surprised (disappointed, yes) that they were able to take advantage of the situations.
the real season begins tomorrow. win the SEC and these losses will be all but forgotten.

BigTrev34 · Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:11 pm

Go whoop up on wku. One of my good friends - Justin Crawford - played for them last year and they gave up on him after shoulder problems. Now hes at St Catherine and trying to make it. My other friend also went to UK last year, but is now starting for the Wildcats. Troy Frazier. Hes d*** good too.

Heath · Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:48 pm

olemsdave76 wrote:I feel we are far too dependent on the big inning (3 plus runs). we have enough speed at the top of the order, and consistent enough bats in the middle to bottom of the order to play small ball at times. Henry, Guerrero (sp?), Hubbard, and F. Smith all have the speed to bunt for base hits and/or turn sac bunts. getting men to second changes the entire approach from the mound.

not saying we need to change our whole philosophy, but as we saw this last weekend, and to a lesser extent last night, you are not always gonna get the big inning, even when the opportunity is staring you right in the face (like two men in scoring position with one or less outs).

win the SEC and these losses will be all but forgotten.

I agree. I think we have a lot of boys with good speed and some with great speed. With the pitching going the way it is, especially on the weekends, it looks like we may be better taking the Auggie Guerrido (sp?) (head coach of U. of Texas) approach. His philosophy is "1 run an inning", and he came into Oxford, when OM had probably the best all-around team it has ever seen, and took 2 of 3 to go to Omaha.

With the way the weekend pitchers have been pitching, if the boys could score 6 runs per game, that will probably get us a lot of wins. THey held TCU to 8 runs all weekend. Now, all that might change when SEC play starts. All of you know the SEC is about power, not finesse.

I'd rather see us score 6 runs/game than score 3 and leave 246 men on base per game. Loading the bases is useless if you can't get them in!

Just my opinion, and for the record, I have never been paid to coach a game!

oxfordrebel · Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:24 pm

One of the biggest problems we have with the small ball game is that we cannot seem to get the bunt down! After Tuesday night we had exactly 3 sac bunts this season.

All the guys you mentioned dave are speed guys with the exception of F. Smith, unless you know something I don't? LOL Sidebar: we were talking about that Tuesday night up in the stands and how it seems every time Fuller gets on they send a pinch runner out. Poor guy. HAHA

But Henry, Guerrero, and Hubbard all have wheels and are so dangerous when they start bunting. The problem's been getting the bunt down and fair. All of Bianco's teams have had problems with that and they work on it. But his teams have always fared better when they can hit for average and have a couple of long ball threats. This year's team seems like more of a small ball team for sure, but who knows if that's ever going to happen. It's not for lack of trying, but leaving the bunt on when you've fouled off two bunts already is too risky.

I wish I knew how many bunt base hits we've had this year. I know Jordan's had at least one that I remember and I'm pretty sure more like 3 or 4. Unfortunately it looks like any other hit in the stats.

One thing that's killing us is the fact that guys like Henry and Hubbard aren't hitting for average this season. Henry's hitting a .284 after 15 games. Hubbard's at .286. These are guys that we hitting .315 at least. Henry finished last season with a .376! Hubbard hit a .375 at UA-FS last season.

What about scoring? Our best inning is the 3rd. This season we've scored 33 runs in the 3rd inning. What's our opponent's best inning? The 1st! Opponents have scored 16 runs in the 1st inning against us. Our worst inning is the 9th, though the game is usually decided by then. Our second worst inning is the 1st. We've scored just 5 runs in the first inning this season. It looks like we're digging ourselves a hole in several games. Of the 15 games thus far we've trailed after the 1st inning in 7 of them. We're 3-4 when the opponent scores in the first inning. We're 4-4 when out opponent scores first. In contrast we're 7-0 when we score first.

And the dreaded LOB statistic. Through 15 games we've left a total of 139 men on base. Our opponents? 113. We've turned 20 double-plays but our opponents have turned 13.

The moral of the story is, score early, score often, and don't leave men on base. When some of these guys start to hit for average I think we'll see the Rebs stop dropping games that should be wins. If they learn to get the sac bunt and drag bunt down and FAIR I think we'll see a huge difference. This team is an Omaha contender no doubt, but these things have to be cleaned up or they won't make it past the SRs against this year. Conference play is just now starting. We're slightly over 25% through the regular season. Time to turn it up. No mid-season slump. Work it out now. Let's go REBELS!!!

Heath · Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:58 pm

oxfordrebel wrote:One of the biggest problems we have with the small ball game is that we cannot seem to get the bunt down! After Tuesday night we had exactly 3 sac bunts this season.

And the dreaded LOB statistic. Through 15 games we've left a total of 139 men on base. Our opponents? 113. We've turned 20 double-plays but our opponents have turned 13.

The moral of the story is, score early, score often, and don't leave men on base.

Well, you know that is the hallmark downside of Bianco's teams. It seems all of his teams can get the men on base, but can't get them across the plate. Like getting a team inside the 20 y.d. 7 times in a game, but not getting TD's. You know, like Noel Mazzone.

Hopefully they will get it together. If they don't bunt more, maybe they will do more hit 'n' run plays or something because last weekend I saw a lot of ground balls hit by our guys.

I guess we will see starting this weekend. This is the beginning of "put up or shut up" time!!