Will Louisville pitch McKay in Friday game ?
- Thread starter Yahtzee43
- Start date
Haven't faced McKay this year on the mound. In fact, we've never faced him. I imagine that he will start. Game 1 is extremely important. Need to get it to put pressure on the opposing team. So, he should go. He last pitched on Saturday and only gave up 1 run against Oklahoma. He will be extremely tough.
We have seen their Saturday pitcher, McClure multiple times in the past though.
Here is the good and bad for UK:
Bad:
1. McKay. Even worse for UK is that he is a lefty and we have struggled moreso with lefties. Getting hits against him and turning them into runs will be an extremely tough task. He has appeared in 15 games and has given up more than 4 runs only 2 times this season (Duke and Florida State). He's had over 5 strikeouts in each of his last starts and has 5 starts with over 10 strikeouts. The guy is simply a beast.
2. Lefties. As I said, UK hitting has a bit of a weakness, and it is lefties. We saw that this weekend. Louisville will start two of them this weekend, one on Friday and one on Sunday. They'll also bring in two in relief, Freshman Elliot Adam and Sophomore Adam Wolf will work middle innings for Louisville if starters get into trouble.
Good:
1. Familiarity. UK has seen Elliot, Wolf, Sparger, and Henzman this season. Pretty much everyone in their bullpen UK has seen at least once. Add to that that many of these UK hitters were here a year ago and we faced McClure twice in the midweek and scored 6 combined earned runs against him. Granted, that was a year ago. A few of these hitters, such as White, Heady, and Mahan even saw McClure two years ago. So, they should be familiar with the Saturday pitcher.
2. Struggles. Well, to some degree Louisville is struggling a little bit. They bounced back in a big way this weekend, but even in doing so they showed some problems. For instance, the Sunday starter, Bennett gave up 3 earned runs off of 7 hits against Xavier in the final game. He's given up 10 runs in his last 3 appearances, 7 of those runs earned. It isn't a whole lot and his ERA is still just 2.70, but it is up from 1.93 at the end of April.
We have seen their Saturday pitcher, McClure multiple times in the past though.
Here is the good and bad for UK:
Bad:
1. McKay. Even worse for UK is that he is a lefty and we have struggled moreso with lefties. Getting hits against him and turning them into runs will be an extremely tough task. He has appeared in 15 games and has given up more than 4 runs only 2 times this season (Duke and Florida State). He's had over 5 strikeouts in each of his last starts and has 5 starts with over 10 strikeouts. The guy is simply a beast.
2. Lefties. As I said, UK hitting has a bit of a weakness, and it is lefties. We saw that this weekend. Louisville will start two of them this weekend, one on Friday and one on Sunday. They'll also bring in two in relief, Freshman Elliot Adam and Sophomore Adam Wolf will work middle innings for Louisville if starters get into trouble.
Good:
1. Familiarity. UK has seen Elliot, Wolf, Sparger, and Henzman this season. Pretty much everyone in their bullpen UK has seen at least once. Add to that that many of these UK hitters were here a year ago and we faced McClure twice in the midweek and scored 6 combined earned runs against him. Granted, that was a year ago. A few of these hitters, such as White, Heady, and Mahan even saw McClure two years ago. So, they should be familiar with the Saturday pitcher.
2. Struggles. Well, to some degree Louisville is struggling a little bit. They bounced back in a big way this weekend, but even in doing so they showed some problems. For instance, the Sunday starter, Bennett gave up 3 earned runs off of 7 hits against Xavier in the final game. He's given up 10 runs in his last 3 appearances, 7 of those runs earned. It isn't a whole lot and his ERA is still just 2.70, but it is up from 1.93 at the end of April.
Good analysis. I think on paper Louisville has better pitching and fielding and Kentucky has better hitting. Not sure how much of that is based on the ballpark though.
In order for Kentucky to win, fielding has to be solidified. Cannot have mental lapses (in center field). I also think Kentucky will have to jump on them early to nullify the home crowd.
Our field can be an advantage and a disadvantage all at the same time. You have some home runs that wouldn't otherwise be, but you also have some hits go for singles that might otherwise be home runs, doubles, or triples. Also, the shorter field decreases our ability to hit triples and might take away some doubles. However, you do have a good point. Our field probably does play a factor of some sort. It would be very interesting to see how well UK does hitting in away parks as opposed to at home. Of course, then you have to determine how much of that you attribute to the field as opposed to other home field advantages.
It looks like I ran into your topic comebak...Something that I think bears watching is taking a team like UK with the really short dimensions in right with a lefty dominant batting order and putting it in a stadium with bigger dimensions; there is no questioning that 390 to center is short by virtually any standard, but I almost can't believe that it's only 350 to RC in Cliff Hagan (and checked multiple sources on that because there can't be a smaller power alley in the Power 5 conferences) and 310 down the line. The ball carries better at Jim Patterson (especially during day games) to left and left center but even with that it's 402 to dead center, 377 to RC and 330 down the line. Louisville's OF is built for the bigger dimensions defensively; you don't see many Right fielders who are in the lineup for their glove, but there's no question that Colin Lyman is on the field for that purpose and it's somewhat by necessity...there is a very large swath of foul ground off the right field line to the fence in foul ground. Bloop doubles play into triples quite a bit as a result.
It's sort of ironic with Louisville right now and their lineup; McKay and Ellis have had AA years, but Ellis has dropped nearly thirty points in three weeks and McKay has slid twenty. Fitch and Hairston have been in such slumps that Hairston has dropped down in the order to the six hole (he had a similar plummet his freshman year but turned it around in postseason play). That stretch of Fitch, Hairston, McKay and Ellis was your 2,3,4,5 stretch until last week. It has been the stretch of Stowers (who has been torrid) in the eight hole, Lyman at 9 and around to Logan Taylor at the top of the order who have been hitting well the last two weeks.
It's sort of ironic with Louisville right now and their lineup; McKay and Ellis have had AA years, but Ellis has dropped nearly thirty points in three weeks and McKay has slid twenty. Fitch and Hairston have been in such slumps that Hairston has dropped down in the order to the six hole (he had a similar plummet his freshman year but turned it around in postseason play). That stretch of Fitch, Hairston, McKay and Ellis was your 2,3,4,5 stretch until last week. It has been the stretch of Stowers (who has been torrid) in the eight hole, Lyman at 9 and around to Logan Taylor at the top of the order who have been hitting well the last two weeks.
Welcome. The Cliff plays a factor. How much is somewhat unclear. As you said, a big alley means more triples and more doubles for hits. UK doesn't get that as much with a short porch, but might get some more "excuse me" home runs with a 310 fence in right. Interestingly, I don't know how much of that has been the case this year. It would be extremely interesting, IMO, to see just how many home runs were no doubters that would be out of any park and how many just squeaked over the fence. I remember some barely getting over, but a whole lot of them have been no doubters. Still, even that can be disputed because just playing in a ball park like that can make a team nervous.
Still, I think UK is built pretty well to play in a bigger park. Personally, I think they are much better as a gap hitting team with a good deal of team speed across the board. I don't think we have any burners, but I think almost everyone is above average speed. You also have the fact that we are fairly interchangeable in some instances. One, we have two switch hitters that can help us have as many as 7 lefties hitting, or as little as 5 if our lineup is made to be lefty dominant. We can take that number down to as little as 3 hitters batting from the right side without too much of a drop off in production by taking out Marshall and putting Heyer at third base. Heyer's average isn't as good as Marshall (.262 to .284, but Heyer has been an extra base hit machine with 9 of hits 17 hits being extra base hits), and replacing Cottam (.326) with Squires (.306) (or we could take out Becker and have Cottam DH, which is something we often do). So, our lineup, IMO, is extremely interchangeable and adjustable to opposing pitching. However, we do admittedly struggle more against lefties.
Great analysis, bottom line UK has the momentum going for them. In my opinion, we played a better group of teams than Louisville. Also, we have already beaten some of the best pitchers in the nation, that were better pitchers than Louisville's got. We have also the best hitting lineup in the SEC. Bottom line, I think louisville is the better team but in a short series there's not much difference in the two teams. I think that Hjelle and Thompson will be hard to beat. I don't feel that Lewis is no top of his game right now.
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