I am late in posting this, but here we go... the theme for the week is late inning heroics because that is what UK needed. UK needed runs in the last frame in 3 of the 4 games this past week. They got them each time and went 4-0 on the week.
Overall: B+
Kind of weird to put this as a B+ instead of an A or better. In part, you love that UK went on the road and swept Auburn, but every game was so close this past week that things could have been vastly different. UK needed a 4 run 9th to beat Butler and then Friday gave up 4 runs in the 9th to go to extras against Auburn. Won them both in the end, which is excellent and major props for that, but neither of them having to happen nor happening at all are ideal. So, the score drops some because of the how we won rather than the actual Ws.
Starting Pitching: A
Kind of a bit harder to grade this because it was kind of a strange week with starting pitching. Hazelwood was doing okay before getting injured and Hagenow wasn't exactly sharp, but he didn't give up any earned runs despite giving up 3 walks. I thought Roszel had kind of a short leash with him. Auburn had a great hitting team according to stats, but our starters never let the game get away from them. Lee and Stupp both only gave up 2 earned a piece, with Stupp going 7 innings and Lee going 5. Those are the types of outings you want from your starters. So, great job by them.
Bullpen: C
Daniel Harper gets an A+ and everyone else gets a D. Okay, in all honesty it wasn't that bad for some guys... Cole Daniels pitched 1.2 against Butler and didn't give up a run, but he came back in the weekend and pitched 1.2 and gave up 1 earned run and walked a handful, although I think he limited a lot of damage. Harney fell off a cliff as he pitched in two games last week and gave up 3 runs, all of them earned. Just a bad week for him, hopefully he bounces back and we can rely on him once again. I think he is fun to watch, so hopefully it isn't an increase in competition that made him struggle and it is just a bad week. Hope he gets some more chances to prove himself. Very much looks like Holt Jones is going to be the guy that UK staff leans on a whole lot. Last week he pitched in 3 of the 4 games. He closed it out on Sunday, so that was good, but the rest of the outings weren't spectacular as he gave up 5 earned runs in 2 innings of work. I think the guys can certainly right the ship, but it doesn't get easier from here on out.
Hitting: B
I struggle with this grade because I really don't think our hitting was all that great this past week, but we did get hits when we needed them most and we won all 4 games, so it is hard to be too negative about it. The big black mark was 90 percent of the Butler game... having just 2 runs through 8 innings is not great, but that 9th... that is what the doctor ordered with those 4 runs. Still, that is something that I was hoping to see our hitters do 2 or 3 times a game against weaker midweek opponents and we just haven't done that often. Against Auburn... we combined for 21 runs in 3 games, 7 per game on average, so that is a good number and higher than our current average (which is around 6.5). Again, we got wins and that is the huge part. Would like to obviously see some people do better. Harmon had a poor weekend hitting just .154, and .222 for the entire week. Estep did better this weekend than last, hitting .250, but his batting average remains poor. Church had a very poor weekend hitting just .187. Of course, we all know that Kessler did amazing and hit .500 for the week. Collett was pretty hot as he hit .429 over the week. I think UK could have done better overall hitting and had a few more guys get some timely hits here and there, but again... hard to be too mad at the results.
Fielding: D
This maybe should be even lower, but again... wins cure a lot of things. We failed to play an error free game this past week. We had 2 in the Butler game and 1 in each of the others. This, on top of the mistakes that didn't go as errors (i.e. not getting the right read on a ball and letting it drop for a hit).
Overall: B+
Kind of weird to put this as a B+ instead of an A or better. In part, you love that UK went on the road and swept Auburn, but every game was so close this past week that things could have been vastly different. UK needed a 4 run 9th to beat Butler and then Friday gave up 4 runs in the 9th to go to extras against Auburn. Won them both in the end, which is excellent and major props for that, but neither of them having to happen nor happening at all are ideal. So, the score drops some because of the how we won rather than the actual Ws.
Starting Pitching: A
Kind of a bit harder to grade this because it was kind of a strange week with starting pitching. Hazelwood was doing okay before getting injured and Hagenow wasn't exactly sharp, but he didn't give up any earned runs despite giving up 3 walks. I thought Roszel had kind of a short leash with him. Auburn had a great hitting team according to stats, but our starters never let the game get away from them. Lee and Stupp both only gave up 2 earned a piece, with Stupp going 7 innings and Lee going 5. Those are the types of outings you want from your starters. So, great job by them.
Bullpen: C
Daniel Harper gets an A+ and everyone else gets a D. Okay, in all honesty it wasn't that bad for some guys... Cole Daniels pitched 1.2 against Butler and didn't give up a run, but he came back in the weekend and pitched 1.2 and gave up 1 earned run and walked a handful, although I think he limited a lot of damage. Harney fell off a cliff as he pitched in two games last week and gave up 3 runs, all of them earned. Just a bad week for him, hopefully he bounces back and we can rely on him once again. I think he is fun to watch, so hopefully it isn't an increase in competition that made him struggle and it is just a bad week. Hope he gets some more chances to prove himself. Very much looks like Holt Jones is going to be the guy that UK staff leans on a whole lot. Last week he pitched in 3 of the 4 games. He closed it out on Sunday, so that was good, but the rest of the outings weren't spectacular as he gave up 5 earned runs in 2 innings of work. I think the guys can certainly right the ship, but it doesn't get easier from here on out.
Hitting: B
I struggle with this grade because I really don't think our hitting was all that great this past week, but we did get hits when we needed them most and we won all 4 games, so it is hard to be too negative about it. The big black mark was 90 percent of the Butler game... having just 2 runs through 8 innings is not great, but that 9th... that is what the doctor ordered with those 4 runs. Still, that is something that I was hoping to see our hitters do 2 or 3 times a game against weaker midweek opponents and we just haven't done that often. Against Auburn... we combined for 21 runs in 3 games, 7 per game on average, so that is a good number and higher than our current average (which is around 6.5). Again, we got wins and that is the huge part. Would like to obviously see some people do better. Harmon had a poor weekend hitting just .154, and .222 for the entire week. Estep did better this weekend than last, hitting .250, but his batting average remains poor. Church had a very poor weekend hitting just .187. Of course, we all know that Kessler did amazing and hit .500 for the week. Collett was pretty hot as he hit .429 over the week. I think UK could have done better overall hitting and had a few more guys get some timely hits here and there, but again... hard to be too mad at the results.
Fielding: D
This maybe should be even lower, but again... wins cure a lot of things. We failed to play an error free game this past week. We had 2 in the Butler game and 1 in each of the others. This, on top of the mistakes that didn't go as errors (i.e. not getting the right read on a ball and letting it drop for a hit).
