re: LSU Baseball...put up or shut up

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Our hitters approach at the plate is terrible, and that’s on the coach for not having them prepared,

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I see this a lot but I’m pretty sure they aren’t teaching the players to take fastball down the middle and swing at breaking balls in the dirt. Cabrera’s last at bat is a prime example. The strike three calls a fastball that is over the middle of the plate. The pitcher missed his spot by a foot. You have to make him pay for that. Players have to make plays when The opportunities happen.

The coaches deserve some blame but the players need to do better. A lot of hitting is see ball hit ball. Last night they didn’t see the starter well at all. They got to their bullpen pitchers for the most part but pitch recognition was bad all night.

I wouldn't count 2009 at all. They started 9-0, won their first 5 SEC series, and only lost 1 SEC series the entire season. They didn't start slow, they just got even better as the season rolled along.

2010 won their first 3 SEC series, but lost 4 of their last 5 while being swept 3 times. They won their last series, won the SEC tourney, and lost in the UCLA regional.

Maybe you meant 2011? They won 3 of their last 4 SEC series with 2 sweeps, but that was after getting swept 3 times themselves. Not making the SEC tourney didn't help.

WOW! Novel thoughts!

I think there's a fairly significant difference between "playing better in May than March" and "needing a May hot streak to salvage the season".

2011 regular season: 25-15 (4-14) before the Kentucky series, 11-3 (9-3) after.

2016 regular season: 27-16 (11-10) before the Arkansas series, 11-1 (8-1) after.

2017 regular season: 26-14 (10-8) before the Kentucky series, 12-3 (11-1) after.

2018 regular season: Never really caught a hot streak. We'd have a good 10-game stretch followed by a bad one.

It's hard to continually rely on playing .800+ ball the final month of the regular season. When it doesn't come, you have 2011 or 2018.

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I'm not trying to claim they will or will not turn things around this season, but all this panic sounds eerily similar to 2017.

That year we were 13-5 pre-conference losing to UNO twice and McNeese once.

Then we soon went to lose 2 of 3 to Florida and A&M, also losing 2 mid-week games to Tulane in the process.

I know we didn't win the whole thing that year, but we sure did make it to the college world series.

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This team started off 7-0 against mediocre competition.

They’re 10-9 since...including 3-0 against a Kentucky team that has yet to win a conference game.

I’m not saying they can’t or won’t turn it around. But right now, all indications are that this team is stuck in reverse. Given the preseason rankings/expectations, that is unacceptable.

The strength of the SEC schedule would have to compared in the first half vs second half of all these seasons for any real purpose. If LSU starts with a very inexperienced roster that improves weekly/monthly then it would be very understandable of late season surges. With the 4 guys that came back, + Smith, Cabrera, etc, I don't see this as being a really inexperienced team other than some of the pitching staff (many are now in injury recovery mode)and new catchers. Catcher is a real problem from every aspect, not sure whomever is at 1B is going to be productive at the plate, and so far 2 of the weakest hitters from 2018 are either starting or playing a ton of innings, and the other incumbents aren't getting it done at the plate with any consistency. Hess is very unpredictable which on truly deep teams would render him a #3, or mid-week starter or reliever to not risk burning up the bull pen on Friday nights. At some point this team has to play better in all phases of the game or else. Baseball is a tough sport, it requires a lot of mental concentration at key moments to be successful. There appears to be a lot of disconnect at the moment, put the sports psychologist on speed dial.