CWS Reflection: Does LSU win without Helenihi at 3rd?

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To me, DH's glove at 3rd was the critical piece of the puzzle in sealing the championship.

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Any runs we gave up with him at the plate were more than made up for by the ones he took away with his glove. I was never a big Helenihi fan, but without some of the plays he made at third I'm not really sure that we would have won.

easily

Never mind that his bat killed innings like the Wild Richard Murphy killed drives

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I can think of 3 or 4 critical plays at 3rd - game changing plays.

To me, DH's glove at 3rd was the critical piece of the puzzle in sealing the championship.

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I think it's logical that for all of the awesome defensive plays he had, the miserable batting average might've evened things out. I don't mean to shite on Helenihi because he impressed me at 3rd base, but I think he might've been better utilized as a defensive substitution, assuming that Hanover was ever 100% during the CWS.

Doesn't matter now with the title in hand.

I think PM knew what he was doing going with the Senior and better defender (by far)...however I dont think he was the difference. He was just a solid guy to have behind your pitcher...which ultimately gives the pitcher confidence to throw strikes. He did have an important walk and run in the 1st game and a sac fly to extend the lead to 2 runs in game 3.

One can only guess if Hanover would have made any difference either. No way he makes a difference in game 2, Jungmanns stuff was just too nasty for almost anyone...so the best you could say is that things stay the same. His defense has been atrocious over the last month. His offense hasnt been stellar either recently against quality pitching..but definately better than DH's.

I think we should be talking about DJ and not DH. Without DJ we dont win the CWS. Without DH, we DO win the CWS. Period.

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that dive and throw was awesome. didn't expect him to have THAT big of an arm.

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The barehanded pickup and throw on the slow dribbler down his baseline was a thing of beauty too. 99% of the other people send that throw into the bullpen.

Man he sucks with the bat in his hand but his fielding really was clutch. I'll say that we probably would have won without Helenihi but we would have had 1-2 errors (from Hanover) that would have made the outcome questionable.

We still win (I think) but Helenihi helped us get there even without his bat.

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It's a shame he went into such a slump.

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a 16 month slump?

My UT friends at work swears he throws around 105 mph.

I think it just looked that fast because of how important those throws were in killing UT's resolve, but what do I know.