Report Card (SEC Week 4)

[Comebakatz3]

All right, we had another mixed bag week. We went 2-2 with a great win over Louisville and a great win over LSU. However, it still feels like we missed an opportunity given the uphill battle that we will have to make the NCAA tournament and finish .500 in the league. So, let’s take a look at how we did.

Starting Pitching: D

Outside of Zach Lee, the starting pitching just outright struggled. Holt Jones started against Louisville and went 1.1 and gave up 3 runs while walking 3. Cole Stupp went 5 innings and gave up 8 earned runs. Hagenow went 1.1 and gave up 2 earned while walking 4. Again, Lee the lone bright spot as he went 5 innings and only gave up 1 earned run. Lee saves them from an F over the week. Frankly, it is a small miracle that we won 2 games given this. UK needs to figure things out with this. First off, they need to figure out who is going to be the midweek pitcher. They should throw someone like Hudepohl or Strickland this week against Bellarmine and get them some experience and develop another starter. I don’t like the all staff approach. Hagenow has struggled in league play. I don’t think he has quite the confidence he once did. He looks night and day in that regard from his first start. Roszel needs to get him back to working quickly and thinking less. I think Stupp just had a bad day. He has been more than serviceable, so I am not too upset with him as a whole. They all get Fs while Lee gets a B+, a touch longer in the game and he would get the A.

Bullpen: D

You had some bright spots in there. Harney came into the LSU game on Saturday and threw 4 innings while striking out 5. He probably went a touch too long as he gave up a run in the last inning he pitched, a run which helped to shift the momentum back to LSU. Harper was a mixed bag. He had been a rock and was a rock against UL as he went 2 scoreless, but on Saturday against LSU he fell apart and gave up 2 runs on 3 hits in 1 inning of work. Rigsby, I believe, was the only pitcher out of the bullpen that kept the opponent off the board in every appearance. He only pitched about 1 inning in two games, but he did his job and finished out games. We saw a lot of arms this week and all of them struggled. Harney came into a tough spot in the UL game and gave up a walk and a hit that scored some runs. Ramsey continues to be Ramsey. His head just isn’t right. Seth Logue struggled mightily going just 0.1 and giving up 2 earned against UL. Cole Daniels and Alex Degen actually both did pretty well. Degen gave up a lot of hits (4) in 2.1 innings, but he largely kept the runs down (1) and got 4 Ks. Cole went 1.2 and gave up a run. Wyatt Hudepohl ate up 3 innings against LSU and only gave up 1 run, so that isn’t bad, but UK was already down big. Confidence booster for Wyatt though. Holt Jones had a bad week. Struggled in the start and then came in for long relief and went 2.1 on Sat, giving up 3 earned in 2.1 innings. Marsh and Strickland went on Sunday with pretty decent leads. Marsh went 2.0 and gave up 2 earned while Strickland went 2.0 and gave up 1. Overall, solid outings for them in keeping the runs to a minimum.


Overall, not the best week for the pitching staff, but there were a few solid performances to continue to build upon.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Hitting: B

This is kind of a hard one to grade because I was majorly disappointed in the hitting on Friday and largely disappointed on Saturday. Still, we got hits those two days, but we just couldn’t score. Saturday we scored, but it was the 7th and 8th innings before we made noise. So, it just felt like most of the game we were not hitting well until the bats finally woke up late. So, it is a bit of a weird thing with UK putting up an average of 8 runs a game to complain that the hitting wasn’t great, but I really felt like we struggled in the middle two games for the most part.

Ryan Ritter had the best week of anyone as he went 8 for 17 (.471) with 2 homers, a double and 3 stolen bases. He proved himself as a Card killer with 6 RBIs on Tuesday and helped UK win the game on the road for the first time since ’14. Gotta give this kid an A+.

TJ Collett also had a strong week as he went 5 for 17 (.294) with 2 doubles. The thing that impresses me about Collett right now is that he is hitting well and not striking out much. In those 17+ at bats he only had 1 K. So, he is at least putting the ball in play and making the other team work. Solid B+ Gotta say though, not sure I like him in the 2 hole.

Coltyn Kessler continues to just hit and he finally broke his streak of largely hitting singles as he hit a big fly for 2 runs on Sunday. For the week he went 6 for 17 (.353) and had 3 RBIs. He did have one hitless game, so that was weird, but still had a real good week. The numbers keep coming down for Kessler, he’s now only hitting .452 in league play, but in part it is because they were so high to begin with. Great story for him bouncing back so far. A

Cam Hill was finally inserted into the lineup on Saturday and his impact was immediately felt as he hit his second home run of the season in his first at bat. He went 3 for 8 (.375) and stole a bag on Sunday. UK scored 6 total runs on Saturday and Hill had 3 RBIs and 2 runs scored. So, I believe that means that Hill was responsible for 4 of the 6 we scored on Saturday. I’ll specifically talk about his fielding later, but just know that it was good. A+

Oraj Anu had a pretty solid week going 4 for 14 (.285) with an absolute MONSTER mash over the bullpen in the Sunday game. Anu struggled more on the weekend going just 2 for 11, but 1 of those was a huge 2 run shot. Anu has done a decent job of getting on base as he also got hit at least once this weekend. Would like to see the kid tick that average up in league play and really make a major impact, but the timely hits just aren’t there yet (i.e. he left 7 on base over the weekend). No major complaints with him, but think he can do better. B

Austin Schultz is just a machine. 5 for 16 (.313) with a Sunday home run. He got 3 RBIs. Probably a few too many Ks as he had 4 over the week, but you’ll take the hitting if it comes with a few Ks. His worst game was probably on Saturday, but he still was productive and helped UK as he also drew a couple walks and scored a run. A

John Rhodes needs a break. I think he’s put too much pressure on himself and he’s feeling the weight of that. He’s also got at least one lingering injury. He struggled this week going 3 for 17 (.176), but the bright spot was that he hit .500 on Sunday and added a walk to that. I would really like to see UK sit him tonight in favor of Shelby. Give his injury a rest and let him heal up a bit and then we can put him back out there against Georgia. No need risking further injury to him against Bellarmine. One thing that was great to see from Rhodes is that when he got on base on Sunday, he was aggressive as all get out and stole 2 bags. Really kept the pressure on the LSU defense. D for the week, but I like the positive trend from Sunday.

Trae Harmon played in half the games this week as he got put on the shelf after the Friday game. Harmon is like some sort of crazy Jekyll and Hyde as he hits .441 out of conference and just .129 in conference. This week was no exception to that as he went 2 for 6 (.333) against UL and 0-4 against LSU for .200 on the week overall. Part of his problem is that when he hits against some really good pitching, he is just way overmatched. He hits well against average to good pitching, but when he gets to above average to great he struggles and it is easy to see. He struck out 4 times this week, 2 in each. I don’t think he had any real competitive bats on Friday. It is a small sample size and a tale of two games, so I will give him a C.

Estep may be waking up, which bodes very well for UK. This week he went 6 for 16 (.375) and he was the lone bright spot in the Friday game, going 3 for 4. He hit .417 this weekend and is still hitting just .209, so you can see by that how he was struggling leading up to this weekend. Similarly to Rhodes… he also stole 2 bags in Sunday, and one of them I believe was third. He was very aggressive out there. He also picked up a pair of doubles this week.

Plastiak largely got the nod this week at third base and he was, well… there. He went 2 for 9 (.222) over the week with 3 strikeouts a walk and an RBI. He got hit by a pitch as well. Not the best showing for Plastiak, but I believe he got his first hit as a Wildcat and it is hard to judge him a whole lot on this small sample size, especially as he hasn’t had many plate opportunities. Not sure where the staff will go with Church/Plastiak as both are struggling at the plate, but nice to have a couple options. B-

Rueben Church is a bit in and out of the lineup he went 0-4 on the week with 1 start and 1 pinch hit. Not a lot to say about that small sample size, but Church is a bit like Harmon in that he is struggling against the better pitching. He’s a freshman with a bright future and I think it will come, but these are growing pains. C-

 

[Comebakatz3]

Fielding: B+

Always hard to rate fielding because there is so much that goes into it. Still, I want to take the time to brag on three guys:

Ryan Ritter – The guy was an absolute stud on Tuesday. Nothing was out of his range, he was making highlight plays that would make Jeter say, “Damn!” I think Ritter often makes hard plays look easy, but we hadn’t really seen him make the impossible type plays. Tuesday he did that and he did it several times. I think we will see that more often as he gets more comfortable and especially if he continues to hit.

Cam Hill – Just play him. Hill finally got to play a full game or two and it paid off. I’m not sure if he would even be playing if Rhodes weren’t hurt, but Hill took his opportunity and ran with it. Sunday he made a diving catch with two outs and a runner on third. Anyone else and that ball hits turf and LSU scores at least one. Then, later in the game after UK had given up a triple, Hill caught what should have been an easy sac fly and he chucked it home in time to throw out the LSU short stop before he could score. He also came mighty close to robbing a home run from LSU. He timed it right, but it was just too well hit and was probably 3-6 inches too tall for Hill. I am not sure his plays really changed the outcome of the game, but in a closer one they most certainly do.

TJ Collett – He was actually a last second addition for me, to be honest. Collett has really impressed me with how much he has improved at playing first. I have said in the past that he receives the ball well, but isn’t the greatest at fielding his position. That is changing in many ways. This weekend he had 2 over the shoulder basket catches behind first in shallow right. He took them confidently and called for them both. They were just outstanding, almost no look, catches, and the one on Sunday was particularly tough given that the wind was pushing the ball towards left. I think he’s also continued to do very well with digging the ball out of the dirt. He’s done a fine job.

 

[dtjr]

Nice work as usual.

 

[Old_Red]

TJ Collett – He was actually a last second addition for me, to be honest. Collett has really impressed me with how much he has improved at playing first. I have said in the past that he receives the ball well, but isn’t the greatest at fielding his position. That is changing in many ways. This weekend he had 2 over the shoulder basket catches behind first in shallow right. He took them confidently and called for them both. They were just outstanding, almost no look, catches, and the one on Sunday was particularly tough given that the wind was pushing the ball towards left. I think he’s also continued to do very well with digging the ball out of the dirt. He’s done a fine job.

That is an excellent observation. He has looked far more comfortable. He really made some great plays and looked smooth doing it. That was highlighted when they put Church in and he let that pop up drop right at the netting. I was thinking Collett would have made that play easily. Wouldn't have thought that at the start of this year.