But if our pitching and fielding are going to be this bad...it's going to be a long season
I Know It's Early...
- Thread starter sluggercatfan
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I dont understand why are fielding has been so bad the last few years. It’s mind boggling.
Who actually coaches the infield? Fanning coaches outfield. Gulliams coaches hitting. So, does that mean infield falls on Ming?
Yea, its a totally different feeling. In 2017 we started with a 3 game set with North Carolina and even though we came out 0-3 in that series I think all three games were pitching duels (all we one-two run games). That series gave the Cats hope under a new head coach. Now go to this weekend and we were not really in any game (pitching and fielding being the biggest issue) and it has me worried that a very young team may have come out of the weekend with a sole crushing does of reality.
This is my thought as well. I know coming up are some, dare I say, easier competition but man it was a tough weekend.
Well, let’s look a bit deeper and see what happened. As a team we are now hitting just .264. On Friday we went 6 for 33 (.181), on Saturday we went 10 for 36 (.278) and yesterday we went an abysmal 4 for 29 (.138). So, on the weekend we went 20 for 98 (.204). We struck out 8 times on Friday, 11 times on Saturday and 9 times on Sunday which means we had 8 more strikeouts than we had hits for the entire weekend. We also walked just 7 times. We were hit by just as many pitches in one game (Sunday) as the number of actual walks that we drew. The top of our lineup went 2 for 35 (.057) with 13 strikeouts and just 2 walks. So, despite the fact that we actually scored some runs this weekend, hitting was still pretty abysmal, especially by the top of the lineup. I think the top 3 had a lot of chances with RISP, but came away with just 2 RBIs on the weekend.
These numbers are extremely painful given that a week ago the Oregon Ducks, a team that was 26-29 a year ago) were able to hit .372 against Tech pitching.
Officially we had 6 errors on the weekend, but there might have been more and the hometown scorekeeper may have given Tech hitters/runners a few breaks. UK has played 6 games and has played just one game of error free baseball. Both Saturday games have been games where UK fielders committed 4 errors, and we have 11 on the season. I don’t know if it is better or worse, but the errors are not centered around one individual, but have been spread among pretty much everyone. Reed has 3, Rodriguez has 3, Hill has 1, Daniel has 1, Schultz has 1, Shelby has 1 and Lewis has 1. So, basically 6 of our 9 positions have committed an error on the short season with left field, pitcher, and catcher being the ones that are left. Have to clean this up.
Pitching. Oh lord. Well, coming into the series Tech was hanging their hat on their hitting as being top billing and in many respects they didn’t disappoint. Tech had 40 hits, doubling the UK total, in 111 at bats (.360). Things really fell apart on Sunday when UK not only gave up 18 earned runs on 19 hits, but they also walked Tech hitters 13 times. Our ERA for the weekend was 11.00 and now sits at 7.41 on the season with opponents hitting .271 against us. The bullpen continues to be the big problem with 19 of our 33 earned runs falling on the bullpen. One of the more painful parts is that all weekend long the bullpen failed to stop any bleeding. For instance, in game 1, Thompson hands it over to Coleman with two men on and Coleman sandwiches a pair of doubles around a walk. So, Thompson got slapped with 2 extra earned runs because Coleman failed to slam the door. The same thing happened on Saturday with Ramsey struggling in the middle inning. He handed it over to Hazelwood in a tough spot. Hazelwood walked two hitters in a row and then handed it over to Grant Mac who gave up the grand slam. So, again, you can actually add two more runs to the bullpen total. So, the starters handed over 5 total runners to the bullpen and the bullpen allowed all 5 of them to score. So, call that 24 of our 33 runs were essentially given up by the bullpen, which would be an ERA of 15.32. Without my funky math, the bullpen ERA on the season is 8.00.
These numbers are extremely painful given that a week ago the Oregon Ducks, a team that was 26-29 a year ago) were able to hit .372 against Tech pitching.
Officially we had 6 errors on the weekend, but there might have been more and the hometown scorekeeper may have given Tech hitters/runners a few breaks. UK has played 6 games and has played just one game of error free baseball. Both Saturday games have been games where UK fielders committed 4 errors, and we have 11 on the season. I don’t know if it is better or worse, but the errors are not centered around one individual, but have been spread among pretty much everyone. Reed has 3, Rodriguez has 3, Hill has 1, Daniel has 1, Schultz has 1, Shelby has 1 and Lewis has 1. So, basically 6 of our 9 positions have committed an error on the short season with left field, pitcher, and catcher being the ones that are left. Have to clean this up.
Pitching. Oh lord. Well, coming into the series Tech was hanging their hat on their hitting as being top billing and in many respects they didn’t disappoint. Tech had 40 hits, doubling the UK total, in 111 at bats (.360). Things really fell apart on Sunday when UK not only gave up 18 earned runs on 19 hits, but they also walked Tech hitters 13 times. Our ERA for the weekend was 11.00 and now sits at 7.41 on the season with opponents hitting .271 against us. The bullpen continues to be the big problem with 19 of our 33 earned runs falling on the bullpen. One of the more painful parts is that all weekend long the bullpen failed to stop any bleeding. For instance, in game 1, Thompson hands it over to Coleman with two men on and Coleman sandwiches a pair of doubles around a walk. So, Thompson got slapped with 2 extra earned runs because Coleman failed to slam the door. The same thing happened on Saturday with Ramsey struggling in the middle inning. He handed it over to Hazelwood in a tough spot. Hazelwood walked two hitters in a row and then handed it over to Grant Mac who gave up the grand slam. So, again, you can actually add two more runs to the bullpen total. So, the starters handed over 5 total runners to the bullpen and the bullpen allowed all 5 of them to score. So, call that 24 of our 33 runs were essentially given up by the bullpen, which would be an ERA of 15.32. Without my funky math, the bullpen ERA on the season is 8.00.
Yea, there isn't a whole lot about this weekend that can really make anyone too happy.
The defense will get cleaned up. I’m not as worried about it. The bullpen is what worries me. How in the world you bring in 10-12 pitchers in the offseason and no stopper to be found in the new group. Coleman is a setup man with 2 plus pitches but there is no closer. A few junior college additions to shore up the bullpen would have been nice.
It's always tough when you get crap weather in Jan/Feb and then have to travel down south to play against teams who have likely been outside without issue for months. Indoor reps just do not provide the real deal stuff you need.
I think this impacts hitting the most. Wasn't a high level pitcher so IDK if they feel satisfied with throwing BPs or if they like going live to get tuned up as well. ( I think the pitching is likely just going to be a weak spot)
The Cats could still be in for a rough year, but I'll give them some time to catch up to some of these teams who have had a better shot at a decent Jan/Feb practice run.
I think this impacts hitting the most. Wasn't a high level pitcher so IDK if they feel satisfied with throwing BPs or if they like going live to get tuned up as well. ( I think the pitching is likely just going to be a weak spot)
The Cats could still be in for a rough year, but I'll give them some time to catch up to some of these teams who have had a better shot at a decent Jan/Feb practice run.
Have to think the defense gets a bit better, but it is still a point of concern.
I agree with you on the bullpen. I have major concerns about Belanger. Last year he had basically a made hand with 3 returning All SEC type pitchers, and SEC pitcher of the year, as well as a great bullpen addition with Machamer. All he had to do was throw in some guys who could help and eat up some innings and we should have had one of the best bullpens in the country. Instead, we had a 5.37 ERA, which was good for last in the SEC. Thompson got hurt, but none of the new guys were able to step up and take his place and really be a consistent arm.
Now, fast forward to this year, and we are again looking at a bullpen without any stud recruited by this staff. I'm not sure if Ramsey is SEC material, and Marsh is young, but my hopes aren't extremely high. The guys who are coming off injury like Grant Mac and Ben Jordan have been disappointing so far. Coleman is a setup guy and not likely to ever be a starter and guys like Hazelwood and Harper aren't exactly wowing me early in their sophomore campaigns.
I don’t know if Belanger is entirely to blame as I don’t know how much he does the scouting and recruiting of pitchers, but we definitely haven’t developed anyone that I believe will be a stud. In other words, I don’t see a ZT in the pipeline, so winning on Saturday and Sunday won’t come easy, and even harder given that the bullpen is shaky at best.
I am not sure how much UK was outside, but it is my understanding that the pitchers will actually throw live pitching to the hitters quite often in the bullpen. So, the guys are facing what they would normally see. Of course, the pitching may not be great, so that may not help.
I am never going to give up on baseball, or a team, but I think this team has some big problems and they need to have a team meeting today to address those and to get their heads on straight for this home stand. Refocus and decide where you want to go and what you want 2019 to be and how you get there.
Yeah live pitching indoor is much better than coaches throwing BP - but it still doesn't really come close to being outdoors...the backdrops are weird hitting indoors, the feel is different - depth perception diff etc. Obviously this is an excuse, but I truly believe in it. Now that doesn't mean I think we would be close to TTU had we had great outdoor weather, but I do believe from my past experiences that it is a factor.
I am not really overly worried with the hitting. Coach Guilliams, IMO, has proven that he can coach hitting. Back to back years being a top hitting team in the SEC show that, especially with a whole bunch of guys improving from year to year. Still, a bit of my hangup is really that we did this poorly while Oregon, a team that went 26-29 a year ago while batting .239 as a team, hit .372 against Tech. Oregon should have had a similar disadvantage with the outdoors as UK, but they still went in there and had 10+ hits each day. They can certainly turn it around, and the pitching is the major concern, but by the numbers I really thought that we could steal a win or two from them.
Sheesh. I knew the weekend was bad but that just made me depressed. 
But I think the the defense will get better. Hitting will get there. But man, the pitching. Im just not sure what to say or think. ![[sick]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/sick/sick0006.r191677.gif "Sick [sick]")
But I think the the defense will get better. Hitting will get there. But man, the pitching. Im just not sure what to say or think. Games 1&2 were close going into the late innings, but still dishearting because of the big innings TT put up.
Some could take a page from of our basketball fans who threw in the towel early and now see the results of showing a bit of patience with a new group of players. I find that most “early on” negative fans either didn’t play ball, have kids that played on HS teams or just don’t understand good teams take a bit of time to develop a personality. It’s a process.
No one here has stated that they've thrown in the towel.
I am taking off work early to catch the opening of the new baseball stadium, can't stay for the whole game but definitely have not thrown in the towel.
I took off work and I'm driving 3 hours to be there today. Super excited.
Living in South Carolina now, so cannot make many mid-week games ( including the opener), but will be up for a couple weekend series games. Haven't thrown in the towel yet, but pitching and defense have to improve for us to even make a run at Hoover.
