[Blue Hawk (Mizzou) Card]

5. It just means more for the SEC. Stanford played a team from the SEC yesterday that was not one of the top eight teams in that conference, at least according to the tournament committee that had eight other SEC teams host regionals. And that team, Tennessee, was LOADED. The guy who shut out the lights out of the bullpen (at least recently) was as good a college pitcher, at least yesterday, as I remember seeing. ... And he replaced a guy predicted to go about sixth in the draft.

I have to say, I really hate that phrase. 

Just maybe it does mean more in the sense that more local people wrap up their lives in the fortune of the state higher-profile athletic teams. It's clearly much more part of people's identities in the south. 
It is also true that at this time the SEC is likely the best baseball conference, but not nearly so much as people think. 

On the one hand, the SEC got 3 teams into the CWS, one more than any other conference. On the other hand, they also got the most chances in a sport that has a high roll-of-the-dice quotient; with 10 teams in, 8 teams hosting, and 4 teams among the top 8 seeds. They're actually -1 versus seeds in teams in Omaha. 

I also don't think Tennessee is that loaded, at least for a CWS team. That guy you say is going #6 in the draft we chased after 3 innings with an ERA for the game of 12. The guy who did kill us just threw his best game of his career. While they had the overall advantage in play, it was close. 

Now LSU ... that team is loaded with guys on the way to MLB.

I am with you on the phrase. I was trying to use one of my favorite tactics from my old trial lawyer days: Using an opponent 's own words agsinst them. But I didn't play it very well. I actually think the phrase is frightening, in some ways.

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

On the closeness of Stanford's  matchup with Tennessee, we are in total agreement. They were about two inches (the gap between Malcom's catcher's mitt and the Tennessee player when he touched home plate) better yesterday. That's mighty close.

[Blue Hawk (Mizzou) Card]

5. It just means more for the SEC. Stanford played a team from the SEC yesterday that was not one of the top eight teams in that conference, at least according to the tournament committee that had eight other SEC teams host regionals. And that team, Tennessee, was LOADED. The guy who shut out the lights out of the bullpen (at least recently) was as good a college pitcher, at least yesterday, as I remember seeing. ... And he replaced a guy predicted to go about sixth in the draft.

I have to say, I really hate that phrase. 

Just maybe it does mean more in the sense that more local people wrap up their lives in the fortune of the state higher-profile athletic teams. It's clearly much more part of people's identities in the south. 
It is also true that at this time the SEC is likely the best baseball conference, but not nearly so much as people think. 

On the one hand, the SEC got 3 teams into the CWS, one more than any other conference. On the other hand, they also got the most chances in a sport that has a high roll-of-the-dice quotient; with 10 teams in, 8 teams hosting, and 4 teams among the top 8 seeds. They're actually -1 versus seeds in teams in Omaha. 

I also don't think Tennessee is that loaded, at least for a CWS team. That guy you say is going #6 in the draft we chased after 3 innings with an ERA for the game of 12. The guy who did kill us just threw his best game of his career. While they had the overall advantage in play, it was close. 

Now LSU ... that team is loaded with guys on the way to MLB.

I am with you on the phrase. I was trying to use one of my favorite tactics from my old trial lawyer days: Using an opponent 's own words agsinst them. But I didn't play it very well. I actually think the phrase is frightening, in some ways.

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

On the closeness of Stanford's  matchup with Tennessee, we are in total agreement. They were about two inches (the gap between Malcom's catcher's mitt and the Tennessee player when he touched home plate) better yesterday. That's mighty close.

[CTcard]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

[CTcard]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

[norcard10]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

I mean better than the number of pac-12 teams that made it out of their regional right?

[norcard10]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

I mean better than the number of pac-12 teams that made it out of their regional right?

[JJJ]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordbsb/status/1671271087756439552?s=46&t=XNaRgdsv48Gp-v_murI6sA[/tweet]

[JJJ]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordbsb/status/1671271087756439552?s=46&t=XNaRgdsv48Gp-v_murI6sA[/tweet]

[TonyLima]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

[TonyLima]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

[CTcard]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

I mean better than the number of pac-12 teams that made it out of their regional right?

Depends upon how you count. 

Zero Pac 12 teams hosted a regional without advancing versus 5 SEC teams. 

Pac 12 sent one more team to a superregional than they were seeded to do. The SEC sent 3 fewer teams to a superregional than they were seeded to do. 

The point isn't that that the SEC isn't the best baseball conference, they are. (and sorry for the double negative). 
The point is that the gap is a lot smaller than popular opinion seems to hold, and smaller than the NCAA tournament committee seems to believe.

[CTcard]

We'll have to disagree on our impression of Tennessee's talent. I think it is significant that the SEC's ninth best team matched up with (and beat, though as you note, not by much) the best team west of the Mississippi. 

Maybe, but no more significant than that the SEC's second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh best teams couldn't get out of a regional despite hosting.

I mean better than the number of pac-12 teams that made it out of their regional right?

Depends upon how you count. 

Zero Pac 12 teams hosted a regional without advancing versus 5 SEC teams. 

Pac 12 sent one more team to a superregional than they were seeded to do. The SEC sent 3 fewer teams to a superregional than they were seeded to do. 

The point isn't that that the SEC isn't the best baseball conference, they are. (and sorry for the double negative). 
The point is that the gap is a lot smaller than popular opinion seems to hold, and smaller than the NCAA tournament committee seems to believe.

[StanfordMatt]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

On the radio broadcast of the Tennessee game, they mentioned that had Stanford beaten the Vols, Sapien was scheduled to fly to Omaha to rejoin the team after the game.

[StanfordMatt]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

On the radio broadcast of the Tennessee game, they mentioned that had Stanford beaten the Vols, Sapien was scheduled to fly to Omaha to rejoin the team after the game.

[TonyLima]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

On the radio broadcast of the Tennessee game, they mentioned that had Stanford beaten the Vols, Sapien was scheduled to fly to Omaha to rejoin the team after the game.

TYVM. Really good news. I was worried that his career might be over.

[TonyLima]

Any news about Jake Sapien?

On the radio broadcast of the Tennessee game, they mentioned that had Stanford beaten the Vols, Sapien was scheduled to fly to Omaha to rejoin the team after the game.

TYVM. Really good news. I was worried that his career might be over.

[treetop11]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

[treetop11]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

[drnoodleman]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

[drnoodleman]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

[Langdude]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

[Langdude]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

[norcard10]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

If Scott had better development, we would be in a different place right now.  Not sure what happened with him with regards to coaching or other factors.

[norcard10]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

If Scott had better development, we would be in a different place right now.  Not sure what happened with him with regards to coaching or other factors.

[treetop11]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

The main point that I want to make and it's not intended at all to dispute you in any way, only to objectively try to describe what is needed, what our team needs, to win the NC. We hit a bunch of HRs and ranked high in the nation. We scored a bunch of runs. More importantly, if you look at the batting averages of our guys up and down the lineup, we are as good as anyone and definitely compared to the other teams that made the CWS. Virtually every guy in the lineup was hitting over .300 on up to Rios and Troy who hovered around .400. Bowser was the lowest but still at a fairly respectable level in the .270's. Sapien until hurt was over .300 IIRC. Cobb was over .300, his replacement Becerra was over .300. Only Campball was really low and some questioned him playing. We lost a little pop in the lineup without Sapien and having Campball in there.

The fact that we virtually had a lineup 1-9 that was averaging a hit every 3 or 4 times out of 10 ABs plus walks, on base by errors, and HBP is a tremendous number of baserunners and scoring opportunities over a long season. The hitting CAN win out - just by averages - even with modest pitching. The problem is that, in a short series or winner take all, you can have too many of our hitters have those 6 or 7 times as outs, particularly facing the best pitchers. The odds for winning are tougher than winning over the long haul. And that doesn't include the fact that our hitters can hit hard but right at someone or the opponent makes a spectacular fielding play or we make base running gaffes (like we did) which snuff out rallies. Although, I agree that our hitting could have been more timely and made a difference, I don't think hitting was the cause for knocking us out - the averages were not in our favor having to go against the top pitchers only. IMO, we would do better in a 7 or 10 game series against any one of those teams or against the 8 in the CWS over a season or mini-season where teams had to use more pitchers and our guys got to see not only more of the pitching staffs but also more of the aces. Our pitching staff was basically a constant as being decent overall staff but not great. Even our best pitcher Mathews is not as good as the aces on the other teams. So our staff in a longer period would likely do what it did all season, give up a number of runs consistent with our high team ERA and scramble patching together the rotation, but our averages in hitting would go up from what we scored in the two games and prevail enough to win a 7/10 game series or season or come close. But in the post season format, pitching and defense along with timely hits/lucky breaks prevail. 

Bottom line is that for us to win the NC going forward, we need 2 pitching studs and 4 more guys not that far behind and 4 guys who are decent. If the same level of hitting was sustained, we would be almost unbeatable, but even if we had 3 or 4 guys in the lineup hitting .250 to .300, we could still win the NC.

[treetop11]

I actually thought that, in contrast to the season, that we pitched pretty well in the postseason. Were we lights out on the mound? With one notable exception, no. But I think that we were good enough, and probably over-achieved. Even today, many of the hits against were groundball singles.

I think that our postseason problems were more in other areas, including poor baserunning and lack of hitting, especially with RISP, and especially from the heart of our order. We won this season because of scoring a ton of runs, and it seemed that was challenging for us in the postseason. Of course, part of that is facing excellent pitchers, like today.

-m.

I had been saying for months that we were very vulnerable in the post season despite being a really, really good team. In short,  we has weakness in pitching and our defense was only so-so, not great enough to compensate for pitching weakness, especially our lack of depth in quality pitchers.
Your point about our pitchers doing pretty well in the CWS underscores my concerns. We gave up 9 runs - a 4.50 average. We scored 6, an average of 3. Top teams making the CWS mostly have top notch pitchers. We faced teams who had not only a few studs but also other quality pitchers on the roster. Despite having real good hitters on our team, the quality of pitchers we were to face and did face contained our hitting - didn't shut it down, but able to limit damage. Our top pitchers (Mathews and Dixon) are good but don't match the opposing studs and our guys would have needed to throw their best games ever. After them, it was a crapshoot. Bottom line is that we got enough performance from our pitchers to stay close, but they weren't great enough to hold the opposition to fewer runs in the close games. It's not common in these high level CWS games for them to be slugfests. Most notably, after our opponents were able to get Dixon and Mathews out of the game, we didn't have the pitchers to shut down Wake and Tenn in the key situations late, giving up winning runs. Wake and Tenn did have those pitchers beyond their starters.

And our D couldn't bail us out. Just as one example, Rios threw out a Tenn runner trying to score on a sac fly for a double play that got us out of the inning. But a second similar play occurred in a following inning, where Rios' throw was strong but off line and when Moore applied the tag, the runner beat it by about an inch. Had Rios made a more accurate throw, the it would have been another double play and got us out of that inning without Tenn scoring any runs. Had that happened, I would bet that we would go on to win. Our guys can make some really good plays as Rios did on the first one, but we aren't great enough to consistently do so in order to bail out our pitchers. 

The weakness in pitching and defense in combo is the reason we haven't gone further in the CWS. Facing top notch pitchers in a short series, our hitters aren't as effective in overcoming the weakness. We were geared more for the long term full season because things average out.

No argument with any of that. I'd love to have more shutdown pitchers! Though the one year that we had both Justin Wayne and Jason Young available for the final game did not work out well for us. There's always going to be randomness as part of baseball. You can just give yourself a good shot.

My only point is that we relied on heavy and productive bats all season, and that those same bats did not drive our team in the postseason when they needed to do so. As you note, part of that is that we faced great pitchers. Not sure that it would have mattered anyway since we are not deep in pitching. I guess it just means that, in this instance, bats that were great all season were not great in the postseason, and that was the only way we were going to get very far with this team.

-m.

The main point that I want to make and it's not intended at all to dispute you in any way, only to objectively try to describe what is needed, what our team needs, to win the NC. We hit a bunch of HRs and ranked high in the nation. We scored a bunch of runs. More importantly, if you look at the batting averages of our guys up and down the lineup, we are as good as anyone and definitely compared to the other teams that made the CWS. Virtually every guy in the lineup was hitting over .300 on up to Rios and Troy who hovered around .400. Bowser was the lowest but still at a fairly respectable level in the .270's. Sapien until hurt was over .300 IIRC. Cobb was over .300, his replacement Becerra was over .300. Only Campball was really low and some questioned him playing. We lost a little pop in the lineup without Sapien and having Campball in there.

The fact that we virtually had a lineup 1-9 that was averaging a hit every 3 or 4 times out of 10 ABs plus walks, on base by errors, and HBP is a tremendous number of baserunners and scoring opportunities over a long season. The hitting CAN win out - just by averages - even with modest pitching. The problem is that, in a short series or winner take all, you can have too many of our hitters have those 6 or 7 times as outs, particularly facing the best pitchers. The odds for winning are tougher than winning over the long haul. And that doesn't include the fact that our hitters can hit hard but right at someone or the opponent makes a spectacular fielding play or we make base running gaffes (like we did) which snuff out rallies. Although, I agree that our hitting could have been more timely and made a difference, I don't think hitting was the cause for knocking us out - the averages were not in our favor having to go against the top pitchers only. IMO, we would do better in a 7 or 10 game series against any one of those teams or against the 8 in the CWS over a season or mini-season where teams had to use more pitchers and our guys got to see not only more of the pitching staffs but also more of the aces. Our pitching staff was basically a constant as being decent overall staff but not great. Even our best pitcher Mathews is not as good as the aces on the other teams. So our staff in a longer period would likely do what it did all season, give up a number of runs consistent with our high team ERA and scramble patching together the rotation, but our averages in hitting would go up from what we scored in the two games and prevail enough to win a 7/10 game series or season or come close. But in the post season format, pitching and defense along with timely hits/lucky breaks prevail. 

Bottom line is that for us to win the NC going forward, we need 2 pitching studs and 4 more guys not that far behind and 4 guys who are decent. If the same level of hitting was sustained, we would be almost unbeatable, but even if we had 3 or 4 guys in the lineup hitting .250 to .300, we could still win the NC.

[cardfan77]

Thomas Eager will serve as the pitching coach for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer.

[cardfan77]

Thomas Eager will serve as the pitching coach for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

[old spanish trail]

Thomas Eager will serve as the pitching coach for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer.

Whaaaat? I thought he was a crummy coach...or so I read.

[old spanish trail]

Thomas Eager will serve as the pitching coach for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer.

Whaaaat? I thought he was a crummy coach...or so I read.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

[Sam Leopold]

It's a little bit of a shame Stanford didn't get to face LSU.  We would have been the underdog in any hypothetical matchup this year but it still would have been nice to see it play out on the field.  If you could take this year's Stanford team and clean up the clown league mistakes on the basepaths and elsewhere, I bet Stanford could go toe-to-toe with LSU for the right to play for the national title.

[Sam Leopold]

It's a little bit of a shame Stanford didn't get to face LSU.  We would have been the underdog in any hypothetical matchup this year but it still would have been nice to see it play out on the field.  If you could take this year's Stanford team and clean up the clown league mistakes on the basepaths and elsewhere, I bet Stanford could go toe-to-toe with LSU for the right to play for the national title.

[norcard10]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

Go look at football. Clemson was an anomaly.

[norcard10]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

Go look at football. Clemson was an anomaly.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

Go look at football. Clemson was an anomaly.

Football has been dominated by two SEC teams: Georgia and Alabama. Throw in LSU if you’d like and that’s still only three programs. Nowhere near the breadth of the SEC’s dominance in baseball.

[StanfordMatt]

0-0 in the 10th in this game between LSU and Wake. Winner advances to the finals versus Florida. Elite pitching and solid defense is the key to winning the CWS because Omaha is where big bats go to die.

Sure enough, LSU does manage to finally hit one over the fence to win 2-0 in 11 innings. The Gators vs. Tigers matchup ensures that for the fifth time in six seasons, the MCWS champion will be a SEC team. If LSU wins, it'll be the fifth different champion in that time frame (Florida won in 2017, followed by Vanderbilt, Miss State and Ole Miss). When Oregon State managed to win in 2018, they beat yet another SEC team, Arkansas, in the finals.

I cannot imagine that there has ever been a NCAA sport in which one conference has so thoroughly dominated with the depth and variety of domination matching what the SEC has done over the past six seasons in baseball.

Go look at football. Clemson was an anomaly.

Football has been dominated by two SEC teams: Georgia and Alabama. Throw in LSU if you’d like and that’s still only three programs. Nowhere near the breadth of the SEC’s dominance in baseball.