[Cred]

I watched the first inning of the ASU match.  It looked like we were pitching batting practice to the ASU players.  What little I know about the sport is that 90% of the outcome depends on pitching.  Stanford needs to recruit two elite (top 10) pitchers and the team will be in almost every game.

Without the pitching talent, no amount of coaching ability is going to win games.  At this point it is all about recruiting.

Absolutely no doubt, pitching is far and away THE biggest element of the game. And that's where our agreement ends.

While I very much doubt the best coach in the nation could have squeezed double-digits conference wins out of this team this year, I also very much doubt that that coach would even have sniffed the stench of 0-24 last year.

Tell me if you think a coach of at least microscopically detectable competence might have stood a chance of pulling a win out of the following game from last season's simply inexcusable 0-24 performance:

A career sub-.200 hitter mired in a 5 for 45 slump finds herself starting in the "clean up" position. She goes 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts in the heart of the lineup, as Stanford loses 3-2 in 10 innings.

So kiss 1-23 goodbye. Not that that would have been anything to write home about.

No telling, however, what difference a season-long ineffective utilization of players, the virtual absence of "small ball" and base-stealing, intangibles (e.g., “You need to feel the confidence coming from your coaches. You need to feel like they want you to do well, and I definitely did not get that this year, whatsoever." (source: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/05/28/...esignation)), etc.--things pointed out multiple times here--might have made in other tight games.

[Cred]

I watched the first inning of the ASU match.  It looked like we were pitching batting practice to the ASU players.  What little I know about the sport is that 90% of the outcome depends on pitching.  Stanford needs to recruit two elite (top 10) pitchers and the team will be in almost every game.

Without the pitching talent, no amount of coaching ability is going to win games.  At this point it is all about recruiting.

Absolutely no doubt, pitching is far and away THE biggest element of the game. And that's where our agreement ends.

While I very much doubt the best coach in the nation could have squeezed double-digits conference wins out of this team this year, I also very much doubt that that coach would even have sniffed the stench of 0-24 last year.

Tell me if you think a coach of at least microscopically detectable competence might have stood a chance of pulling a win out of the following game from last season's simply inexcusable 0-24 performance:

A career sub-.200 hitter mired in a 5 for 45 slump finds herself starting in the "clean up" position. She goes 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts in the heart of the lineup, as Stanford loses 3-2 in 10 innings.

So kiss 1-23 goodbye. Not that that would have been anything to write home about.

No telling, however, what difference a season-long ineffective utilization of players, the virtual absence of "small ball" and base-stealing, intangibles (e.g., “You need to feel the confidence coming from your coaches. You need to feel like they want you to do well, and I definitely did not get that this year, whatsoever." (source: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/05/28/...esignation)), etc.--things pointed out multiple times here--might have made in other tight games.