UK vs Bama SEC tourney......

[CloverforkCat]

Cats take on the Tide @ 5:30 et. A J Reed takes the ball to open the win or go home opening session. Bama took 2 of 3 to open SEC play way back in early March.
Winner advances to the double elimination round to face Reg. season champ Florida tomorrow again at 5:30 et. Cats are probably in the NCAA tourney, but every win against a good opponent only builds the resume even more !

 

[CATS1945]

Originally posted by CloverforkCat:
Cats take on the Tide @ 5:30 et. A J Reed takes the ball to open the win or go home opening session. Bama took 2 of 3 to open SEC play way back in early March.
Winner advances to the double elimination round to face Reg. season champ Florida tomorrow again at 5:30 et. Cats are probably in the NCAA tourney, but every win against a good opponent only builds the resume even more !

What station on Direct TV

 

[Comebakatz3]

I got the TV and the radio on. Listened to some of the Tennessee announcer this morning. He's got nothing on Neil Price.

 

[Glenn's take]

I'm watching on ESPN 3.

 

[Glenn's take]

2-0 after 2 UK. Both teams loaded the bases in the 2nd. UK got 2 runs and Alabama 0. Alabama had them loaded with only 1 out and got nothing.

 

[Comebakatz3]

2-1 now. Alabama got a nice piece of hitting in the third to get one run.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Man!! Reida with some hustle scores from first on a two out popup single to shallow left.

He also cut up his nose on the head first slide into home. UK up 4-1 !!!

 

[Comebakatz3]

Haha Reed might have just made Sportscenter. He just grabbed a comebacker behind the back and then threw the guy out at first. Very slick play!

 

[Glenn's take]

Look for AJ Reed on the top 10 plays on ESPN tonight. If anyone remembers the Dave Righetti behind the back play on the mound from back in the day, that's exactly what it looked like.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Third pitcher of the game coming in for Alabama.

 

[CloverforkCat]

Cats missed an opportunity to get another run after Reed led off the 5th with a double to cf, could only get as far as 3rd.

 

[Comebakatz3]

UK gets a couple more 6-1! Still threatening with two outs.

 

[Glenn's take]

AJ Reed gets walked with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Who could have imagined?

They had the TN coach on for an inning and he said he was ready to give him the Barry Bonds treatment.

 

[CloverforkCat]

Cats add another run in the top of the 8th, lead 7-1. For those watching, do we have many fans there in Hoover ?

 

[Glenn's take]

Originally posted by CloverforkCat:
Cats add another run in the top of the 8th, lead 7-1. For those watching, do we have many fans there in Hoover ?

There are so few fans there period that it's hard to tell.

 

[STUCKNBIG10]

Cats win 7-1! hell of a game, great pitching by Reid and Nelson came in and knocked them out 1-2-3.

Also, great fielding by Shelby and others there at the end.

Let's beat the Gators!

 

[CloverforkCat]

BOOM baby !.....Another resume builder over a Top-25 ball club. Now let's get the Gators tomorrow afternoon !

 

[Comebakatz3]

Outstanding ball game. I think we are a solid two seed no matter what at this point. We have at least two more games to show some stuff. Not sure anything we show will matter in terms of seed, but it might get us a bit better regional. Hopefully we continue to play well and if nothing else we get on a roll going into the NCAA tournament. Put the last 15 or so games behind us and focus on just the post season and winning as many as possible.

 

[CloverforkCat]

Comeback, I imagine we will go with Kyle Cody tomorrow, don't you think ? He has been pitching better with every appearance, and we might get 5 or 6 innings out of him. We would then have to be bullpen by committee after that.

 

[Comebakatz3]

If we don't go to Cody tomorrow then Henderson should be fired on the spot. It would just be as boneheaded a move as possible (unless it worked

). After that, win or lose, I think we have to go to Chandler Shepherd for as long as we can. He has been our most consistent. In total we have 7 guys who have started this season. They all are capable of pitching and doing pretty good. So, we just need to find the pitcher that is throwing strikes that day. If Hendo can get his pitchers to warm up and find the one throwing good stuff then he needs to run with that arm. Unfortunately Henderson used Nelson for four innings today. I think that is enough to bench him at least until Saturday. The problem with this tournament is that it runs up pretty close to the NCAA tournament and you have to balance whether you want to throw everything you have to win the SEC or save arms for the NCAA? It is a unique problem that only the SEC baseball tournament faces. I'd like to make a nice run, but I also want to stay healthy and be well rested for the NCAA tournament.

 

[maysvilleky]

IMO throw everyone you can/need to try to take this first one from the Gators and then it should be by committee the rest of the way.

 

[Tskware]

Congrats to the team, looks like they will make the NCAA tourney. Hope that Henderson writes AJ Reed a long thank you note for saving his job.

 

[CatsFanGG24]

Originally posted by Tskware:
Congrats to the team, looks like they will make the NCAA tourney. Hope that Henderson writes AJ Reed a long thank you note for saving his job.

If the coach gets beat up for the poor performances of his recruited players, he has got to get the credit for someone he recruited turning out to be great.

I don't know if it was AJ Reed himself or a coach or trainer, but whoever encouraged him to really get into shape this year deserves a ton of credit.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Originally posted by CatsFanGG24:

Originally posted by Tskware:
Congrats to the team, looks like they will make the NCAA tourney. Hope that Henderson writes AJ Reed a long thank you note for saving his job.

If the coach gets beat up for the poor performances of his recruited players, he has got to get the credit for someone he recruited turning out to be great.

I don't know if it was AJ Reed himself or a coach or trainer, but whoever encouraged him to really get into shape this year deserves a ton of credit.

Reed has been amazing. I will give Henderson and his staff a ton of credit on certain things. Recruiting top players is one of them. Having teams that are very solid hitters and typically very solid defenders is another. Also for typically at least having one very solid starting guy a year. However, his bullpen development and his overall pitching development has been horrible and a huge downfall of his success. UK has the best batting average in the SEC and yet we have a pitching staff right near the bottom of the league, and but for Reed we'd be solidly at the bottom. I also think that some of his in game decisions and defensive decisions are suspect. Overall, his body of work has just not been enough for me to want to keep him around. I just don't think we're going to ever improve from this. I imagine next year will be a very rough year. We lose AJ, Cousino, Reida, and Thomas. I also wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Max Kuhn head to the big leagues after hitting .327 this year, and on the mound Spencer Jack could find himself getting drafted and heading out as well. Tom has also possible hit his way to a draft spot. If Combs, Dwyer, Nelson, and Cody step their game up some next year then we might finally have a lot of good depth at pitcher, but the first two I listed haven't shown me anything in two years that convinces me they will suddenly turn it around. Not to mention no bullpen guys have really looked like they are going to become solid in the future. So, I just don't see a lot of hope there.

We did an amazing job at the plate this year and a lot of that probably had to do with Reed. Kuhn's numbers may plummet without Reed behind him to protect him, and I mean no offense to Kuhn, he's done outstanding. I just don't see us improving those numbers or matching them next year. So, without similar hitting we could have a long year.

 

[Tskware]

Originally posted by Comebakatz3:

Originally posted by CatsFanGG24:

Originally posted by Tskware:
Congrats to the team, looks like they will make the NCAA tourney. Hope that Henderson writes AJ Reed a long thank you note for saving his job.

If the coach gets beat up for the poor performances of his recruited players, he has got to get the credit for someone he recruited turning out to be great.

I don't know if it was AJ Reed himself or a coach or trainer, but whoever encouraged him to really get into shape this year deserves a ton of credit.

Reed has been amazing. I will give Henderson and his staff a ton of credit on certain things. Recruiting top players is one of them. Having teams that are very solid hitters and typically very solid defenders is another. Also for typically at least having one very solid starting guy a year. However, his bullpen development and his overall pitching development has been horrible and a huge downfall of his success. UK has the best batting average in the SEC and yet we have a pitching staff right near the bottom of the league, and but for Reed we'd be solidly at the bottom. I also think that some of his in game decisions and defensive decisions are suspect. Overall, his body of work has just not been enough for me to want to keep him around. I just don't think we're going to ever improve from this. I imagine next year will be a very rough year. We lose AJ, Cousino, Reida, and Thomas. I also wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Max Kuhn head to the big leagues after hitting .327 this year, and on the mound Spencer Jack could find himself getting drafted and heading out as well. Tom has also possible hit his way to a draft spot. If Combs, Dwyer, Nelson, and Cody step their game up some next year then we might finally have a lot of good depth at pitcher, but the first two I listed haven't shown me anything in two years that convinces me they will suddenly turn it around. Not to mention no bullpen guys have really looked like they are going to become solid in the future. So, I just don't see a lot of hope there.

We did an amazing job at the plate this year and a lot of that probably had to do with Reed. Kuhn's numbers may plummet without Reed behind him to protect him, and I mean no offense to Kuhn, he's done outstanding. I just don't see us improving those numbers or matching them next year. So, without similar hitting we could have a long year.

That was my point, only much more eloquently stated. In short, had not Reed had the best season by far of any other player in the entire country, Kentucky probably would not have even made the SEC tourney, much less the NCAA. What was our record in games in which he was not the starting pitcher?

 

[CloverforkCat]

Looking ahead to 2015, we look to have back.....K Tom, J Shelby, S Wilson, M Carson, Z Arnold, K Barrett, D Hairston, C Heady, G Fettes, and maybe M Kuhn and T Bernal. There are some players who are RS this season.
Pitchers back will be K Cody, D Dwyer, A Nelson, Z Brown, R Combs, along with relievers S Jack, L Salow, T Martin, Z Strecker, and S Mahar hopefully returning to 2012 form.
We will not hit as well overall, but may be better on the mound as a staff.


This post was edited on 5/21 2:00 PM by CloverforkCat