re: Does Jay move Holman to the Friday spot?

We play on Thursday this week. He's not bumping Holman up 2 days.

He could make the move the following week against Texas.

I don’t think we see Holman on Friday until conference play. May even wait until Florida.

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Hurd's A+ game is going to be better than what Holman can give you with his A+ game

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Agreed. But I don't think the gap is as wide as a lot of you do.

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The key is, can Hurd bring that type of performance regularly.

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Agreed again.

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I think the answer is yes

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Why? Nothing he has done so far seems to indicate that. In fact, in indicates just the opposite.

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I also don't know what the plan is with Jump

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I'm not sure anybody does, even the coaches. It's going to depend almost solely on his health and how his body responds after each outing. But reading between the lines, I think the coaches think Jump has the best stuff on the staff and his A+ game is probably higher than anybody's. But I think they're gonna be conservative with him for as long as they can to put him in the best position to have success down the stretch.

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he has Friday night written all over him.

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He has "best potential starter on the staff" written all over him. But I don't think they're gonna rush him there because they don't have to. We have plenty of weekend options. And if he winds up only throwing 1 inning in a 4-game weekend to start the season, it's hard to imagine he'll be ready to start weekend games any time soon, if at all. But he'll be a huge key to the success of this staff and team and it will be really interesting to see how Jay and Yeskie plan to increase his work load and what role he winds up settling into.

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Way too early to draw any conclusions, but Holman clearly had the best weekend of any pitcher we trotted out there

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That was carried over from the performances in the spring scrimmages. Holman gives you what you need in a Friday starter and at least right now is able to go deeper into a game than anyone else on the staff. His stuff may not wow you as much as some other arms, but he continues to get the job done.

After watching the practice competition closely, I still believe that Hurd got the nod over Holman for opening day not because of his performance but in spite of it because one clearly looks more like a Friday night guy than the other at this point. It was obvious that Jay used it as he thought best to perhaps get the most out of Thatcher and reward him for being that dude at the end of last season.

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I think making any conclusions based on 1 weekend is not something you should do.

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Agree. Was there Saturday and the pitchers had the upper hand. Not sure if anyone was able to truly stay warm, but the pitchers were warmer than anyone else on the field.


He looked great tho.

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Holman Friday
Jump - Sat
Hurd Sunday

and thats for now

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Jump threw 1 inning this weekend. That's certainly not "for now." It may be eventually--and I'm sure they'd prefer that eventually--but I don't think Jump is anywhere close to being a weekend starter currently. Especially Friday or Saturday. He may start getting some Sunday starts with the plan of him just going 3-4 innings and turning it over to the pen after that. And maybe ramping that 3-4 innings up gradually. But you don't want to have a "pen game" until the last game of the weekend.

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Why? Nothing he has done so far seems to indicate that. In fact, in indicates just the opposite

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Well, you left off this part of my quote...

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but there is more evidence to suggest I'm wrong here.

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However, I don't think Hurd was as bad last year as the narrative the rant has created. There is a tendency for one thing to just get repeated nonstop on here, and rarely is it actually true. If someone took the time, you could go back and find my post from last year, which were very pro Hurd. This board will likely never give him a fair shake. Only a small part of that is valid criticisms though.

I think JJ thought Hurd would start how he played in Omaha (dominant outings), and I don't blame him for giving him the nod for the Friday start.

If I'm the skipper I would start Holman game 1 of SEC series. With the depth of the staff, I would use Hurd out of the bullpen if you need to close a tight game because he did that really well in regionals and CWS.
If you don't need him game 1 then he can start game 2.
The whole key to the staff is what happens eventually with Jump. Is he gonna be a weekend starter? Will he stay in the bullpen?
Honestly, I think Jay will do whatever it takes to win games even if it means using pitchers as he sees fit in game 1 and 2 and then figure out game 3 when you get there.
You have multiple options to start a game 3 like Ack, Herring or Coleman and even Anderson depending on what he looks like as we progress through season and also depending on how you deploy Ack and Herring depending on the situation.