v Thundering Herd Baseball

[THWG]

The HBP numbers are incredible…was there a strong wind gusting between the mound and home plate? And only blowing when we were pitching?

I mean, they hit 4 of our guys too. It was just one of those weird days.

 

[stinger78]

I mean, they hit 4 of our guys too. It was just one of those weird days.

Who hit who first?

 

[gtbeak]

Who hit who first?

We did, in the top of the 1st. But I don't think any were a matter of retaliation, it was just college kids who don't have great command yet.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Just win tomorrow. I predicted four wins based on athletic talent and last years record. If we are 7 of first 8, I think that's fine and all will be forgotten once we get a week into ACC play.

So far I think we are playing better D and pitching than last year. The hitting hasn't caught up to last year by eyeball only.

I hope Geisler gets back before ACC play. We have unofficially heard he was hit by pitch in practice and it could be awhile.

Go Jackets.

 

[FittedJacket]

The good news is this team is young and solid on both sides of the ball. The bad news is that this season isn’t going to end with an ACC Championship or a deep Regional run. Malingering a bit I guess, but if the 21, 22 or 23 teams had this pitching, GT Baseball would have some more trophies in the case. Oh well. Another bright note is that next year’s recruiting will be excellent again.

 

[slugboy]

This weekend we play the most games (4) against the worst team on the schedule Marshall Thundering Herd (RPI 274). This series will hurt our RPI, but given the tough schedule we have in ACC and OOC coming up it shouldn't make a difference in two months. But we really want to win all 4 to take less of an RPI hit.

They lost their first fours games @Hawaii. But I'd be seeing the island given the chance too. I looked at their D1 write-up where they are picked to finish 12th of 14. They have some good players; Shortstop Maika Niu, catcher Nolan Wilson, who is in his fifth year as a Nevada transfer, Cam Harthan in CF. Lots of pitchers who we should feast on, especially in 3rd and 4th game. But what should happen doesn't usually seem to happen in baseball (tic). Hawaii scored 18 on them in 4 games.

I've got 4 wins and 31 to 40 runs for us. Not kicking the football yet; this expectation is only based on the quality of the teams. We are going to be sorely tested in ACC play. Another week.

Unfortunately, the weather looks good through Monday so we'll get all four games in probably. Gonna be cold Friday with the temps going into the 30s if the game starts @4PM. Monday will be really nice.
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I know it's a long flight, but I’d play a 4-game away series vs Hawaii. I’d take the RPI hit for that

 

[MWBATL]

I know it's a long flight, but I’d play a 4-game away series vs Hawaii. I’d take the RPI hit for that

When do we leave? Especially eliminating early season cold rainy days? COUNT ME IN!!!!!

 

[GTNavyNuke]

The good news is this team is young and solid on both sides of the ball. The bad news is that this season isn’t going to end with an ACC Championship or a deep Regional run. Malingering a bit I guess, but if the 21, 22 or 23 teams had this pitching, GT Baseball would have some more trophies in the case. Oh well. Another bright note is that next year’s recruiting will be excellent again.

Looks like a beautiful day for baseball! I was wrong that we'd win 4 games. But looks like the 31-40 runs is likely as we've scored 25 through 3 games.

I think we are better than last year but are going to have offense problems with ACC pitching based on the early ACC game write-ups on D1. There are really solid pitching staffs out there; good pitching beats good hitting.

But fortunately we have to play the games and will see.

 

[DecaturJacket]

Expecting us to be 8-0 after this weekend was always dreaming imo. It doesn't matter what your schedule is, 8-0 is really tough for even a top 10, especially top 25, and especially especially an unranked team picked to finish in the bottom half of the conference. Let's remember realistic expectations. Of these first games, Marshall is not the one I would have picked to lose against, but win today and it won't hurt too bad.

#1 Texas A&M dropped a game to then 1-4 Cal Poly yesterday. #2 LSU dropped one to then 1-4 Omaha over the weekend. Point being, people forget that baseball isn't football and nobody is going undefeated, a lot of top teams will have a few weird losses, and all in all just win your series and nothing else really matters.

I, for one, am pretty impressed with this team so far. It seems like the impression is that the pitching has been good, but the offense has been slow to get going. The pitching is definitely looking better than it has in quite a while, but guys we've got 6 guys hitting .308 and over. Just looking at avg five of them are .333 and over. Drew Burress and Parker Brosius are not in that group and I fully expect them to end up there sooner than later. I think we're gonna be fine on offense. Schmidt and Lodise looking like very solid additions. Lackey and Kerse performing as we'd hoped in their second year. Hernandez and Daniel look very promising so far. I'm very confident Burress and Brosius will come around. While Burress hitting below .300 isn't something we're used to, he's still drawing walks and at .412 obp (and of course 3 hr). I also like that we're running to the tune of 12 for 13 on sb through 7 games. While Goose is out, my only concern is that DH spot. Waugh has not looked all that great (.188), but has drown walks (.381 obp). Obviously Rogers will get some time behind the plate and it's nice that we have some positional flexibility such that there's a number of guys who could rotate out and take the DH spot when that happens. If Rogers gets going, we'll be sitting pretty imo. So far he's hitting .200, hasn't drawn a walk, and has 6 k's in 10 ab's. He does have the hr and he looks comfortable up there. I think it's just a matter of time until he gets the hang of things. I do worry that not being in the lineup consistently will make that harder for him though. When/If Goose gets back things immediately look even better.

Pitching has been pretty solid against mediocre opponents so far. I don't say that to take away from them, just to slow down some expectations. I'm VERY confident Tate is going to be one of the more solid Friday guys in the league. After that I'm less confident. Riley has looked good. It's a bit concerning that opponents are hitting .250 off of him though. He's been able to get out of jams, but I worry about keeping that up once the competition picks up. Who knows what to take away from Brady so far. One nightmare and one solid outing. Hopefully we see more of the Marshall Brady than the ODU Brady. Chicoli got the midweek start and looked like the freshman he is. I'm excited to see his improvement as he gets more innings. Patel has been nothing short of amazing thus far. I'm hesitant to get TOO excited because it looks like mostly the same stuff as last year (8.25 ERA), but he's really cut back on the walks so far (16 in 36 ip last year vs 1 in his first 8.1 this year). For the most part, the whole pen has been great. Buursema and Ballard with some high ERAs currently, but I'm fairly confident they get it together. Porter has strikeout stuff (his first 6 outs of the year), but has to control the zone - 3 walks and 1 hbp in 2.2 so far. Carson has 6 k's and no walks (1 hbp though) in 3.0 ip, but has just been getting hit (7 hits in 3.0 ip). Hard to take much away from anybody else so far, but everybody has looked pretty good. Paden, Gaudette, McMullen, Spivey, Swygert, and Royer all at least 2.0 ip and 0 er. As a staff we have 78 k's to 25 bb (and 14 hbp). No matter the opponents, this looks like a major improvement on what we've seen the past 5-10 years for the most part. Definitely worth getting excited about, but like I said just simmer expectations a little for now and let's see what we do as we get into ACC play.

 

[DecaturJacket]

Gaudette struggling today. No walks, but just getting hit. He's getting ahead, but seems to be missing spots when he needs to make a pitch to get an out. Rather have guys struggle in games like this than ones later in the season that mean more (assuming we can keep/extend the lead and get the win).

 

[DecaturJacket]

Whelp. Hernandez getting hit as well. Hopefully the offense can wake back up and get some runs these last two innings.

 

[GTRambler]

Well. Marshall had a 18-37 record last season.

So far early in this season, Georgia Tech’s pitching overall remains poor.

It’s going to be a long season.

 

[DecaturJacket]

So far early in this season, Georgia Tech’s pitching overall remains poor.

It’s going to be a long season.

Lol. Seriously? I've been the lowest person on this board on the pitching, or at least the person saying pump the breaks on the expectations, but we had a team 2.95 era going into this game. Our 1 loss going in was a 4-2 loss. This is literally the first sign of any struggle from our pitching.

It's baseball, not football. You can't make broad assessments based on one game. We're going to have days like this. We'd have days like this even if we were the best team in the country.

 

[gtbeak]

Well Nuke, who is the one Swarmer who called the 2-2 split correctly? I'm not sure if I want to congratulate them or kick them off the island, but they did get it right.

Overall a disappointing series. This will be an opportunity to test the leadership and the spirit of the team. I know a few of you have been really high on the attitude of this team, let's hope you are correct. Still, the pitching does seem a little better than the past couple seasons, but still room for improvement. Hopefully the bats can come to life...they haven't been terrible, but not quite up to the standards we have come to expect.

As Fred said in an earlier post, I'll continue to enjoy the journey, even if it doesn't take me exactly where I would prefer to go.

 

[THWG]

Lol. Seriously? I've been the lowest person on this board on the pitching, or at least the person saying pump the breaks on the expectations, but we had a team 2.95 era going into this game. Our 1 loss going in was a 4-2 loss. This is literally the first sign of any struggle from our pitching.

It's baseball, not football. You can't make broad assessments based on one game. We're going to have days like this. We'd have days like this even if we were the best team in the country.

I agree. Definitely disappointed with the outcome of the series but I am still very impressed with the pitching overall. We still have to figure out roles for everyone and now is the time to test them out. This was the first game this year where the pitching has imploded.

I feel like we have three strong middle relievers in Swygert, Patel, and Spivey and a strong closer in Payden. This is already more depth than we've had the last few years. I think our rotation is solid but not spectacular which is different from the last few years too where we have not really had any consistent starters. And we have some talented but inconsistent underclassmen as well in guys like Gaudette and Ballard. I'm not expecting us to win the ACC but I do think that this is a tournament team and one that has enough pitching depth (knock on wood) to get past a regional.

 

[DecaturJacket]

Well Nuke, who is the one Swarmer who called the 2-2 split correctly? I'm not sure if I want to congratulate them or kick them off the island, but they did get it right.

Overall a disappointing series. This will be an opportunity to test the leadership and the spirit of the team. I know a few of you have been really high on the attitude of this team, let's hope you are correct. Still, the pitching does seem a little better than the past couple seasons, but still room for improvement. Hopefully the bats can come to life...they haven't been terrible, but not quite up to the standards we have come to expect.

As Fred said in an earlier post, I'll continue to enjoy the journey, even if it doesn't take me exactly where I would prefer to go.

We're still scoring 7 runs a game. That's even with the opening 3-2 win and the 4-2 loss are weighing that number down. In the other 6 (including today) we're averaging 8.33. We were hitting .286 with 32 walks (over 4.5 per game) going into today and had 9 hits and 8 walks today. The top three went 6 for 10 with 4 walks today. I'm with you that the offense can be better, but I mean if our standards are above what we've shown so far we've got some high standards for a team projected to be bottom half of the ACC. That being said, I do think the offense will continue to produce and get slightly better.

We gave up 12 ER today, but I still liked that we made them earn them. There were some walks and a hit batter in there, but for the most part they worked for those runs (3 HR and 3 doubles).

I think the thing I took away the most from this game is that, despite how excited I was to him in there finally, Musci doesn't look ready. It was his first collegiate outing and I will continue to preach not to take anything away from a single outing, but that wasn't pretty. I thought he'd have the chance at a big role early and I don't know that I think that anymore. He's got the velocity. Hopefully he finds the control and today was a lot of nerves.

 

[MWBATL]

I agree. Definitely disappointed with the outcome of the series but I am still very impressed with the pitching overall. We still have to figure out roles for everyone and now is the time to test them out. This was the first game this year where the pitching has imploded.

I feel like we have three strong middle relievers in Swygert, Patel, and Spivey and a strong closer in Payden. This is already more depth than we've had the last few years. I think our rotation is solid but not spectacular which is different from the last few years too where we have not really had any consistent starters. And we have some talented but inconsistent underclassmen as well in guys like Gaudette and Ballard. I'm not expecting us to win the ACC but I do think that this is a tournament team and one that has enough pitching depth (knock on wood) to get past a regional.

Not me. The pitching was atrocious today and the handling of the bullpen was beyond comprehension. What happened to Paden? Is he hurt? Why wasn’t he used at all the entire weekend?

Giving up 12 runs to Marshall is beyond acceptable.

SSDY

 

[DecaturJacket]

Not me. The pitching was atrocious today and the handling of the bullpen was beyond comprehension. What happened to Paden? Is he hurt? Why wasn’t he used at all the entire weekend?

Giving up 12 runs to Marshall is beyond acceptable.

SSDY

Which game would you have used Paden in? The only one that even remotely would've made sense was today, but I think the plan was to get to him first. Did you want to bring him in in the 7th? I think they want him to close games. He's going to pitch plenty. We are in a stretch of 8 games in 10 days. We didn't have the convenience of just throwing guys to get their work in.

Spivey looked good for 2 innings. He really only had the leadoff walk and hbp in the second. The two singles that followed were tough luck.

Alex got hit hard, but it was his second college appearance. I think he gets a little grace as he figures out how to pitch in college. He wasn't out there walking guys.

Swygert looked good again.

Gaudette, who I really like in this pen, had a rough outing. Again, he didn't walk anybody though. He just got hit today. It happens.

I missed Campbell's appearance and I've already touched on Musci above.

I agree that it sucks to give up 12 to Marshall, but they scored 11 combined in the other three games. It was just one of those days. We got some guys experience. It didn't turn out how we wanted, but sometimes you just take it on the chin and move on. This is still baseball and bad teams will beat good teams every once in a while.

 

[MWBATL]

Which game would you have used Paden in? The only one that even remotely would've made sense was today, but I think the plan was to get to him first. Did you want to bring him in in the 7th? I think they want him to close games. He's going to pitch plenty. We are in a stretch of 8 games in 10 days. We didn't have the convenience of just throwing guys to get their work in.

Spivey looked good for 2 innings. He really only had the leadoff walk and hbp in the second. The two singles that followed were tough luck.

Alex got hit hard, but it was his second college appearance. I think he gets a little grace as he figures out how to pitch in college. He wasn't out there walking guys.

Swygert looked good again.

Gaudette, who I really like in this pen, had a rough outing. Again, he didn't walk anybody though. He just got hit today. It happens.

I missed Campbell's appearance and I've already touched on Musci above.

I agree that it sucks to give up 12 to Marshall, but they scored 11 combined in the other three games. It was just one of those days. We got some guys experience. It didn't turn out how we wanted, but sometimes you just take it on the chin and move on. This is still baseball and bad teams will beat good teams every once in a while.

Real simple. I would have brought in Paden for a 2 inning save instead of Hernandez.
You could tell we weren’t going to score again. It was either shut them out the last 2 innings or lose the game. Hall chose to lose the game. He has brought in Paden in the 8th before and let him finish.
To me it’s just THAT simple.

 

[stinger78]

Aaarggghhhh!

Groundhog Day!