Kentucky @ Elon (Opening Day)

[Comebakatz3]

Williams out once again. He is pushing 40 pitches, so that arm must be feeling pretty good. Wow... UK finds a huge break as Waldy throws his hands up in left and couldn't find the ball out in left, but it is foul instead of being a hit. Williams then does it himself with another strikeout, his 5th in row. Smith then brings in a shallow pop up for the second out, finally breaking his strikeout streak. Holliman, who hit the home run in the 2nd to give Elon the lead, works a full count before striking out.

UK down 2-0 going to the 9th. UK down to their last 3 outs.

Vandy and TCU playing in the bottom 6th with Vandy leading 3-2.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Elon going to Ben Simon, a junior coming in to try to close this out. A big righty with a hard fastball. He had a 3.48 ERA a year ago.

McCoy will be the first to face the righty, first time seeing that arm side today, and he goes down swinging on a high heater. Burkes falls behind 0-2, and he does get a ball and a foul off, but he looks at strike three down the middle for the second out. Pitre once again showing bunt, which is still absolutely crazy to me out of our 4 hole hitter. I think that may say something about the power we have on this team. He works ahead 2-0, but two straight strikes evens it back up, but Pitre also goes down swinging to end the game.

Elon wins 2-0.

 

[Aday117]

Like I said before the season, I don’t see enough quality hitters on this team to put up runs. I’ll try not to take too much away from game one in the season, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we see a lot of similar scores this season. Pretty ugly start to the year for Ming (shocker).

 

[Big_Blue_1018]

Well, not the way you want to start the season. Luckily its just game one.

 

[Basil Cat]

Elon going to Ben Simon, a junior coming in to try to close this out. A big righty with a hard fastball. He had a 3.48 ERA a year ago.

McCoy will be the first to face the righty, first time seeing that arm side today, and he goes down swinging on a high heater. Burkes falls behind 0-2, and he does get a ball and a foul off, but he looks at strike three down the middle for the second out. Pitre once again showing bunt, which is still absolutely crazy to me out of our 4 hole hitter. I think that may say something about the power we have on this team. He works ahead 2-0, but two straight strikes evens it back up, but Pitre also goes down swinging to end the game.

Elon wins 2-0.

Thanks CB for your updates. Did I hear / read correctly, our 4 squared to bunt twice ??? I certainly understand situational hitting, but in game one against a non power 5 team ??????

 

[Comebakatz3]

I think UK likely wins this series, but this was not the way you want to start. You never want to be blanked.

Heck, not only was UK blanked, they were never a threat at all. Just 4 hits and I believe we made it to second only 1 time, and I think that was off of an error that gave UK two free bases. We got picked off twice and hit into two double plays. I can't say that we hit anything particularly hard on those 4 hits and none of them were better than solo inning hits.

I can't be horribly mad at the pitching as we combined for 13 strikeouts to just 2 walks, but Elon hitting .272 against Martin is not my favorite thing in the world going forward for our Friday night starter. Williams, obviously, welcome back and have a return with 3 innings of hitless baseball and 7 freaking strikeouts.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Thanks CB for your updates. Did I hear / read correctly, our 4 squared to bunt twice ??? I certainly understand situational hitting, but in game one against a non power 5 team ??????

He squared to bunt at least twice. Once was a sac bunt in the 7th. The other one was in the 9th, showing bunt with 2 outs. He didn't bunt on that one, and might have just been doing it with 2 balls to kind of throw off the pitcher, but still not exactly what you want to see out of your typical 4 hole. Which, again, gives me some concerns regarding this team's power.

We left 4 on base. That is not horrible, but to me, shows that we weren't even unlucky regarding putting a lot on the base and just failing to get timely hits.

Still, I have to think that we win this series. Sprague is a good pitcher, so I think the offense will wake up more against the guys they throw in the next two days.

Also looks like UK might very well try the same trend of having one guy pitch as much as possible and then bring in one dominant reliever to eat up 3+ innings.

 

[MAYHOO22]

Well. Minge said he wanted to create chaos on the base paths. Guess he succeeded with our base running today. Geez!

 

[mrschwump]

Pressure's off, don't have to worry about an undefeated season now.

 

[SeanCain]

I think UK likely wins this series, but this was not the way you want to start. You never want to be blanked.

Heck, not only was UK blanked, they were never a threat at all. Just 4 hits and I believe we made it to second only 1 time, and I think that was off of an error that gave UK two free bases. We got picked off twice and hit into two double plays. I can't say that we hit anything particularly hard on those 4 hits and none of them were better than solo inning hits.

I can't be horribly mad at the pitching as we combined for 13 strikeouts to just 2 walks, but Elon hitting .272 against Martin is not my favorite thing in the world going forward for our Friday night starter. Williams, obviously, welcome back and have a return with 3 innings of hitless baseball and 7 freaking strikeouts.

I was concerned about the recruiting of kids from smaller schools to play against SEC level competition. I’m more concerned now. I know it’s only game one but not impressed with our offensive performance at all.

I was watching the Grand Canyon vs UC San Diego gave this afternoon. How do you recruit talent like that to Grand Canyon but you can’t to an SEC program like UK? GCU would mop the floor with us.

 

[briarcreek]

Pitching was really good. Hitting and base running were really bad. Have to hope the bats come around quickly.

 

[3632]

Pitching was really good. Hitting and base running were really bad. Have to hope the bats come around quickly.

When it comes down to it Roszel is the only legitimate coach we have.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Pitching was really good. Hitting and base running were really bad. Have to hope the bats come around quickly.

Can't complain about only giving up 2 runs, but I remain skeptical of Martin being a Friday night SEC guy. This performance against most teams and I'm more impressed. However, Elon hit just .226 as a team in 2022 with a lot of these same guys. They are a really poor hitting team. Martin gave up 6 hits against them, or .272. Like that he limited the damage and did enough to win, but SEC teams are going to hit much better than Elon can.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I was concerned about the recruiting of kids from smaller schools to play against SEC level competition. I’m more concerned now. I know it’s only game one but not impressed with our offensive performance at all.

I was watching the Grand Canyon vs UC San Diego gave this afternoon. How do you recruit talent like that to Grand Canyon but you can’t to an SEC program like UK? GCU would mop the floor with us.

There are a ton of great players across the sport, many at small schools. It's definitely a sport where guys develop at different rates. I think sniping some of these guys can work out. The problem for UK, in my opinion, is that we're relying on a whole lot of them to come here and continue to play at a high level against better competition. Some will adjust and be as good or better. Others won't. It's why I think it's important to have a balanced roster, and UK hasn't really had that under Mingione.

 

[MAYHOO22]

To make matters worse, Michael Dallas, a UK transfer, hit a 2 run bomb to help Jacksonville State beat UGA.

 

[3632]

I was concerned about the recruiting of kids from smaller schools to play against SEC level competition. I’m more concerned now. I know it’s only game one but not impressed with our

I was concerned about the recruiting of kids from smaller schools to play against SEC level competition. I’m more concerned now. I know it’s only game one but not impressed with our offensive performance at all.

I was watching the Grand Canyon vs UC San Diego gave this afternoon. How do you recruit talent like that to Grand Canyon but you can’t to an SEC program like UK? GCU would mop the floor with us.

offensive performance at all.

I was watching the Grand Canyon vs UC San Diego gave this afternoon. How do you recruit talent like that to Grand Canyon but you can’t to an SEC program like UK? GCU would mop the floor with us.

Anybody connected to what’s going on with college baseball recruiting knows that UK has been flailing for years. I know some folks in the southeast involved with some meaningful organizations and UK is lost. The stories are disheartening

 

[cats1068]

I

Can't complain about only giving up 2 runs, but I remain skeptical of Martin being a Friday night SEC guy. This performance against most teams and I'm more impressed. However, Elon hit just .226 as a team in 2022 with a lot of these same guys. They are a really poor hitting team. Martin gave up 6 hits against them, or .272. Like that he limited the damage and did enough to win, but SEC teams are going to hit much better than Elon can.

What made matters worse is that they got 2 runners picked off today. Base running has been atrocious every year NM has been here. Where are the runners going? 🤷‍♂️

 

[LukaszObrzut]

I was concerned about the recruiting of kids from smaller schools to play against SEC level competition. I’m more concerned now. I know it’s only game one but not impressed with our offensive performance at all.

I was watching the Grand Canyon vs UC San Diego gave this afternoon. How do you recruit talent like that to Grand Canyon but you can’t to an SEC program like UK? GCU would mop the floor with us.

I’d be ok with playing baseball at Grand Canyon. Campus and area is nice

 

[Old_Red]

Too many similarities with past Mingione teams. Bad base running, anemic hitting. Counting Burkes as a returning starter seems a stretch as l seem to recall he got his chance very late and didn't start that many games, way less than half. I didn't have much in terms of expectations about a team formed from the portal.

 

[CockyCat3]

I was at the game today and am just getting back to the hotel after dinner. I'll get my thoughts together and post soon.

 

[CockyCat3]

Random thoughts from today:

-It was really cold. It was cold, but it was really windy and that made it really cold.

-Definitely not the way we wanted to open, but Elon has good pitching. They were one of the top teams in the nation last year in team ERA.

-I saw more 2 strike pitches put into play than I did last year. So, that was encouraging. Only 6 K's compared to 13Ks for them.

-Gilliam is really good defensively at 1B.

-Their closer couldn't have been taller than 5'9" and was throwing 95-97mph. Just didn't even make sense.

-Byars had a pretty rough game defensively at 3B, but other than that we seemed to look pretty good defensively.

-We have a BIG team. McCoy, Ewell, Gilliam.. those dudes are big humans.

-Ewell looked really uncomfortable at the plate, like someone who is early in the spring trying to find his timing. Not sure what the deal is there.

- One thing that I'm sure didn't come through on the stream or radio is that Elon's field is positioned terribly. The sun came out just before game time and was behind Right Centerfield all day. I don't know how the hitters and catchers and ump were seeing anything. There was a time the Elon catcher just completely whiffed on a fastball down the middle and it drilled the ump in the leg. He called a strike and UK bench was chattering about it and the catcher said "I just missed it" and the ump actually took his mask off and yelled over to the UK dugout, "You gotta give me a little more credit than that!". The ump is actually staying at our hotel and we talked to him in lobby. He said it was tough calling balls and strikes, he had no idea how the hitters were hitting the ball. So... I'm hoping that has more to do with our hitting performance than anything. There weren't many well hit balls from anyone on either side except the guy that ran into one and put a pop fly over the fence.

-We made 2 errors (one was ruled a hit, but it was surely an error) and got picked off of 1B twice. They made 1 error and no baserunning snafus. Mistakes are how you lose games for sure.

-We have players coaching first base. What in the world? We are an SEC school and we can't run an actual first base coach out there?!? I don't think the pickoffs would've been prevented, but maybe... who knows? It looked like McCarthy was going first move and just guessed wrong, and Gilliam just had a bad pick off. But Bosma was coaching 1B for the first 4 or 5 innings and Lee finished up the game over there. So... even if we are going to have players coach first, we don't have a bench guy that can do that? We have our Saturday and Sunday guys standing out there in the cold for half the game? I was watching and Bosma almost got hit in the face with an overthrow at first during warm-ups between half-inning. Can you imagine?! "Welp our Saturday starter is out cause he got hit in the face while coaching first." Makes no sense to me. The only good thing is that he got out there early each inning and got in good with the first base ump, who I assume is behind the plate tomorrow.

-If you had to pick a scenario down 2 late in the game and could put a runner on and bring up any hitter you want, shouldn't the person we want to be coming up be our cleanup hitter?!? WHY ARE WE BUNTING WITH OUR 4 HOLE HITTER, DOWN 2 WITH A RUNNER ON AND NOBODY OUT?!? I really didn't like that for a number of reasons. One of those is what does it do for his confidence?!

-After one game we are already halfway to our shutout total of 2 from last season.

That's all I've got for now. It's just one game, so, whatever. It'll be interesting to see what lineup we trot out there tomorrow. Do you make changes after game 1 or do leave them and let them ride for a bit? Righty pitching tomorrow, so it could be that some platoon players who didn't play today get their shot tmw.

 

[mrschwump]

TN loses, Miami loses, Stanford loses....LSU wins with a 6'6" former Air Force cadet throwing upper 90s. It's college baseball.

BTW, Elon lefty had an ERA under 2 last year vs some good teams.

 

[Tskware]

Thanks CB for your updates. Did I hear / read correctly, our 4 squared to bunt twice ??? I certainly understand situational hitting, but in game one against a non power 5 team ??????

Bunting with no outs and a man on first in the 7th or 8th inning, and down by TWO runs, was a dumb ass move, at least IMO. But that is sure to be only the first of many DA moves by our million dollar a year head coach.

 

[briarcreek]

Random thoughts from today:

-It was really cold. It was cold, but it was really windy and that made it really cold.

-Definitely not the way we wanted to open, but Elon has good pitching. They were one of the top teams in the nation last year in team ERA.

-I saw more 2 strike pitches put into play than I did last year. So, that was encouraging. Only 6 K's compared to 13Ks for them.

-Gilliam is really good defensively at 1B.

-Their closer couldn't have been taller than 5'9" and was throwing 95-97mph. Just didn't even make sense.

-Byars had a pretty rough game defensively at 3B, but other than that we seemed to look pretty good defensively.

-We have a BIG team. McCoy, Ewell, Gilliam.. those dudes are big humans.

-Ewell looked really uncomfortable at the plate, like someone who is early in the spring trying to find his timing. Not sure what the deal is there.

- One thing that I'm sure didn't come through on the stream or radio is that Elon's field is positioned terribly. The sun came out just before game time and was behind Right Centerfield all day. I don't know how the hitters and catchers and ump were seeing anything. There was a time the Elon catcher just completely whiffed on a fastball down the middle and it drilled the ump in the leg. He called a strike and UK bench was chattering about it and the catcher said "I just missed it" and the ump actually took his mask off and yelled over to the UK dugout, "You gotta give me a little more credit than that!". The ump is actually staying at our hotel and we talked to him in lobby. He said it was tough calling balls and strikes, he had no idea how the hitters were hitting the ball. So... I'm hoping that has more to do with our hitting performance than anything. There weren't many well hit balls from anyone on either side except the guy that ran into one and put a pop fly over the fence.

-We made 2 errors (one was ruled a hit, but it was surely an error) and got picked off of 1B twice. They made 1 error and no baserunning snafus. Mistakes are how you lose games for sure.

-We have players coaching first base. What in the world? We are an SEC school and we can't run an actual first base coach out there?!? I don't think the pickoffs would've been prevented, but maybe... who knows? It looked like McCarthy was going first move and just guessed wrong, and Gilliam just had a bad pick off. But Bosma was coaching 1B for the first 4 or 5 innings and Lee finished up the game over there. So... even if we are going to have players coach first, we don't have a bench guy that can do that? We have our Saturday and Sunday guys standing out there in the cold for half the game? I was watching and Bosma almost got hit in the face with an overthrow at first during warm-ups between half-inning. Can you imagine?! "Welp our Saturday starter is out cause he got hit in the face while coaching first." Makes no sense to me. The only good thing is that he got out there early each inning and got in good with the first base ump, who I assume is behind the plate tomorrow.

-If you had to pick a scenario down 2 late in the game and could put a runner on and bring up any hitter you want, shouldn't the person we want to be coming up be our cleanup hitter?!? WHY ARE WE BUNTING WITH OUR 4 HOLE HITTER, DOWN 2 WITH A RUNNER ON AND NOBODY OUT?!? I really didn't like that for a number of reasons. One of those is what does it do for his confidence?!

-After one game we are already halfway to our shutout total of 2 from last season.

That's all I've got for now. It's just one game, so, whatever. It'll be interesting to see what lineup we trot out there tomorrow. Do you make changes after game 1 or do leave them and let them ride for a bit? Righty pitching tomorrow, so it could be that some platoon players who didn't play today get their shot tmw.

Having a player coach first base is a pet peeve of mine also. I’d hoped that would go away with Mingione coaching 3rd.

 

[Cats8585]

Got home in time to watch the game but my daughter was sick and I missed the whole thing. Thank you @Comebakatz3 for this thread. Got to recap the game this morning from reading.

Looks like our offense sputtered big time but we pitched well.

Been a lot of talk about bunting and stealing bases and we bunted out twice and got picked off twice.

 

[Basil Cat]

Having a player coach first base is a pet peeve of mine also. I’d hoped that would go away with Mingione coaching 3rd.

This X 1000

 

[Derek Terry]

Bunting with no outs and a man on first in the 7th or 8th inning, and down by TWO runs, was a dumb ass move, at least IMO. But that is sure to be only the first of many DA moves by our million dollar a year head coach.

Mingione doesn't make anywhere near $1 million.

 

[SeanCain]

Anybody connected to what’s going on with college baseball recruiting knows that UK has been flailing for years. I know some folks in the southeast involved with some meaningful organizations and UK is lost. The stories are disheartening

Oh I’m well aware. We’ve discussed this mess for the last few years on this board. The problem is I don’t think UK gives a sh*t about baseball and it’s obvious.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Having a player coach first base is a pet peeve of mine also. I’d hoped that would go away with Mingione coaching 3rd.

It's really wild that we're using weekend starters to do it. Last year we used Degen a lot I believe, but that was because he was injured. Makes no sense to use weekend starters.