Louisville was 2-2 last week and dropped from 4th to 9th. However, they are still an outstanding baseball team. If you don't want to read any further then the synopsis is this: Louisville, before this past weekend had the 3rd best team batting average in the country and the lowest team ERA in the country. That may be enough to tell you all you need to know, but here is some more detail:
If I am not mistaken Kentucky will face Kade McClure, who is a 6'7 sophomore righty. McClure has thrown 35 innings in 8 appearances and has a 2.31 ERA. He isn't exactly a strikeout king, but hitters are only hitting .130 against the guy. Runs will without a doubt be at a premium against this guy. Unfortunately, getting to the bullpen is not something that will really be of much help for Kentucky. The Cardinals have a team ERA of 2.91. It wouldn't surprise me for Kentucky to see Sam Bordner work at least an inning. The 6'6 freshman righty has appeared in 8 games and has a 1.98 ERA. If the game is close in the 9th then UK will face Zack Burdi, which should be a familiar name. The junior 6'3 righty closer has been phenomenal in his career as a Cardinal earning All American honors last year. This year his era is 2.77 in 13 appearances and 13 innings. Hitters are only hitting .122 against him. So, UK will have to take advantage of every mistake and score runs when possible, because the mistakes and opportunities will be few and far between.
Hitting for the Cardinals... well... it's freaking good too. Kentucky is hitting a solid .292 as a team while Louisville is hitting an outstanding .327. As I said, that's a top 5 batting average. Louisville is an excellent hitting team and they hit for extra base hits quite frequently. This year they have 77 doubles and 13 triples (compare to UK having 58 and 7). UK's smaller field may help us in this department and take away some of their extra base hits. They also hit the home run pretty well. They have 29 on the season (UK has 30), so UK definitely needs to keep the ball low in the zone. They aren't afraid to play small ball and will sac bunt pretty frequently if they need to, doing so 56 times this year.
I mean... what can you say about them... they are an excellent team. Well rounded. They play solid defense, they hit better than almost anyone in the country and they pitcher better than anyone in the country. Makes me want to puke.