Western Kentucky @ Kentucky

[Comebakatz3]

I am not sure, but I am guessing Logue goes again in this one. WKU is 3-4 on the year with a series win against Western Illinois and one win in a 4 game set against Central Michigan. Looks like WKU struggles some offensively and UK should continue to score a whole lot against them. Pitching hasn't been horrible, but this will be their first midweek game, so not entirely sure who they'll throw this afternoon.

 

[dtjr]

I am not sure, but I am guessing Logue goes again in this one. WKU is 3-4 on the year with a series win against Western Illinois and one win in a 4 game set against Central Michigan. Looks like WKU struggles some offensively and UK should continue to score a whole lot against them. Pitching hasn't been horrible, but this will be their first midweek game, so not entirely sure who they'll throw this afternoon.

I really hope we put up some early runs in these next two games. Build some confidence towards the weekend.

Also need these mid week starters to put in some innings.

 

[bigbluegrog]

I have three free tickets behind home plate if anyone would like them. Beautiful day!

 

[Comebakatz3]

I am going to venture a guess and say that possibly Cooper Hellman pitches for WKU against us. He's appeared in 3 games out of the 7 and started 1, which was on Saturday when he went 2.1 innings. I am just guessing that since he started on Saturday, the might consider him their midweek guy. Really hard to tell though.

WKU hitting just .255 as a team and averaging about 6 runs a game, this against average competition. I will say that they have some guys who have raked. 2B Tristan Garcia is hitting .409 with 2 doubles and a triple. 1B Aiden Gilroy is hitting .393 with a double, a triple, and a home run. C Ty Batusich is hitting .354 with 2 doubles and 4 home runs. The problem is that they have 5 guys who have started at least 5 of the 7 that are hitting below .211 with 4 of those hitting sub .176. Just aren't going to win many games with that many starters struggling. Some subs have done well, so maybe we see a mixup against UK.

 

[Comebakatz3]

No Anu this afternoon after he was injured on Sunday.

 

[dtjr]

View embedded media

No Anu this afternoon after he was injured on Sunday.

Was it his hamstring?

 

[Comebakatz3]

Ming says Anu out today and tomorrow.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Was it his hamstring?

Yea.

 

[Jeff12wb]

Free stream below:

UK-WKU Stream

Again, there will be a couple pop ups but just close them out quickly and return to the streaming page to play.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Logue retires them in order, two fly balls and a strikeout.

 

[Comebakatz3]

UK got Plastiak aboard, but otherwise everyone flew out.

0-0 top 2.

Now UK gave up a leadoff double, but Logue gets a strikeout to follow it up.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Cats trade a base for an out on a chopper up the middle taken by Harris.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Logue gives up a no dount home run. 2-0 Toppers

 

[dtjr]

Logue gives up a no dount home run. 2-0 Toppers

Bomb
ugh

 

[Aday117]

Moonshot. Feel like our offense should put up runs against this pitcher but we’ll see.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Tied 2 in 3rd

 

[Comebakatz3]

Home runs all day. Down 3-2

 

[167Hike]

Out here at the ballpark putting live eyes on this team.

 

[Aday117]

Logue getting hit pretty hard. Leaving way to much up and over the plate.

 

[KYExtemper]

This WKU squad got beaten 3 games to 1 by Central Michigan last weekend.

 

[Aday117]

This ump has been laughably bad with his zone.

 

[sluggercatfan]

Logue getting hit pretty hard. Leaving way to much up and over the plate.

So what's up. Game should br over or extra innings.

 

[TuckyFB]

So what's up. Game should br over or extra innings.

7-5 WKU

Kentucky has one on with 2 outs, Church up to bat

 

[Comebakatz3]

So what's up. Game should br over or extra innings.

Last I saw WKU took the lead but I'm not listening. Had to deal with things at home.

 

[Aday117]

Been playing with fire all season against weak competition and it finally burns us. Not sure how this bolds for the rest of the season.

 

[KYExtemper]

WKU wins 7-5. UK leaves too many on base.

This team is not going to be ready for prime time when we hit the meat of the SEC schedule. This WKU team is pretty bad.

 

[TuckyFB]

Team is going to get obliterated in SEC play

 

[Comebakatz3]

Cats go down 7-5

 

[Tskware]

Team is going to get obliterated in SEC play

Hope not, going to withhold judgment for moment. Barring something unforseen, I am going to the opener vs. TCU, this weekend will give us a good insight as to what kind of team we really have.

 

[SeanCain]

Hope not, going to withhold judgment for moment. Barring something unforseen, I am going to the opener vs. TCU, this weekend will give us a good insight as to what kind of team we really have.

Obvious up to this point that pitching is a weakness.

 

[167Hike]

Team is going to get obliterated in SEC play

This team is going to get obliterated by TCU this weekend

 

[Comebakatz3]

This, to me is a gut check opportunity for this team. How they respond tomorrow will be telling. Let another game go by and this will be an extremely long season as we might go 0-5 on the week. Respond in a big way against an extremely poor Evansville and compete this weekend and this looks more like just one of those random tough baseball losses.

So, we'll see. Going to try not to get too low on this one.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Watching the game on replay. Still think it's kind of interesting that Rubalcaba went from a one knee catcher to more hybrid. He starts in a traditional stance and then often receives the ball with a knee down, and kind of jumps into it right as the pitcher begins to throw. Last year he'd just straight camp on a knee.

 

[Comebakatz3]

The pitching wasn't all that bad. Just some mistake pitches and we got hit. This weekend we were prone to the walk. Today not many walks, but we just got hit. Which is good and bad.

I also have no idea how we only had 1 error. Should have had 3.

Could make it possibly 4 with Ritter not catching a relatively easy throw down on a stolen base attempt in the 9th. Probably not easy enough to give him an E, but that's a play Ritter usually makes.

 

[dtjr]

The pitching wasn't all that bad. Just some mistake pitches and we got hit. This weekend we were prone to the walk. Today not many walks, but we just got hit. Which is good and bad.

I also have no idea how we only had 1 error. Should have had 3.

Could make it possibly 4 with Ritter not catching a relatively easy throw down on a stolen base attempt in the 9th. Probably not easy enough to give him an E, but that's a play Ritter usually makes.

I thought Logue did well except for the HR pitch.

We left 13 men on base. Not good.

2 guys in the bullpen got roughed up.

We hit the ball at least but again we need to score early versus playing catch up even if it was only 2 runs in the beginning.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I thought Logue did well except for the HR pitch.

We left 13 men on base. Not good.

2 guys in the bullpen got roughed up.

We hit the ball at least but again we need to score early versus playing catch up even if it was only 2 runs in the beginning.

Logue racked up a bunch of Ks, but he left several up over the plate that got hit and hit hard. Was pretty hard to hit other than the random mistakes. Still, probably good enough to win for UK had the offense put together hits.

I think it was pretty obvious that Lee was having some control issues the moment he stepped on the mound. Still, he battled through it and was almost out of the inning before losing it again.

I think the LOB stat is always a bit meh. You could get a walk with 2 outs and that is 1, but they aren't all that likely to score. So, moreso for me, it is how many did you leave in scoring position and how many reached base with more than 2 outs. I am going to dig into it deeper today and see how many real missed opportunities we had.

I know on one early, we had 1 runner on 1st (IIRC) with 2 outs and the inning should have ended when Thrasher popped one up behind second and the 2B let it drop. Should have been an easy out and instead it went for a double and UK ended up leaving an extra runner on base in that inning. So, in some ways that was 2 that weren't all that earned.

That brings up another issues. UK had 2 doubles in the game and one of them was a pop up to the 2B that should have been caught and could have easily been called an error instead of a hit. So, other than the HR, we had 1 other extra base hit and it came in the 9th by Felker. If you hit singles you to string together hits... otherwise you need extra base hits. We didn't do either.

 

[dtjr]

"UK had 2 doubles in the game and one of them was a pop up to the 2B that should have been caught and could have easily been called an error instead of a hit. So, other than the HR, we had 1 other extra base hit and it came in the 9th by Felker. If you hit singles you to string together hits... otherwise you need extra base hits."

Which is what we were afraid of at the start of the year.

Do we have guys who can hit for extra bases or should we rely on stolen bases etc?

Some guys have some pop and hit the ball hard but others are struggling. Fogel, Jump and a couple others are struggling. Its early.

 

[Basil Cat]

"UK had 2 doubles in the game and one of them was a pop up to the 2B that should have been caught and could have easily been called an error instead of a hit. So, other than the HR, we had 1 other extra base hit and it came in the 9th by Felker. If you hit singles you to string together hits... otherwise you need extra base hits."

Which is what we were afraid of at the start of the year.

Do we have guys who can hit for extra bases or should we rely on stolen bases etc?

Some guys have some pop and hit the ball hard but others are struggling. Fogel, Jump and a couple others are struggling. Its early.

Great points. It appears Plastiak will have to carry our power numbers. A lot to put on one player.

 

[Comebakatz3]

"UK had 2 doubles in the game and one of them was a pop up to the 2B that should have been caught and could have easily been called an error instead of a hit. So, other than the HR, we had 1 other extra base hit and it came in the 9th by Felker. If you hit singles you to string together hits... otherwise you need extra base hits."

Which is what we were afraid of at the start of the year.

Do we have guys who can hit for extra bases or should we rely on stolen bases etc?

Some guys have some pop and hit the ball hard but others are struggling. Fogel, Jump and a couple others are struggling. Its early.

I will say that there seems to be a whole lot more movement on the base paths this season than in any one I can remember. Not as much with stealing as with hit and runs. Now, the question there will be whether UK can and does continue to play with that style. Right now, when we're hitting .341, the confidence to put the bat on the ball and not leave a runner out to dry is pretty high. So, what happens if we start to struggle this weekend or in SEC play to put the ball into play and the strikeout numbers go up? Will we continue to be aggressive or will that slow down, and at that point, will UK be able to put up runs?

We will see. Hitting has been streaky, but overall good. As mentioned, this weekend is a big test.

 

[CockyCat3]

I'm hoping that our pitching is going to play to the level of the competition. I think in a lot of cases, especially early in the season, the pitchers aren't breaking out their whole arsenal against the OOC schedule. Almost like pitchers in spring training who are just throwing fastball and change-ups for a little while until they get dialed in and start throwing curves and sliders. Hopefully, after 2 outings each our starters have gotten the feel for their pitches and our fielders have gotten used to playing outside and have knocked the rust off. If you think about Saturday's outing, you think to yourself, "Man, Cotto didn't make it out of the 3rd inning." And you would be correct. He gave up 6 runs, but none of them were earned. ( Even though it was his error that started the whole thing.) The first 2 Runs Bosma gave up this year came on a tailor made double play ball that ritter threw away (no error because you can't assume the double play, so earned run), and the second one came on a routine fly ball to RF that was not caught. Initially it was called a hit and then changed to an error later. There have been a lot of misplays with outfielders not calling off infielders on pop-ups, or like Plastiak not calling off the pitcher on the foul pop yesterday. I feel like we have been giving the other teams a lot of extra outs, which has a pretty big impact on the pitchers. I think the guys will get this corrected as they play together more, and as they get more time in the field. This will have a huge impact on our pitchers too because it keeps them in rhythm and saves them from throwing a bunch of extra pitches. So, I am still really optimistic about where we are headed once some of this early season rust get shaken off. If we can play in the field like we know we can, and our pitchers turn out to pitch like the hype has said, then we've always got a chance to be in every game, cause if we can keep a team off the scoreboard, we always have a shot. Really looking forward to seeing what happens this weekend. Hopefully we can saves some arms tonight against Evansville. Not sure what they were thinking scheduling 2 midweek games before the biggest OOC weekend series we have.