There are numerous threads leading up to baseball season and a thread for each game as it's played. How about a thread where we can have an ongoing discussion as the season unfolds? I'll start with this: After the 1st weekend, we're batting .186 with 31 K's and an on base percentage of .295. Only 4 Gators are hitting over .200 - Riopelle at .400 (with only 5 AB), Thompson at .333, Langford at .273 and Halter at .231. From the pitching side, the team ERA is 4.33, Liberty only hit for a .216 average, but we walked 15, hit 7 and had 2 wild pitches, while striking out 35.
22 free passes by the pitching staff says it all and the inexperience of the freshmen!! Hopefully the young freshmen learn from the experience and start to grow up fast!!
Not gonna win very often giving so many free passes, but I'll say I'm hopeful the young arms develop and mature as the year progresses. The Friday and Sunday starts were reassuring, which was the highlight of the weekend. I have no idea what to say about the offense other than it was pretty offensive to watch.
You have to be able to put the ball in play (cut down on strikeouts) on offense and eliminate giving up free bases (walks). That was our down fall last and it appears to carry into this season. I'm not ready to panic yet over an opening series. However, if it continues, we need to give one or two of our freshman players a chance to start and put KC and Rivera on the bench. Re pitching.....we have a talent gap. We have hardly any JR or SR pitchers and will have to rely on freshman. That is Sully's fault. Too many transfers and JUCO's exist to let this happen. Sully has had a rough past few years in his personal life. I'm hoping this doesn't continue to carry into another season.....
Love what you said about putting the ball in play. Our overall philosophy concerns me as does our approach at the plate minus 1-2 guys.
Having been at the game on Saturday I really liked what I saw from Langford and Thompson. I think both will have outstanding seasons with the bat. Not sure how Jud continues to miss as many pitches as he does.
Jud has 3 strikeouts. 6 other players currently have more. His 3 walks are second most on the team which is a far better ratio than last year. Only his brother has more walks. Last year Jud had 79 strikeouts to only 40 walks. Again its early so let's see how they stand 2 weeks from now.
Things are not going well for him early, but he was willing to take some walks instead of swinging at bad pitches. That is a very good sign. He has some serious talent.
The one Jud got robbed on would have been close to hitting the fence. That dude in CF looked like he was 4 feet off the ground and horizontal when he caught it. That man needs to run track and try the high jump. That was better than the Fosbury Flop. Look it up youngins!
Matherly, I will defer to you and others that watch the team more closely than I do. I’m hoping that Jud has a big year.
Except for Thompson and Langford, the whole team looked tentative at the plate this weekend. Derec Fabian did a good job of getting on base a lot and made some nice plays at 3rd. Once Thompson had his big night Friday, Liberty pitched him more carefully and held him in check. Langford is a battler and Riopelle had a few good swings, but overall I was disappointed that our veteran guys looked so weak in their approaches. Even though our pitchers had all the hit batters and walks, a 4.33 ERA isn't terrible. But the offensive side was atrocious. Hopefully, this was a wake up call, plus we'll see how the midweek starters perform, whoever they are.
Perhaps others can chime in and fill me in. From what I read and have kept up with, seems like that we have a top 2-3 recruiting class virtually every year. So how is it that we have had a gap in quality pitchers ? Are we signing over ranked guys that do not live up to their hype ? Is our Coaching staff just not getting the most out of our guys offensively as possible? Seems like that we couldn’t do much better recruiting wise so I’m not sure what the answers are towards seeing a more successful team compared to the last 2+ seasons now. Hopefully they come around and do well over the course of this season.
There is no perfect answer, because recruiting is not a perfect science. Some guys get injured, some don't develop as expected, some guys are just young and haven't had the light bulb come on, some may not have the mental makeup.....too many factors to really nail down. And let's remember UF is still a really good baseball team. Somebody yesterday said that last season was embarassing, and my response is that UF was still good enough to host a regional despite playing an extremely difficult schedule. The margin is thin, there are a lot of good teams/players. Sometimes it is more our expectations
OK the season is early and UF faced a very good team. Having said that, it just seems the same things that plagued UF all last year is showing up again. Poor hitting and poor pitching. Yes I know we have lots of young pitchers, but hardly any of our pitchers other than one or two showed anything. I'm concerned about development on both ends hitting and pitching. One more thing, year in and year out we recruit extremely well. Our initial rankings reflect that. So, is it unrealistic to expect better showing? Shouldn't we be reloading with the type of recruiting we have? How is Liberty able to look so good in all phases when they in no way recruit as well as UF? Still, it's early and at this point no way the team has big heads after this series. I'm excited to see the team progress.
Jud is up to his old tricks, striking out too many times, along with other hitters, got to put the ball in play!!!
Not to harp on the obvious, but I'll go ahead and say what everybody is thinking: Last season, we didn't make it through the first weekend without allowing a triple. This year, through the first series, we're still posting a clean sheet. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
SEC Pitcher of the Week: Hunter Barco, Florida Florida's Hunter Barco pitched 6.0 shutout innings with a career-high 12 strikeouts to earn the win against No. 24 Liberty on Friday. Barco allowed just one hit and one walk in the win. He struck out the first five batters of the game, and Barco's 11 strikeouts were the most by a Florida pitcher on opening day since at least 1999. He retired the first 16 Flames he faced, tying his career high with 10 strikeouts through the first-five innings.
