UK ranked 24th by PG unranked by D1 Baseball

[Basil Cat]

Mentioned as being just outside the top 25 by what most consider the major poll D1 Baseball.

Awesome to get an SEC sweep. Georgia was picked to finish last in the East so that probably has a lot to do with it. UK still has a long way to go to be taken serious by the big boys of college baseball. Just keep winning.

 

[maysvilleky]

SEC season just started. Probably need to show they can compete in the SEC. Would be nice if UGA start winning in SEC also.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Mentioned as being just outside the top 25 by what most consider the major poll D1 Baseball.

Awesome to get an SEC sweep. Georgia was picked to finish last in the East so that probably has a lot to do with it. UK still has a long way to go to be taken serious by the big boys of college baseball. Just keep winning.

Georgia wasn't picked for last in the East. I believe they were 6th and Missouri was 7th. It's hard to know how good UGA is or isn't at this point. When I looked at scores from them it seemed obvious that they were really eating against lesser teams. Against teams closer to them in standing, the games were much closer.

Regardless, UK came out of the weekend one of just 3 teams that are 3-0. They started the weekend dead last in batting average and finished the weekend in 9th. A 40 point jump. They jumped 3+ spots in almost every offensive category and even closed the home run gap. So that is hugely encouraging as the offensive woes were really concerning knowing that we'd be facing better pitching going forward. I believe UK also moved up some in team ERA, despite facing a UGA team that showed that it has power.

All in all, we killed UGA. We left no doubt about being better than they are and UK has a big opportunity to start league play 6-0. That's massive given that it puts us almost halfway to our goal of 13-15 wins in league play only 2 weekends in.

 

[Basil Cat]

Georgia wasn't picked for last in the East. I believe they were 6th and Missouri was 7th. It's hard to know how good UGA is or isn't at this point. When I looked at scores from them it seemed obvious that they were really eating against lesser teams. Against teams closer to them in standing, the games were much closer.

Regardless, UK came out of the weekend one of just 3 teams that are 3-0. They started the weekend dead last in batting average and finished the weekend in 9th. A 40 point jump. They jumped 3+ spots in almost every offensive category and even closed the home run gap. So that is hugely encouraging as the offensive woes were really concerning knowing that we'd be facing better pitching going forward. I believe UK also moved up some in team ERA, despite facing a UGA team that showed that it has power.

All in all, we killed UGA. We left no doubt about being better than they are and UK has a big opportunity to start league play 6-0. That's massive given that it puts us almost halfway to our goal of 13-15 wins in league play only 2 weekends in.

Guess I should edit my post 🙄. I was just trying to keep some positive UK baseball talk going. We are not ranked very often.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Guess I should edit my post 🙄. I was just trying to keep some positive UK baseball talk going. We are not ranked very often.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely being positive and I didn't mean for anything in my post to be taken as a shot at you. I apologize if it came off that way.

UGA struggled under Stricklin and moved to Johnson in the off season and it looked like they'd taken some good steps forward, but I think UK made it clear this past weekend that they have a long way to go to close the gap between them and the Cats.

 

[SeanCain]

Kendall Rogers said we are close to being ranked by D1. I would guess that they currently have us around 26-28 range. A good showing this weekend and we could be ranked.

 

[trueblujr2]

Couple of seasons ago there was lots of griping about Mingione. Has he somewhat redeemed himself over the last 1.3 seasons or is the jury still out? Are we going to be stuck with him producing decent seasons that get us to a regional or a Super Regional, but never really getting over that hump? Are they pretty much equal to the football team status wise in the SEC?

 

[Comebakatz3]

Couple of seasons ago there was lots of griping about Mingione. Has he somewhat redeemed himself over the last 1.3 seasons or is the jury still out? Are we going to be stuck with him producing decent seasons that get us to a regional or a Super Regional, but never really getting over that hump? Are they pretty much equal to the football team status wise in the SEC?

My stance has been that I want a coach who can have consistent success. That means at least making the NCAA tournament regularly. There can be ups and downs to that as long as those downs aren't big gaps. Last year was a resetting of the clock for me with Mingione. So, this year and next are opportunities for him to prove that consistency is possible. Things after this weekend are looking up towards that goal. If he does it again next year I'll be fully convinced given that we may lose a whole lot this season and he may be in bit of a rebuild.

In terms of comparing it to football... I guess it may have been a bit similar but it's a difficult comparison. I'd say prior to last year it felt like football a bit. That we were stuck being middle of the road, or worse, in the league with one good season. Last year we had another, so it's looking up, but again, that comparison is kind of difficult because the difference in setups and what is success in the sports.

 

[backinky2018]

Georgia wasn't picked for last in the East. I believe they were 6th and Missouri was 7th. It's hard to know how good UGA is or isn't at this point. When I looked at scores from them it seemed obvious that they were really eating against lesser teams. Against teams closer to them in standing, the games were much closer.

Regardless, UK came out of the weekend one of just 3 teams that are 3-0. They started the weekend dead last in batting average and finished the weekend in 9th. A 40 point jump. They jumped 3+ spots in almost every offensive category and even closed the home run gap. So that is hugely encouraging as the offensive woes were really concerning knowing that we'd be facing better pitching going forward. I believe UK also moved up some in team ERA, despite facing a UGA team that showed that it has power.

All in all, we killed UGA. We left no doubt about being better than they are and UK has a big opportunity to start league play 6-0. That's massive given that it puts us almost halfway to our goal of 13-15 wins in league play only 2 weekends in.

THIS. UGA does have some good wins (won a weekend series against Ga Tech, won a game against Iowa), but did feast on some bad teams in the OOC.

UK really needs to win the series against Mizzou, and hopefully they can get a sweep. That puts us in excellent shape heading into a tough (but winnable) road series in Oxford. The latter part of this schedule is BRUTAL (UT, VANDY, UF, ARKY)

 

[Comebakatz3]

THIS. UGA does have some good wins (won a weekend series against Ga Tech, won a game against Iowa), but did feast on some bad teams in the OOC.

UK really needs to win the series against Mizzou, and hopefully they can get a sweep. That puts us in excellent shape heading into a tough (but winnable) road series in Oxford. The latter part of this schedule is BRUTAL (UT, VANDY, UF, ARKY)

I think if you look at pure stats UGA looks outstanding, but if you dig a bit deeper you start to have some questions and I think UK exposed the weaknesses that a poor schedule was hiding.

That being said, what really blows my mind is that UK seems to have changed its own stripes this weekend. UGA is undoubtedly a tougher opponent than many we have faced to this point, so it is very strange that we turned on the power and (I think) doubled our HR output in just one series and increased out BA by 40 points. So, for UK going forward, I am not sure if we should definitely expect more of the same or if we just had one of those amazing weekends where everyone saw the ball well. We will find out more as we go along, but this was definitely a big weekend towards raising hopes.

 

[K86]

So far the cats look like they have a hangover from the weekend. Down 3-0.

 

[K86]

The bats wake up and Cats win 11-3. The offense keeps rolling. 48 runs in 4 games.

 

[Seamhead_Ninja]

The best thing you can do in college baseball is ignore polls. They are universally brand name-biased and too often are completely inconsistent based on results. This sport, in particular, is one where computer rankings like WarrenNolan.com, NCAA RPI, 6-4-3 charts DSR, etc. are far more reliable over the course of the season, IMO.