Last night's game was very disappointing in the moment, not all that disappointing the next morning.
I would have rather played SC this round. Arizona is playing very good ball now, and I think a much more dangerous team than SC despite finishing tied for 8th in the conference. They have won 5 of their last 6 averaging 12.5 runs over that stretch. And Arizona is scraping for an NCAA tournament invite which SC has wrapped up.
Despite the pitching collapse at the end, I feel more let down by the offense - though that is largely a matter of expectations. No runs after the second inning is tough, highlighted by 14 left on base (and sort of 16 as there were two inning ending double plays). And what is with their pitcher Mercado? It seems Stanford cannot hit the guy, but everyone else can. In two games versus Stanford he's gone 13.1 innings giving up 1 run - an ERA of 0.67. Against everybody else he's got an ERA around 8 and goes less than 4 innings per start.
Of course the highlight was the performance of Dugan. He pitched really well. His longest outing of the year (6.0 innings), NO WALKS, and only 2 runs. While he gave up 7 hits, as far as I can remember none were hit hard (and some aided by shaky defense). If he actually has figured something out and this isn't just a one-off, that's great news.
Uber also pitched okay for coming back from an injury. He did fall into a bit of the pattern that has hurt the back-end of the pitching staff. Started off great (retired 5 of the first 6 batters he faced), then suddenly got in trouble. Still, not bad overall and I hope a sign of progress.
Apparently we are going to face Zastrow as the Arizona pitcher tonight. He pitched 1.2 innings (44 pitches) in relief on Tuesday vs ASU and struggled a bit (5 hits, 2 runs). A couple of weeks ago he pitched fairly well against us - 5.0 innings, 8 hits, 4 runs.
I would have rather played SC this round. Arizona is playing very good ball now, and I think a much more dangerous team than SC despite finishing tied for 8th in the conference. They have won 5 of their last 6 averaging 12.5 runs over that stretch. And Arizona is scraping for an NCAA tournament invite which SC has wrapped up.
Despite the pitching collapse at the end, I feel more let down by the offense - though that is largely a matter of expectations. No runs after the second inning is tough, highlighted by 14 left on base (and sort of 16 as there were two inning ending double plays). And what is with their pitcher Mercado? It seems Stanford cannot hit the guy, but everyone else can. In two games versus Stanford he's gone 13.1 innings giving up 1 run - an ERA of 0.67. Against everybody else he's got an ERA around 8 and goes less than 4 innings per start.
Of course the highlight was the performance of Dugan. He pitched really well. His longest outing of the year (6.0 innings), NO WALKS, and only 2 runs. While he gave up 7 hits, as far as I can remember none were hit hard (and some aided by shaky defense). If he actually has figured something out and this isn't just a one-off, that's great news.
Uber also pitched okay for coming back from an injury. He did fall into a bit of the pattern that has hurt the back-end of the pitching staff. Started off great (retired 5 of the first 6 batters he faced), then suddenly got in trouble. Still, not bad overall and I hope a sign of progress.
Apparently we are going to face Zastrow as the Arizona pitcher tonight. He pitched 1.2 innings (44 pitches) in relief on Tuesday vs ASU and struggled a bit (5 hits, 2 runs). A couple of weeks ago he pitched fairly well against us - 5.0 innings, 8 hits, 4 runs.