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GTNavyNuke said:
That was an unearned win. The run in the fifth was only on a LF mis-play. Thank you.

Next weekend we play a good team. I expect one game to be close and lose the other two. At least if Hall is still coaching.



Best post of the weekend. I'm not as eloquent but also very pissed.



That's what I said Friday. Also in chat I sarcastically said to bring in Gibson to make it interesting.

Hall and his favs. Thank God and Allah and Jehovah and every other deity we have enough talent to overcome Hall's coaching today against an average team. This afternoon we saw one of those shunned pitchers, Jake Lee. Walked a batter and was pulled. That kid can / could pitch. I saw him mow UVa down three years ago. A non-fav wasted talent. Contrast that to the UVa coach who used a three pitchers in the 7th and 8th yesterday just to get them a little bit of game time experience. There is a reason UVa has had more success than we have recently and it starts with coaching.



Interesting season shaping up to see if we can eke into a bubble spot. No reason to panic, we know what it's like to go nowhere.

I had some vodka, more later.



Who has the worst fielding % at third in the ACC? I'd bet Serratos. I'd put Weddell at third, Austin at SS, WEbb at 2nd and English at 1st. Weddell has had some great plays at SS and the throw is as long as 3rd. I shouldn't get on Serratos so much, he actually made two put outs today with no errors.

OK, I like Brice Zimmerman announcing. Probably second to Wiley. Guy keeps up a banter and is up front honest. In the B7th before the carnage, he said that no lead was safe for GT. Turns out he was right, but we all here knew that. Confirmed when Gibson came in. As a note, if I listen to Tune-In on my phone (with headphones) I can delay the call to about what is on TV.

Finally, I was not man enough to watch the end of the game. After the Bartnicki 5 pitch walk and single off English, I started recording the game. Got some vodka and read a really good book ("Shaman" by Noah Gordon) until 1630 and then checked score. No reason to sweat something that wasn't enjoyable to me. I do have on recording and will watch now with much less stress ........
Click to expand...

What can it hurt to replace Oscar with someone else for a week or two? He was 0-4 from the plate again today, stranding a bunch of base runners. Just give him some time off so he’s not pressing.
 
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@GTNavyNuke I won't quote your post; but it was awesome!

A couple of specific responses:
1) We do play Louisville next weekend.... but up first is... Kel & the Bears. (sounds like a kids' show)
2) Brice is really good. I want Wiley; but a great fill in. Did you guys see TV showing Wiley pacing in stands in B9? HE KNEW.... HE KNEW!! ...the collapse was so imminent.
3) Team fielding % is same or slightly better than last year. It is hard to know if Waddell, Wilhite, Webb is better when factoring in everything. One thing is for sure.... we'll never know. Hall won't sit Serratos.
 

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bensaysitathome said:
Think if those numbers were paired with good pitching. 3 games were blown late. Would have swept NW, swept UVA, and won @ Miami.

I know everyone is doom and gloom right now, but we're close. If these closing pitchers get it together we can win some games.
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Yea, I mean we've played 20 games and a third of them have been 1-run games. If my numbers are correct, we've been leading in the 9th inning of every single ACC game except one. We are close it feels. Not just in having pitchers close out games, but we seem to be leaving like 1.5 runners on base per inning. Feels like if we had a little more clutch hitting, we'd be putting up 8-10 runs in some of these games which would take the pressure off the closing pitchers.
 
GTNavyNuke

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bensaysitathome said:
....... I know everyone is doom and gloom right now, but we're close. If these closing pitchers get it together we can win some games.
Click to expand...

If pitching hadn't been the problem the last few years, I'd be more optimistic. To beat the dead horse, it's closing pitcher selection as much as the closing pitchers. We have lots of pitchers who have been competent in the past. Calling Gibson in yesterday after he didn't have control the previous two games was ___________. At least he got pulled after hitting a batter and then giving up a HR. And Bartnicki got pulled on a 1-0 count after a walk. So the hook is getting quicker.

Contrast that with O'Connor at UVa who had like 4 pitchers in the 7th & 8th of game 2 where they were well behind. It gave those pitchers game experience and show how they do in a REAL game.

I agree we're close. Getting on base is good and defense is largely good. Starting pitching is the best it's been in years. But relieving is the one big piece of the puzzle that needs work ...... in the first two weeks Hall called on a lot of pitchers. In the last two, he has reverted to old form of just calling on the same pitchers even though some of them have consistently failed.
 
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FredJacket said:
@GTNavyNuke I won't quote your post; but it was awesome!

A couple of specific responses:
1) We do play Louisville next weekend.... but up first is... Kel & the Bears. (sounds like a kids' show)
2) Brice is really good. I want Wiley; but a great fill in. Did you guys see TV showing Wiley pacing in stands in B9? HE KNEW.... HE KNEW!! ...the collapse was so imminent.
3) Team fielding % is same or slightly better than last year. It is hard to know if Waddell, Wilhite, Webb is better when factoring in everything. One thing is for sure.... we'll never know. Hall won't sit Serratos.
Click to expand...
Kel Johnson is having a great year for Mercer!
.305 BA 10 hrs 27 rbi
 

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Atl sports3 said:
Kel Johnson is having a great year for Mercer!
.305 BA 10 hrs 27 rbi
Click to expand...

I wonder at that rate if he'll be Crowned home run champ of the SOCON, if he'll get a Plaque for it, and I swear I'm telling the whole tooth when I say I came up with all this on my own.
 
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As a datapoint, here's what D1 Baseball said today about UVa:
"Ted : U Va has an excellent coaching staff and lots of talented players. But they’re off to a slow start. How do you see the rest of their season going?
Aaron Fitt: Feels like it’s gonna be a struggle, Ted. I just don’t think they’re good enough on the mound. The struggles of McGarry and Vasil have perplexed me, those guys do have real talent, and they just can’t figure it out. I really like Noah Murdock and expect he’s going to start stringing together quality starts in ACC play, but right now that staff has been a major disappointment. The offense is good enough to keep them in plenty of games, but right now I’d have a hard time revising my preseason opinion that Virginia was the 11th-best team in the ACC."

Next week we get what D1 Baseball has as the best team in the ACC, L'VIlle. L'Ville was their #4 after the weekend. UCLA #1. But we get to go to L'Ville.

Certainly a lot of upside potential this weekend! (I'm optimistic since we didn't play today.)
 

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bensaysitathome said:
Think if those numbers were paired with good pitching. 3 games were blown late. Would have swept NW, swept UVA, and won @ Miami.

I know everyone is doom and gloom right now, but we're close. If these closing pitchers get it together we can win some games.
Click to expand...
I'm not doom and gloom. We have a very good team.
 
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FredJacket said:
Our offensive numbers are now pretty much aligned with 2018's full season.
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Which offensive numbers? BA, ERA, OB%? I'd guess ERA same, BA lower and OB% higher ...... offense isn't our problem; other than we face elite pitching when everyone's offense suffers.

So far our SoS has been a respectable 56th (out of 297). I expect it will get harder with the teams we have coming up. But mid-week against UGAg and AUburn we should do ok offensively as they will save their best for conference play. The SEC is really tough this year with 8 teams in the top 20. UGAg gave up 17 hits to USCe all weekend ......
 
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GTNavyNuke said:
Which offensive numbers? BA, ERA, OB%? I'd guess ERA same, BA lower and OB% higher ...... offense isn't our problem; other than we face elite pitching when everyone's offense suffers.

So far our SoS has been a respectable 56th (out of 297). I expect it will get harder with the teams we have coming up. But mid-week against UGAg and AUburn we should do ok offensively as they will save their best for conference play. The SEC is really tough this year with 8 teams in the top 20. UGAg gave up 17 hits to USCe all weekend ......
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I should have been more contextual & I was just talking about offense (hitting stats). Here is a good way to see the trend I was trying to highlight about the offense... with other stats added. Numbers broken up as follows:

2018 (full season) / 2019 (20 games) // Pre-conf play (11 games) / KSU&Miami wk (5 games) / GaSouthern&UVA wk (4 games):

BA: .291 / .291 // .251 / .317 / .367
OB%: .376 / .389 // .355 / .403 / .462
Slg%: .450 / .432 // .393 / .481 / .475
Runs: 6.47 / 6.00 // 5.18 / 7.00 / 7.00

ERA: 4.95 / 3.97 // 3.06 / 5.24 / 5.00
WHIP: 1.42 / 1.29 // 1.17 / 1.37 / 1.53

Flg%: .969 / .974 // unk / unk / unk
DP/gm: 0.79 / 0.70 // 0.64 / 0.40 / 1.25
 
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65Jacket said:
I'm not doom and gloom. We have a very good team.
Click to expand...

I think we have been a good team (13-7, 64 RPI) and have the talent to become a very good (top 20) team. Just need to do it.
FredJacket said:
I should have been more contextual & I was just talking about offense (hitting stats). Here is a good way to see the trend I was trying to highlight about the offense... with other stats added. Numbers broken up as follows:

2018 (full season) / 2019 (20 games) // Pre-conf play (11 games) / KSU&Miami wk (5 games) / GaSouthern&UVA wk (4 games):

BA: .291 / .291 // .251 / .317 / .367
OB%: .376 / .389 // .355 / .403 / .462
Slg%: .450 / .432 // .393 / .481 / .475
Runs: 6.47 / 6.00 // 5.18 / 7.00 / 7.00

ERA: 4.95 / 3.97 // 3.06 / 5.24 / 5.00
WHIP: 1.42 / 1.29 // 1.17 / 1.37 / 1.53

Flg%: .969 / .974 // unk / unk / unk
DP/gm: 0.79 / 0.70 // 0.64 / 0.40 / 1.25
Click to expand...

Thanks. Given that our SoS is currently 55 and projected to be 6, we need to get a lot better to stay the same. http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2019/team-predict-schedule?team=Georgia-Tech

Hope we do.
 
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One thing we have to acknowledge about our bullpen pitchers is that only two of them have thrown at least 10 innings and one of those guys has started a bit. That's a pretty small sample size to make decisions on. We have to wait until four or five conference weekends to really see what we have.

The guy who has thrown the most is the one I'm worried about. Hughes just doesn't strike anyone out. He's too dependent on balls in play for my taste.
 
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Squints said:
One thing we have to acknowledge about our bullpen pitchers is that only two of them have thrown at least 10 innings and one of those guys has started a bit. That's a pretty small sample size to make decisions on. We have to wait until four or five conference weekends to really see what we have.

The guy who has thrown the most is the one I'm worried about. Hughes just doesn't strike anyone out. He's too dependent on balls in play for my taste.
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It is what it is. I agree that with more games things will become more clear, but by then the course will be set. The data we have now is non-positive at best.

Fortunately we / I don't make the decisions. If I did, I would use a lot more pitchers early in the season to see who are gamers.

Hughes doesn't bother me as long as the ball isn't hit to 3rd. He has 9 SO and 5 walks in 17.0 IP. His WHIP is 1.35 and ERA is 3.18. Those numbers will probably go up as the level of competition improves. But so far Hughes is doing better than the last two years. His Fr year had a lot of promise that wasn't followed up on the next two years (injury as I recall).
 
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GTNavyNuke said:
It is what it is. I agree that with more games things will become more clear, but by then the course will be set. The data we have now is non-positive at best.
Click to expand...

It might be set and it might not. You guys can be real quick on the trigger to write the epitaph for the season when there's plenty of games left to play. Too much of a football/basketball mentality. Right now it's not worth stressing out about. Let the whole thing stew a bit. And I'd agree it's not entirely positive but like I said there's not a lot of it so I dont think it's too useful yet.

GTNavyNuke said:
Fortunately we / I don't make the decisions. If I did, I would use a lot more pitchers early in the season to see who are gamers.
Click to expand...

I haven't done any comparisons to the past years or other teams but I feel like we have. It's why other than Hughes the inning totals are pretty low. Could be mistaken though.


GTNavyNuke said:
Hughes doesn't bother me as long as the ball isn't hit to 3rd. He has 9 SO and 5 walks in 17.0 IP. His WHIP is 1.35 and ERA is 3.18. Those numbers will probably go up as the level of competition improves. But so far Hughes is doing better than the last two years. His Fr year had a lot of promise that wasn't followed up on the next two years (injury as I recall).
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If my math is right his BABIP is probably unsustainably low and his HR/FB is absolutely unsustainable (Spoiler alert its 0.0). If those regress then both his WHIP and ERA will skyrocket. Especially when his K% is in the neighborhood of 10%. I dont know his GB/FB ratio which would affect this but I think he's doing it with smoke and mirrors right now. Since college baseball is flukier because the samples are smaller maybe he can keep it up but I'm not expecting it. I'm rooting for him so hopefully I'm wrong. That does happen a lot.

And yea Hughes came to us a broken pitcher. He was drafted by the Orioles in the second round and he wouldn't have been drafted there if he didn't indicate he was willing to sign a deal. When the Orioles gave him a physical they found some red flags. They reduced their bonus offer and he said no thanks and came here. Unsurprisingly, he didn't hold up physically. Happens with the Orioles a lot. Their physicals are rigorous but when they red flag a guy they tend to break down shortly after.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
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