It is called "injuries" and we had them in spades. It is what it is. And if I may "go there", Sully is a damn fine coach who is the baseball successful equivalent to football and Napier. He does it "the right way" and not the expedient way. Napier still has to show that he gets it. But if you are wanting what the other elites are doing, you need to change your allegiances to a more "correct" program, like LSU, Oklahoma or Texas. Or else you need to change your diaper.
Methinks Sully is going with King because he wants a wakeup call to the team. If he does the conventional, and I agree with your take, it may not send the correct signal. We just have to trust that King and the hitters will cruise to a win and then the rest of the pitchers, minus those who pitched against ECU, can find a way to win against Coastal. Just like this game, we need good hitting, minimal errors, and effective pitching to win this thing. We sort of didn't get the errors (at least none that I recall that cost us dearly) and our hitting came on in 9 innings (that is fine) but Liam was BAD. And as I posted earlier in the thread, McNeillie could have been the savior but he wasn't. Instead, he and Peterson are going to be around to see another day...IF we get past Coastal. This isn't ideal but it is the hand we were dealt.
@tegator80 — If your last line had read “This isn’t ideal but it is the hand we dealt ourselves” I would’ve rated it Best Post Ever!
To be fair, those E Carolina dudes rocked basically every pitcher we sent in there. They scored 11 runs and only 2 were Liam’s.
They scored 4 of those off of Liam (2 earned). Can't really make excuses. Everyone, including Liam, expects more than that from your ace in the post season.
I am not saying Liam did well. He did not. This was East Carolina. A fine club, but one where most all University of Florida pitchers should be able to hold under 10 runs. Instead, it seemed like none of our pitchers could do this. Perhaps King could have done the job, but if we have only one pitcher that can handle East Carolina, our problem is way bigger than Liam.
They were on their game today (ECU) and we helped them by pitching behind in the count all day and generally not playing good baseball. It seemed like all of their hitters started with a 2-0 count and that makes it a pretty fun day to hit. Funny thing about baseball - we could play them again and totally flip the script. Liam may also get another opportunity if we can hang around until the end.
Probably, maybe I need to grab a new interest or two . Opera sounds cool along with 18 th century art ! The hell with sports. This is music to Gator Country’s ears!
plus the pressure they put on our defense with small ball just wore us out. We can’t defend it . How do we drop a ball on a squeeze like that ? But there were a lot of things. ECU was just better.
True, I just think your dude/Friday guy sets the tone. He just looked off from the start. 48 pitches and 24 strikes. 1 1/3 innings 5 hits and 2 runs just bad!
@wingtee, if you're switching to opera, I'd recommend the operetta Cavalleria Rusticana to start. It's a shorter than an opera and was featured in Godfather III. Quite dramatic!
Catcher dropped a squeeze play and we didn’t communicate on a bunt. That led to the 1st inning. But it’s been the last few years of not handling that part of the game
100% on point @Onthebench. For our pitchers to be successful they must establish command/control/confidence—you set yourself up to succeed or you set yourself up to fail. To succeed you attack in pitcher’s counts. We absolutely did not accomplish this. As you said starting with a 2-0 count makes for a pretty fun day to hit.
Thank you ! Is it a 4 star prospect with exceptional home run power? With my attention span… a short , brief production would work well. Any art galleries that you could suggest? WES has already given me the art festival lineup for the summer season but I need to do deeper . Plus after I finish the art festival I feel a little “buzzy “ . Wonder why ?
