Obviously can't know how much of a difference it would've made since ECU just completely outplayed us on every level, but it sure does seem like Heyman was one injury too many. Good on these kids for rallying the way they did when they could have easily packed it in. We have some work to do this offseason.
GatorGal you are a whole different level of commitment . Your contributions to this site through ugly and all are nothing less than amazing. Your family has got to be some very lucky people. Bless you Gal.. I didn’t post a whole lot but followed most of your game threads. You’re the MVP!!!!! Ten
Well I feel like everything that could be said about our team and season has been said so I’m just going to leave it alone. Hope all of our players that choose to play summer ball have a productive and healthy summer. To Gator Nation whatever your vices are—enjoy them all in the off season. And one last time for this Gators Baseball season, Thank You @Gatorgal04 for putting up with us and spoiling us rotten. You are a treasure.
I believe this was a classic definition of a "team loss". There were specific things that needed to happen in order to win, and it WAS winnable, and none of them came to fruition. Methinks, besides a nice "home" crowd for ECU, the team exhaled after the rigors of the SEC and in light of all the injuries. Give ECU credit, they figured out how to exploit our lack of pitching and perhaps some fielding limitations (or they decided to lose boldly instead of meekly) and played fundamentally sound baseball. I do hope these two losses against the same team, with the same players and philosophy, gives him pause to maybe go back to the basics and limit relying on the 95+ fastball pitchers and home runs. They obviously have merit, just that baseball is a simple game. Keep it that way.
Great points @tegator80 — With all of the injuries, shifts to other positions because of those injuries, and most of the players playing on a big stage for the first time in their careers it seemed inevitable that defensive breakdowns were bound to happen to some extent. This is not offered as any excuse it’s just the game of baseball in real time.
To follow up @74nole's post we have been running on fumes for a long time. All of our up the middle defense was guys that didn't start the season there. Not the way to put a team together. We won some games because of King's pitching or great hitting. King is the guy that amazed me this year because he wasn't supposed to be a weekend starter but when pressed into the role he was AWESOME. Best pitcher I can remember as a freshman and that includes Brady Singer. Brady had more talent as a freshman but couldn't pitch like King until his soph year.
Man that was disappointing. Agree with many comments here, thanks gal. And thanks community. See you all next year.
Yes a bitter end to a fairly remarkable season. I think the guys showed a lot of grit this year and fought through a ton of adversity. I can't ask for much more than that. Thank you Gal, you are better the the postman, you always deliver, and put up with our whining! Have a great off season!
