Kentucky at Auburn (Sweep Edition)
- Thread starter Comebakatz3
- Start date
I can remember going several games without seeing a double play and we have three this game.
Up 6-3, Marsh gives up a leadoff walk in the bottom of the 9th. The walks have been bad this series.
UK probably got the 2 easiest teams to start league play, but to walk away 5-1 is excellent. Pitching was most impressive this weekend in my opinion. Auburn lost to Ole Miss something like 19-11. UK didn't get close to 19, but they also didn't give up anything that close to 11. So, pitching gets the big tip of the hat.
Most of us thought UK would be hard pressed to win 10 SEC games. We're halfway there with 24 games to go.
I was in the camp of 10-12 at the start. Go 13+ and I’ll be impressed even with the 5-1 start. Hopefully Hazelwood isn’t out long term. I’d assume Strickland or Marsh mid week and Hagenow during the weekend? Think Hagenow had a blister issue but maybe pushing him to Saturday will give it a few extra days to heal up? (Thursday-Saturday series with Easter coming up)
From the broadcast, it sounds like Auburn has had a run of bad luck with their pitching staff...still a good way to start the season, but the rubber is getting ready to meet the road in the next 10 days. #GOCATS⚾️⚾️😎
Flip them? No. Church doesn't have the range for 2nd. He's shoehorned at 3rd. Would Estep be a better defender at third, though? No doubt.
Yea their pitching has a lot of injuries. Still, they had the best batting average in the league and one of the better overall offenses. They can score in bunches and for the most part UK's pitching held them in check. That's the most impressive part to me. We played well offensively, more than good enough to win most games, but that is to be expected with the shape of Auburn's pitching staff. What was more impressive was that our pitching never let Auburn hitters come alive. That bodes well going forward.
I like Hazelwood. Think he's our best when he's on. The Lee is our weakest at the moment but has good potential. For the most part I think Roszel has made our staff better. All hail Dan Roszel! Impressively, hes done better with the younger guys. I think that can continue.
This staff has, in the past, given us a lot to criticize. I think they deserve praise for several of the strategic decisions made this year. Going after more offense by using Schultz in center, Anu in left, putting Harmon at DH, Estep at 2nd, and Church at 3rd appears to have given us a more potent offense with no easy decisions on pitching around our hitters. I thought initially that we would have more fielding issues than the benefit we'd get on offense. That thought was wrong. We have a much more potent offense and few glaring defensive issues so far. Also, the approach of Roszel to speed up the delivery of the staff has noticeably helped our defense. I think it has helped the pitchers stay focused too.
Maybe, they felt they could make the move to strengthen the offense at the expense of defense because they knew they had good pitching? At any rate, it has been a pleasant surprise. We have much better competition ahead so the defense could get exposed but I have enjoyed the fight I see this year better than the resignation I saw two years ago. Strickland was seriously enraged at the thought that he might be taken out. I like the competitive spirit I see. They are starting to believe.
Maybe, they felt they could make the move to strengthen the offense at the expense of defense because they knew they had good pitching? At any rate, it has been a pleasant surprise. We have much better competition ahead so the defense could get exposed but I have enjoyed the fight I see this year better than the resignation I saw two years ago. Strickland was seriously enraged at the thought that he might be taken out. I like the competitive spirit I see. They are starting to believe.
Pitching has been vastly better than I expected. Still the SEC schedule is going to get vastly harder from this point on. But surely will win more than 10 games in the SEC, 14 would get us to the NCAA most likely and would be a huge improvement over last few years
The schedule looks murderous, but can't ask for much more than 5-1 start. The good news is that LSU and Georgia and Alabama look pedestrian. THe bad news is that Vandy, UT, MSU, And USC are gonna be tough....
Great series win in auburn. I don't care if auburn stinks or is pretty good, it's hard to win 3 games on the road in the SEC.
Great series win in auburn. I don't care if auburn stinks or is pretty good, it's hard to win 3 games on the road in the SEC.
I'm still not sold on the offensive move personally. We will see. Right now we have Estep, Harmon, Anu, Rhodes, and Ritter all hitting under .225 in league play, with Estep and Harmon hitting under .170. Still a pretty small sample size though.
So, we have to see if those numbers level out or stay lower. The good thing is that when those guys do hit, they're doing it at big times. So, mad props for that.
Still, the question is technically... would Hill be hitting better than any one of those guys? If the answer is yes, then you could arrange the defense to put him in there and you definitely improve the defense while having the same or better offense. That being said, lineups are quirky.
