re: Cooper Williams’ outing

To me, he was throwing the pitches that were called. He was ahead many times and had multiple throw away pitches that were called. I think the coaching staff didn't want him to throw one over the plate and get hit hard. So he was either throwing that slider, or he was nibbling trying to paint the black.

No put away pitch against lhb.

As others have said he was getting squeezed. I think it got on in his head a bit.

He will be fine, I would call on him tomorrow

He looked fine. The strike zone moved up and down and left and right during the game.

I don’t think he was squeezed. Those weren’t strikes, but he wasn’t missing wildly. Just nibbling. They didn’t hit him overly hard

He may have been squeezed a bit, but (IIRC) he got "up" in the count on every batter he faced. I think the bigger issue (as some pointed out) is that once he got up he was called to throw a few "waste" pitches to try to get a swing and miss. The problem was they were so far out of the zone that it was an easy 2 strike take for the batter. Once the count got tighter he had to throw back over the plate more...which got hit.

When you are up 0-2 or 1-2 you want to miss just off the plate knowing the batter is in protect mode. Williams was just missing way too far off the plate to force the batter to "protect"

I’ve been impressed with Cooper Williams all season and today he didn’t disappoint.. he’s gaining valuable experience as a true freshman and to come into a CWS game and do well under pressure didn’t discourage..