Auburn (Tues) / Mercer (Wed)

GTNavyNuke

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Good, this is where unproven freshmen belong. Mid-week where they will hopefully prove themselves.

Hurter (12.91 ERA; 20 walks, hits, HBP in 7.2 innings for 2.86 WHIP) has by far the tougher team to pitch to than Shirah (7.71 ERA; 13 walks, hits and HBP in 4.2 IP for 1.84 WHIP).

Our RPI is 55 on SOS of 33. Auburn's is 1 on 32 SOS. Just like last time, Auburn is on a losing streak going into our game. They lost their second game of the year on Sunday to Texas A&M. They also must have a pitching crisis (tic).

Mercer RPI is 130 on SOS of 253. They don't play today and swept Eastern Kentucky (RPI 207) over the weekend. So they took care of business.

I like Shirah getting Mercer; that game is more likely to be won. We could win both since it's baseball. But my expectations are that we will go 1-1.
 

FredJacket

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Good, this is where unproven freshmen belong. Mid-week where they will hopefully prove themselves.

Hurter (12.91 ERA; 20 walks, hits, HBP in 7.2 innings for 2.86 WHIP) has by far the tougher team to pitch to than Shirah (7.71 ERA; 13 walks, hits and HBP in 4.2 IP for 1.84 WHIP).

Our RPI is 55 on SOS of 33. Auburn's is 1 on 32 SOS. Just like last time, Auburn is on a losing streak going into our game. They lost their second game of the year on Sunday to Texas A&M. They also must have a pitching crisis (tic).

Mercer RPI is 130 on SOS of 253. They don't play today and swept Eastern Kentucky (RPI 207) over the weekend. So they took care of business.

I like Shirah getting Mercer; that game is more likely to be won. We could win both since it's baseball. But my expectations are that we will go 1-1.
As for tonight's game (Auburn)...I'll give a little positive "motivational" nudge for home field... incentive to get Coach Hall win 1000; and simply knowing you have a shot this quickly for a little 'revenge' after losing to these guys last week. A nationally ranked team to boot.

Something I simply cannot gauge is how the team approaches these mid-week games from an intensity standpoint. It seems we fans consider them less important in the big scheme of things... but its a matter of degree. Obviously, you want to prioritize ACC games when setting pitching rotation and all. However... EVERY game is really critical to increasing wins and improving the RPI come NCAA tourney placement. Whatever we do in these non-conference games can make a big difference in where (location and seeding) we'd be placed in the post-season.
 

dawgbasher

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Gotta really hope Hurter can go at least 3 innings. That would help a lot considering we must play 5 games this week.
 

RoosterJacket

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What a great bottom half of the first inning. Not.

We get Murray and Bart on, then CDH has Bailey sac bunt. Yes, sac bunt in the bottom of the first inning with one of your best hitters on the team. English then hits a pop up that dropped between 3 Auburn guys, so a run scored. Then, McCann grounds out to 1B and horrible baserunning ends with us getting doubled up at home.

Let Bailey hit and we might still be at the plate. So dumb.
 

FredJacket

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What a great bottom half of the first inning. Not.

We get Murray and Bart on, then CDH has Bailey sac bunt. Yes, sac bunt in the bottom of the first inning with one of your best hitters on the team. English then hits a pop up that dropped between 3 Auburn guys, so a run scored. Then, McCann grounds out to 1B and horrible baserunning ends with us getting doubled up at home.

Let Bailey hit and we might still be at the plate. So dumb.
I agree with you on decision to bunt Bailey. 100% ... but key word is "might". We also could have scored 0 runs. Never know.
 

GTNavyNuke

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This game beats the crap out of being down 7 after 1 inning.

We're up 1 after 2. Stupid English base running in first and Hall getting thrown out trying to steal in second have limited us. We really need to get the Auburn pitch count up. At 29 after 2 innings.

Hurter is getting help from the D and making timely good pitches. Strike 54% low at 20 strikes in 37 pitches after 2. But the guys he is pitching too will take advantage of bad pitches. He has to throw strikes that are also hard to hit.
 

FredJacket

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This game beats the crap out of being down 7 after 1 inning.

We're up 1 after 2. Stupid English base running in first and Hall getting thrown out trying to steal in second have limited us. We really need to get the Auburn pitch count up. At 29 after 2 innings.

Hurter is getting help from the D and making timely good pitches. Strike 54% low at 20 strikes in 37 pitches after 2. But the guys he is pitching too will take advantage of bad pitches. He has to throw strikes that are also hard to hit.
You might only be listening... Hall's goes into stupid base running category too... as well as caught stealing (technically). Hall seems to be developing a pattern in this regard. I guess upside is you have get on base quite a bit to get that label this soon. Freshman learning curve...hopefully.
 

senoiajacket

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You might only be listening... Hall's goes into stupid base running category too... as well as caught stealing (technically). Hall seems to be developing a pattern in this regard. I guess upside is you have get on base quite a bit to get that label this soon. Freshman learning curve...hopefully.
I feel like the baseball team isn’t a lot like this years basketball team in that we have a thin margin for success. Little mistakes (or not so little) add up. We really have to play a clean game against top competition to expect to win. We get 27 outs to work with and we have already given away 3 of them ....
 

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Meanwhile, Chase Murray is 1 for 1. This after going something like 8 for 13 in the Virginia Tech series. Man he is on fire again.
 

tatertot1

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This game beats the crap out of being down 7 after 1 inning.

We're up 1 after 2. Stupid English base running in first and Hall getting thrown out trying to steal in second have limited us. We really need to get the Auburn pitch count up. At 29 after 2 innings.

Hurter is getting help from the D and making timely good pitches. Strike 54% low at 20 strikes in 37 pitches after 2. But the guys he is pitching too will take advantage of bad pitches. He has to throw strikes that are also hard to hit.
What happened for us to be down by 7? After the first inning thought we had a good chance of winning but it's early
 

GTNavyNuke

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What happened for us to be down by 7? After the first inning thought we had a good chance of winning but it's early

We were down by 7 in another game after 1. Which game I don't want to go back and see.

Up 6-0. Wow. Gotta enjoy this while we can. Took a sub 2 ERA pitcher and put him to 6.1. We've had a lot of seeing eye hits and some bombs. And some great base running this inning. Please Lord let us win!
 
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