Bellermine @ Kentucky
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Hudepohl gets a strike out and then a double to left that Anu cannot reach to a left handed batter.
Anu made a good effort but couldn't bring it in even though he got his glove on it. There is the downside of not playing a natural outfielder in the outfield. He needs to be hitting better to justify his defense. That made it 3-2 in the top of the 4th.
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Another pitch up and out over the middle moves the runner to third with a fly out. Next batter out on a grounder to Church at third who can keep the runner at third so 2nd and 3rd with two outs. Next batter taps back to Ramsey for the third out. It is good that Ramsey survived the inning. He survived 3 bad pitches.
Ramsey is consistent... just not in the way you want him to be.
Church lines out. Estep gets a triple at the to of the left center wall. Ritter singles underneath his counterpart to score Estep: 4-2 with one outs. Schultz singles to left. Anu pops out to short center field. Rhodes falls behind 0-2, grounds out to 2nd.
I really don't understand this offense. It's not good at scoring, but they hit and don't strike out that much.
We're now through 7 and it's 4-3
I think we win this, but it's once again not a pretty OOC win. This is definitely, again, the type of game UK should put up 12+ runs and instead we're looking at just 4 at this point.
Like I said, this offense just hasn't proven that they're much of a consistent threat.
Like I said, this offense just hasn't proven that they're much of a consistent threat.
Cats seem to play to the level of competition most games. Glad we’ve come out on the right side of those most of the time this year, however.
No doubt the win is the important thing. Still, for a fan, how one wins can project the future. This isn't one that instills a whole lot of confidence moving forward. You could pass it off as just one game, but we've had a lot of them.
That being said... finding a way to win when the breaks are against you can be a sign of a strong minded and strong willed team. So hopefully we get more of that don't quit attitude all the way to a successful year.
See there is a part of me that wishes Ming would tinker with the lineup in games like this. Now some of this is in hindsight but it just looked like Collett’s “heart” was just not in the game tonight, especially batting. He was not seeing the ball at all. So why not give him a night off, play Harmon at 1st (for the practice), move Anu back to DH (or give him the night off too) and give Hill/Shelby some run in the outfield.
I mean Roszel is doing a little of this with his pitching staff (I’m looking at you Jimmy Ramsey.....trying to get his confidence back).
Some of it just goes back to “that gut feeling” baseball managers need to have beyond the analytics of the game to manage.
I mean Roszel is doing a little of this with his pitching staff (I’m looking at you Jimmy Ramsey.....trying to get his confidence back).
Some of it just goes back to “that gut feeling” baseball managers need to have beyond the analytics of the game to manage.
I would have at least thought that they would have put in Liebert for Kessler. Give the catcher a break before going into a weekend series where we know he'll have to play all 3 games.
But yes, this is a game we should have conceivably been able to shake it up. Doing this can do wonders for a team as well. I doubt that guys like Grace, Shelby, Lewis, Plastiak, and Hill are real happy with the amount of playing time they are getting. Even moreso if they see the person that took their playing time is struggling. This frustration can poison a clubhouse and it only gets worse if losses pile up. This was a game where we could have played some of these guys and that can do some wonders for a clubhouse. Not to mention that seeing more at bats and getting more people hitting well only helps the ball club.
I imagine that had we blown out Bellarmine early that we would have made changes for the second part of the game. That didn't happen. Which raises bigger concerns.
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Does he want to pad the starters stats before heading into the heart of the SEC schedule or just keep giving these guys more at bats hoping the hitting will get better?
What happens if there is another injury like at catcher and pitcher? You need to have other guys prepared and ready. The mid-week games are for just that.
I guess you always have that catch 22 of getting more experience for you backups as opposed to your starters. For instance… Schultz needs more time in the OF to get better. So, do you really want to take him out and lose that opportunity for him to get more experience? Estep and Harmon are hitting just .158 and .167, respectively, in league play. So, do you give someone else a chance or do you go ahead and let them have some at bats against Bellarmine to hope that they start seeing the ball better and hope that it continues into the weekend? Both went 2 for 4 against Bellarmine, so maybe it helped them? Kessler is hitting .611 in league play. So, do you sit him and let him rest, or do you risk him breaking the hot streak that helped carry you to wins in league play?
I mean, the weird thing is that there aren’t that many real consistent hitters on this team. You have some numbers that in one way look great, but in others it is concerning. Trae Harmon, again, as a perfect example… hitting .324 overall with a .422 OB%. Gotta like that. Then you look in league play and that drops to .167 average and a .259 OB%. Anu is a guy that is hitting just .208 in league play, but he has 5 RBIs on 5 hits, and a few of those really helped UK win (i.e. he hit the walkoff to win game 2 of the Auburn series). Ya know, he goes 0-4 on Friday, but then Saturday comes back and goes 2 for 5 and hits the walkoff to win it for you in the 9th, and then follows that game up with another 0-4. We could go on and on with guys like that on this squad. So in some ways, I think Mingione is just not messing with it hoping that they get more consistent.
I think that Mignione believes he is right about this lineup and he's going to see it out as long as possible.
I don’t know if it’s padding stats or not. What it seems to me is Minge doesn’t trust the other guys. No offense to Bellarmine, but this is a game that UK should have won easily. But as it has happened on too many occasions, the team just failed to show up. Watching the game on TV, maybe it was different in person, but they just looked so uninterested. Collett, based on body language, seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but at the game. A win is a win regardless, but as Comeback said, it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence knowing what’s ahead in the next three weeks.
I think Mingione has a little bit of that Cal factor in him. 🥴
Like I said it’s a bit of hindsight in what I am talking about.....but it’s also the gut style coaching I grew up with watching baseball.
Collett and/or Anu could have sat for Hill/Shelby, but Collett was coming off a great weekend and would you want to mess with that mojo? In this case I would have because he is a 5th year player who (my assumption) falls into the same trap most fans fall into and that is getting your motivation by the name on the other players jersey.
But on the other hand Estep has been struggling, but I would not want to sit him.....I would want to get him as many extra at bats to try and get him off the slide.
Then you take Kessler......does he need rest due to injuries at his position or do you mess with a player on a hot streak. Again gut tells me to play him, especially after the struggles he had last year.
These are all the things you can/should do in the midweek games against teams like Bellermine.
Collett and/or Anu could have sat for Hill/Shelby, but Collett was coming off a great weekend and would you want to mess with that mojo? In this case I would have because he is a 5th year player who (my assumption) falls into the same trap most fans fall into and that is getting your motivation by the name on the other players jersey.
But on the other hand Estep has been struggling, but I would not want to sit him.....I would want to get him as many extra at bats to try and get him off the slide.
Then you take Kessler......does he need rest due to injuries at his position or do you mess with a player on a hot streak. Again gut tells me to play him, especially after the struggles he had last year.
These are all the things you can/should do in the midweek games against teams like Bellermine.
TJ didn't have a good game, but he and Kessler have been on fire. Is 2-2 in the next 4 a good week ?
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So from those stats, it looks like Harmon should be the guy out during league play.
I think you at least begin to consider it. I think one thing to do might be to look at the splits and see how Harmon is doing in matchups. If he is hitting righties poorly (as a righty) then you move HIll back into left and DH Anu. Hill (as a lefty) should have an advantage over righties. Then you see how they both do and if you want to make an all the time change, or just keep rotating them.
You have 5 guys with about 20 (2 have just 19) at bats and all 5 of them are hitting under .215 (Ritter, Rhodes, Anu, Harmon, and Estep). I think you have to begin to consider changes to find someone who can hit better than .215 against SEC pitching.
Still, again, 19-24 at bats isn't a ton, so those numbers can be somewhat skewed. However, the reality is also that UK faced the two worst pitching staffs in the entire league, so hitting conceivably only gets more difficult from here. We go from facing a team with a 7.26 ERA and another with a 4.76 ERA to facing a team with a 2.97 ERA. Miss. State has 316 strikeouts as a team... Auburn/Mizzou combined only have 79 more on the year.
I just found a breakdown... UK hits .320 against righties but just .243 against lefties. UK will probably face 2 lefty starters this weekend.
Right. So, you could conceivably shake things up and sit Collett and move Anu to DH. Collett has an injury history and is kind of seen as the 'old man.' You could then have Harmon play 1st to get some experience there if you really intend to use him there in the future.
Heck, just as good, or better, would have also have been to sit Collett and move Harmon to 1B and let Kessler DH. You keep Kessler in the lineup and hitting and seeing the ball while resting him on defense and not making him catch a full game, knowing you'll need him for 3 starting Thursday. It might also help keep Harmon into the game a bit more by playing him on defense.
I would agree that you likely keep Estep in and hope he turns it around. Grace and Lewis have had enough at bats that you know you're not likely to get great production from them. So, your best bet is Estep improving. Otherwise, you have to hope Plastiak can step into 2nd or that Shelby gets hot and can play OF and move Schultz back up to 2B. Either way... again, just better to get Estep going rather than make those huge moves at this point.
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