This is the best lineup we will see this year 1 through 9.
As stated above you can’t expect a college pitching staff to go an entire season without walks becoming an issue at some point.
They are great pitchers going in the top few rounds of the MLB draft in a few months going against a lineup that is missing several guys and has been in a funk that started before this weekend?
Again, what do you want a team to do when they are getting their shit kicked in? Smile and jump around with a bunch of fake enthusiasm? Being “ramped up” and “locked in” means jackshit in a sport like baseball. We got our ass kicked because their best players have been superstars and ours haven’t. Being “locked in” doesn’t make it easier to hit 98 with a hammer curveball. If it did this sport would be a lot less complicated.
I somewhat get where you are trying to go but the sport rarely works like that.
Also, we have 19 SEC wins. We could lose every game the rest of the way and would still easily host. That is how much cushion we gave ourselves the first 3 months. Let’s just not use all that cushion.
Schloss runs the offense on gameday. It is his philosophy ruling over everything. He wholeheartedly believes that most college pitchers can’t throw strikes consistently. Us being in the top 5 nationally in pitches per plate appearance is proof his philosophy has taken hold. Tulo is the one working with the players on mechanical adjustments day to day. Same setup he had with Earley last year.
I think Schloss and Tulo are pretty aligned. If you remember that 2021 team we had where Tulo ran everything struck out a ton as well. Schloss has said openly that strikeouts don’t really bother him because his overall philosophy requires guys to be comfortable hitting with 2 strikes.
I think a lot of what we are seeing are the same guys who struggled with swing and miss last year against Big 12 pitching (Gasparino, Flores, Borba, Farmer) still having a lot of the same issues against better pitching. Which makes sense. These guys are good coaches but they ain’t miracle workers.
Schloss said from day 1 in fall ball that we had a good team but our best players were going to need to carry a heavy load and stay healthy because the depth wasn’t there.
Our team leader at SS is hitting .180 in SEC play, our Friday night starter is out for the season, our best hitter hasn’t played in almost 2 months and our prized portal pickup in the outfield has been relegated to spot starts against Prairie View A&M.
I think we all mentioned/feared getting out-talented at some point despite how well we’ve played for 3 months and it’s now staring us in the face. Have to respond.
Farmer and Borba aren’t bad players but they are the type of borderline players Pierce repeatedly brought in who are probably not championship level but also not bad enough to run out of town.
Going to be some interesting movement with this roster in the offseason.
What do you expect a dugout to look like when you are down 4-1 and have struck out 27 times in 12 innings?
I wouldn’t expect our guys to be laughing and jumping around.