Plenty of crow to be eaten when Johnson gets this LSU team to Omaha

I applaud your optimism, but you must be hitting the Delta 8 pretty hard this morning. This is still a CPM team. I'd temper my expectations if I were you, or you'll be sadly disappointed by mid-season.

Corky,

The only way Johnson has this team in Omaha is if the team bus gets lost coming home from a series at Chadron State and stops to askfor directions.

This team will come around. My only I have 2 major issues. One believing you can start a pitcher in the SEC that has no secondary pitches and throws fastballs right down the pipe. Start one of the freshman Taylor or Dutton. The second thing is defensive errors. Ok one more clutch or timely hitting .

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Pitching is too suspect. Not a dominant arm on team

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Have you heard of blake money?

Fielding! We suck at it. It’s not just errors; it’s also good plays that are not being made. Last night Gio had two plays on which he left his feet and dropped fly balls. One was a fairly easy play and the other would have been a highlight reel play. He came up with neither. Berry cost us runs when he didn’t transfer and throw quickly in the eighth. Thompson cost us twice; once was an error on a throw to first, and the other was a bobbled relay throw to pick off a runner returning to first. In addition to the bobble, he was saved from an error when his shite throw was dug up by Morgan. Bianco misplayed a fly ball. Maybe there was more.

Our fielding is so bad I don’t think it’s fixable. It’s certainly possible that we could get to a Super Regional and not have a lot of errors, but I would not bet on it.

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Ok one more clutch or timely hitting

How do you recommend they work on that?

Maybe you work on it by sitting some of the starters & put someone else on the field. Maybe you would get some of the guy's attention. A&M's guys were being coached up...LSU's guys....

El Oh El

This is a good example of the grass always being greener somewhere else. CPM emphasized defense and coached situational defense. His teams almost always sparkled. For years this board complained that he sacrificed hitting for defense, and he did. Now we have an offense-minded coach and we are blanching at the defensive mayhem.

Also, CPM believed in saving arms by not warming guys in the bullpen until he was likely to need them. He also believed that this tended to shake the pitchers confidence. It was often frustrating to see an LSU pitcher who was wild and getting in trouble, and we didn’t even have anyone in the pen. CJJ seems to always have people warming once the starter is out.

Lastly, CPM didn’t play pitching matchups like CJJ does. CPM rarely pulled a pitcher to get a lefty on a lefty, and this board used to vilify him for it. CJJ seems to do it a lot.

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But pitching overrules everything, and that’s what we don’t have this year.

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I don’t agree with this. The staff looks a lot better than I thought they would be. We have a legit Friday arm in Money, and Hilliard is a productive starter, too. We have three good high leverage guys in Gervase, Fontenot and Reyzelman. Ty Floyd gives you a fourth, because he clearly isn’t going through SEC lineups twice. Vietmeier is a good Sunday inning eater. Dutton, Edwards and Hellmers are all guys who can pitch. Grant Taylor looks fantastic so far; that’s probably your third starter. If we can get Coleman back (doubtful) the staff should become a strength.

This team needs to play defense. If they can clean that up this is an Omaha team, but that’s a tall order.

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Maybe you work on it by sitting some of the starters & put someone else on the field. Maybe you would get some of the guy's attention.

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Which guys you sitting and who you gonna replace them with?

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A&M's guys were being coached up

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Coached up to make fielders drop fly balls?