re: Not Giving Up on This Baseball Team

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If you feel like we are a truly talented team simply playing poorly then the rate of improvement should outpace that of our lesser talented opponents.

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Thats a big "IF"...

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shite, one competent starting pitcher would be nice.

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If your take is that this teams biggest weakness is starting pitching then you have either not watched, or have no clue what you are watching.

I'd love to sneak into a regional, because who knows what can happen.

That said, I'm all out of "G.A.S."

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2024 had holman and jump,

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People forget about just how good these 2 guys were by the end of the season. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m pretty sure Jump had a relatively slow start coming off injury not pitching the year before. He took a huge jump (no pun intended) and was dealing by the end of the year. Evans and Schmidt have the stuff to be as good as Holman and Jump. They don’t have the experience—yet—the consistency, and the “dawg” of those 2. Again, yet.

But a lot can happen between now and the postseason. If they have a couple dominant starts that could really boost their confidence, and they could be completely different dudes 6 weeks from now. That’s our best shot of turning it around—getting them to have that mentality and figure out a way to start giving us 6 or 7 really good innings every Friday and Saturday.

Wha this team is REALLY missing, though, is a Griffin Herring. That dude may have been the most important player on that 2024 team. Cowan’s been really good and he can extend like Herring, but he doesn’t have that dominant shut down stuff. We’re trying to use Cowan + Sheerin to get the same thing we got from Herring. And those 2 still don’t equal him. And then we don’t have a closer if we have to go to Sheerin before the 8th.

I think Jay has kinda hosed Sheerin—out of necessity—by trying to steal outs from guys like Guidry and Paz Sunday who really have no business being run out there to start the next inning. So Sheerin comes in to a dirty inning almost every outing, making every pitch he throws high leverage.

If we could somehow find a way to bridge to him to start a clean 8th, I think he could get us 6 outs to finish out most games. Probably twice (Game 1 and Game 3). But we only really have Cowan that we can depend on to get it there. And he can only throw 3 or 4 innings once.

So basically, Evans and Schmidt giving us 7 every weekend and coming out with a lead or tied is the only way I see for us have enough arms to consistently win series. Unless a Riley Cooper or Nate Ack comes out of nowhere. But I don’t see any candidates for those kind of guys. Yet.

On offense, I think Pearson is our best chance of making the biggest improvement. He’s clearly got a ton of power, but he’s basically a 3 outcome guy—piss rod homer, K, or a 400 foot pop up straight up the chute. He does get hit or walks occasionally, but not enough.

Why I think he has the most potential to improve is that, though Jay force fed him some ABs last year, he really hasn’t played every day since 2 seasons ago against 5A high school pitching. So the more consistently good SEC pitching he sees every weekend, the more he should get used to it, and the light could possibly turn on. If he could start barreling up a few more per weekend, not just homers, but piss rod singles, doubles in the gap, etc…he could really lengthen the lineup.

But I’ve been saying this offense goes how Curiel goes. We saw it this weekend. He goes o-fer Friday and Saturday, we don’t score much. He gets the party started Sunday with a home run and we wind up scoring 7 in the 7th, with him getting another RBI hit later on. Unfortunately, I think he knows this and has put way too much pressure on himself all season. But if a guy like Pearson takes a big jump, everybody else gets just a little bit better, then that talked some pressure off DC, and he can just go up there and hit. Which will make it easier for the other guys, which will make it easier on DC, and so on. It’s a cycle. But I think it starts with DC.

Milam getting hot like he normally does this time of year would be swell too.

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Not Giving Up on This Baseball Team

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You should. They are dead in the water.

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So basically, Evans and Schmidt giving us 7 every weekend and coming out with a lead or tied is the only way I see for us have enough arms to consistently win series.

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The problem with this I see is that our offense consistently goes to sleep between innings 3-7. Makes it so hard to go into the 8th with a lead.

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Perhaps if they go to a JUCO they will improve there.

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Perhaps transfer to one of the fine State of Louisiana or California JUCO's that we can't beat or maybe a SWAC/HBCU school.

The Contenders...........

* Southwest Louisiana Junior College at Lafayette
* West-Southwest Louisiana Junior College at Lake Charles
* North-Central California Junior College at Sacramento
* Bethune-Cookman Institute of Marching Band Technology

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Have I "given up" by your definition? Do I have to pretend that I don't have the opinion I have in order to have not "given up"? The writing is on the wall.

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You can have whatever opinion you see fit. I too believe that it’ll be quite difficult to make the postseason. But the writing isn’t exactly on the wall. There is many scenarios which we still make the postseason. I just feel like the road is prob too tough at least how I see it. But it’s entirely possible and would not shock me at all to make it.