Will more than likely make or break this season...vs u6 tues..3game home stand vs SC..mid week game..3 games@ league leading Ga..@u6. Need to come out of that well on the plus side.
Next 9 Games..
- Thread starter sluggercatfan
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Gotta sweep USC. And I think they can since it is at home. Assuming Ming stops making bone headed decisions at critical times.
What a dreadful weekend. coaching cost us game 2, just a horrible decision to leave Haake in at 110 pitches and 3 walks in the 8th inning...
I’ll take 3-1 next week and not play the games. Lol
Ming put the team in a very difficult position by not taking out Haake yesterday. Leaving Bama with a 4-5 record is a huge difference as opposed to 3-6. Even winning 2 of 3 next weekend leaves us at two games under .500 at 5-7. UK really has very little margin for error from now on.
In think it's more a case we most score more runs. The pitching was pretty good all weekend. Hit like .200 with risp. Wont win much that way.
Yes they have really dug themselves a big hole. Ark looked like world beaters vs UK, but is now 2-4 vs the rest of their SEC schedule.
The thing that sucks is right now, were not in the SEC tournament. Tied with Bama for 12th and they hold the tie breaker. Now, Im confident we wont stay there but thats a big hole to climb out of right now.
I'll be in Lexington next weekend and will be at the Friday and Sunday USC games. I have a fraternity event on Saturday. I hope I can bring the Cats good luck.
Cats need to relax at the plate and get back to their early season form. Players are putting too much pressure on themselves by trying to do more than they are capable. I see Ryan Shinn playing his way into the lineup vs left handers and platoon with Johnson. I m hopeful that Coach Ming hasn't given up on Collett because he is a streak hitter and should have some huge games in the future. However, Collett has to be in the lineup to be effective. He can't get his swag back if he is just pinch hitting. It will be interesting to see if Haake stays in the rotation when Thompson come back from injury. Haake earned another start with that performance vs Alabama. ARod is one hell of a third basemen but he can't hit worth a lick.Machemer gained his stopper role again but he has too prove himself vs the rest of the SEC when he is protecting a 1-run lead.
Tend to agree. They really need six of those nine, minimum.
It seems to me that we have struggled most of the season getting a runner home from third base with less than two outs. Too many strikeouts in those situations. Very frustrating. But I still like our team. Still plenty of time to iron out a few things. Several top teams around the country with 6-10 losses.
Spot on. I am still SO pissed about that game. All that matters in baseball is winning weekend series and winning your share of midweek games. What in the hell was ming thinking???? still haven't heard a good explanation on what the hell he was doing there.
I am not sure that we could call it fine. It is fairly early in the season, but we might have already lost our chance at being a regional host. Oddly enough, even making the NCAA tournament is kind of on the ropes.
We have 5 more OOC games (1 home and 4 road), and we have 21 more SEC games. Let's just pretend and say that we win every home series 2-1 and lose every away series 1-2. We avoid sweeps, but we also don't get them. That gives us 11 more SEC wins for a total of 14 wins and 16 losses. We could also grab probably 3 more OOC wins (let's assume we lose to UL and Indiana on the road). That gives us 14 more wins for a total of 34 wins and 21 losses on the regular season.
If we took this SEC record then we'd probably finish somewhere between 8-10 in the SEC. In 2017 it took 15 wins to get into the NCAA tournament (Vandy had 15 and a tie and I believe they had one rain out, all of that helped them to get 6th in the league with a higher win percentage than some other teams. However, 14 win Missouri failed to make the tournament. In 2016, both Alabama and Kentucky finished with .500 SEC records and failed to make the NCAA tournament (both had 32 overall wins on the season).
You have to go back to Auburn in 2015 to find some hope... Auburn finished the year 13-17 in the SEC and still made the NCAA tournament. They were ranked 9th in the SEC that year and they got in over both Missouri and Kentucky who were 7 and 8 seeds in the tournament with 15 and 14 wins respectively. The difference being that Auburn had won something like 34 regular season games that year to UK and Missouri winning just 30. At this point, UK will have to play much better and win several of those series on the road, or get sweeps, or they will have to go the Auburn route to get in and hope that thei rRPI and their wins against some very high RPI teams (Texas Tech, Auburn, Sam Houston State, and UL to this point) as reasons to get in as probably a 3 seed.
No matter how you cut this... it isn't good if we continue to play this way. We need to step up our game and we need to grab 2 wins on the road and we need to play great at home and get 2 wins there as well.
In all reality I look at it being possibly like this:
USC - (2-1) We could possibly sweep, but I rarely count on that.
Georgia - UGA is a damn anomaly. They got swept by Charleston (RPI 44) which makes you think that they aren't great against top tier teams, and then they go and take 2 of 3 from Bama (51) on the road, sweep USC (64), and take two of three from TAMU (15). Since this is on the road, I will say that we lose the series (1-2)
Florida - (1-2). Yea, it is at home, but we're talking about the number 1 team in the country, returning national champs with probably the best pitching staff in the country. Not likely that we get 2 in that one.
Missouri - (2-1) Going to give us home field advantage, but Missouri is no slouch. Might think it was fools gold that they are RPI 26, but the series win against Auburn has me somewhat believing.
Tennessee (2-1) I might give us a sweep here, but I am again playing it safe. Tennessee is kind of strange as well. They swept Bama at UT and then turned around and got swept by South Carolina on the road. This being on the road makes me think that at best we win 2 instead of 3.
Miss. State - (3-0) Our best chance for a sweep. Miss. State is in flames and Henderson isn't helping. They have yet to win an SEC series and were swept at home by Vandy. Their schedule is hard as heck and they could be wallowing well in last place when they come to Lexington.
Vanderbilt - (1-2). Vandy is a team that we could take 2 of 3 from, or even sweep. They have not proven to be amazing this year. For instance, they lost to both Louisiana and Sam Houston State (beat Houston) during the Shriner's Classic where UK swept all three. They had a favorable SEC schedule facing and sweeping Miss. State and then taking 2 of 3 from LSU before getting swept by Florida. Still, it is on the road and I'll give a perennial power the benefit of the doubt.
So, that gives us 12 more wins and 9 more losses. That puts us at .500 for the league. We could conceivably steal a win here or there, but we could also get swept by Florida or possibly lose the road series at Tennessee. Hard to say at the point, but the margin for error after just 3 SEC series is tiny.
I’ll bet you we make the tournament.
Kinda reminds me when people were on the train with the basketball team missing the tournament.
Kinda reminds me when people were on the train with the basketball team missing the tournament.
We need to sweep USC to make up for that sweep from the hogs. And last weekend was just an all systems fail by the coaches and batters.
I don't think I'm that gloom and doom yet. I'm just trying to look at this realistically. It's hard to tell what will happen. After Houston I'd never have guessed 3-6. Still, here we are and we're in a big hole that we have to climb out of.
