re: Other SEC Baseball teams to root for this weekend

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think winning 2/3 in each is better for us than winning 1/3 and 3/3.

Winning 2/3 in each gives us a 5-5 series record. Which is a weird metric but something that has been considered in the past.

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I hadn’t thought of that, but clearly, you’re right. Going 4-2 and winning 2 series is better than going 4-2 and winning 1. I don’t know how much weight number of series wins matters, but it does. And winning a series in Athens would be a nice resume builder. So yeah, not all 4-2 finishes for us would be the same.

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And I am going to entertain sweeping UGA, because ol' Waterhead Wes has made a lot of comments about being responsible for the '23 championship and I have a feeling our HC may take that personally.

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You said something in the past week that I agreed with that you got some shite for because, well…the Rant. But you mentioned “saving Jay from himself.” And I knew exactly what you meant and you were right. It was something about having to stay with guys longer and not having the luxury to make as many changes and burning guys.

The absolute worst thing that could happen is for us to get a lead Friday, and Jay go all in to try to get one and burn Cowan and Sheerin, and us still wind up losing late. It’s why I said that if they get up on us big early one game, that could be a blessing in to disguise to just punt it and save our arms for the other 2.

I’m not gonna hope for that, but it could wind up working out. Obviously you’re not either if you’re still hoping for a sweep. I just remember one weekend in the past few where we scored like 5 in the 1st—maybe the game Guidry had to start in place of Evans last minute—and I said to myself “this could either be great if we keep it going, or it could be the worst thing that could have happened to us if we find ourselves with a 1 run lead late.”

And sure enough, Jay went all in and we lost in 12, I think. And wound up getting swept. Must have been the State series. One strike from winning in 9, but lost in 12, shot our wad, and wound up getting swept. It was the right move for Jay to go all in. Just didn’t work out. And I’m scared he could be faced with a similar situation tomorrow. Especially with how the top of our lineup has been hitting. I could easily see us putting up 3 or 4 in the top of the 1st. Maybe another in the 2nd, and all of a sudden we’re up 7-0 early and the calculus changes. But no lead is safe there, especially early, and a 7-0 lead becomes 7-3, then 8-5, then we take a 9-8 lead into the bottom of the 8th, Sheerin comes in and gives up a 2-out wall-scraper in the 9th to tie it or get walked off.

Evans not being available—I’m assuming he’s not until I see him actually take the mound—is brutal. For this series especially. If he could just give us 5 innings of 4-5 run ball on Friday, that would have been huge. Oh well. We’ll see what happens.

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The absolute worst thing that could happen is for us to get a lead Friday, and Jay go all in to try to get one and burn Cowan and Sheerin, and us still wind up losing late. It’s why I said that if they get up on us big early one game, that could be a blessing in to disguise to just punt it and save our arms for the other 2.

I’m not gonna hope for that, but it could wind up working out. Obviously you’re not either if you’re still hoping for a sweep. I just remember one weekend in the past few where we scored like 5 in the 1st—maybe the game Guidry had to start in place of Evans last minute—and I said to myself “this could either be great if we keep it going, or it could be the worst thing that could have happ
ened to us if we find ourselves with a 1 run lead late.”

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I agree with this, but I do think we've learned and improved since then. I think we know we have more guys that can go more than one inning, and some guys that can go one inning instead of one batter. I don't think the hook is going to be quite as quick because I think our bats are going to keep up this weekend.

I said this the other day, but outside of wild pitches, the SEC pitching stats for UGA and LSU are very similar.

Our defense is getting better as Ruckert gets more comfortable.

One thing I don't want to see is a bunch of our LHH getting buck fever looking at the RF fence and the rolling over a bunch of outside pitches.

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I agree with this, but I do think we've learned and improved since then. I think we know we have more guys that can go more than one inning, and some guys that can go one inning instead of one batter. I don't think the hook is going to be quite as quick because I think our bats are going to keep up this weekend.

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I agree that we’ve improved, not sure if it’s due more to “learning” or “necessity.” I suppose it doesn’t really matter except that those arms probably have more confidence having already been given that rope. They know they can be successful and aren’t having to look over their shoulders for Jay coming to get them after 1 bad pitch or AB. And that does matter psychologically, especially combined with the offense picking up and knowing they don’t need to be perfect.

They were so good last weekend because they threw strikes. I’m pretty sure you pointed that out with some stats. However, SC didn’t have the bats to make us pay. Some of those strikes we threw against them are gonna get turned around and launched into the trees this weekend.

Our guys just have to be mentally prepared for that. Make sure we’re not walking guys and turning solos into 2 and 3-runners. And realize a 420 footer into the trees doesn’t count any more than a 330 foot wall scraper down the line.

I haven’t watched much of Georgia this year, but I did last year, especially late when the park played even smaller than normal. And it’s a psychological advantage when they start dropping those into the trees. The fans get fired up, their bats do, it gets contagious, and other teams wilt. I may be pulling this out of my arse, but I seem to remember turning on a game and they were down like 10-0, hit a big bomb, and like 20 minutes later, they were up 12-10 or something.

Our guys just have to expect to give up a couple, put it behind them when they come, grab a new pill, and go back to work. I think all the guys we’re counting on will be able to handle that. Except maybe Schmidt. Which scares me a bit because he’s the one we need to be able to do that the most. But I think our bats will keep up too, which will help our pitchers psychologically.

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One thing I don't want to see is a bunch of our LHH getting buck fever looking at the RF fence

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Except for Dardar, right? Wonder if Yorke gets any run this weekend? Probably as a PH.

You may.

This a quick rundown of remaining games that can influence our RPI, I understand that some wins don't have a huge influence but the following teams in bold win it helps and underlined means a "wash" in RPI influence... take with a grain of salt -

Games remaining-
• 5/8-5/10 Milwaukee-Youngstown state 5/12 Northern Illinois 5/14-5/16 Oakland
• 5/8-5/10 Kent State- Eastern Michigan 5/12 University Michigan 5/14-5/16 University of Toledo
• 5/8-5/10 Indiana- Purdue 5/14-5/16 Illinois
• 5/8-5/10 ND- Oakland 5/12 Dayton 5/14-5/16 Pitt
• 5/8-5/10 UCF- Baylor 5/12 Bethune Cookman 5/14-5/16 Kansas State
• 5/8-5/10 McNeese- Northwestern State
• 5/8-5/10 Dartmouth- Yale
• 5/8-5/10 Northeastern- Stony Brook 5/12 Uconn 5/14-5/16 Townson
• 5/8-5/10 ULL- App State 5/14-5/20 Coastal Carolina
• 5/8-5/10 Sacramento State- California Baptist 5/14-5/20 Tarleton State
• 5/8-5/10 Creighton- Georgetown 5/12 Nebraska 5/14-5/16Xavier
• 5/8-5/10 Vandy- Missouri 5/14-5/16 South Carolina
• 5/8-5/10 Oklahoma-Arkansas 5/14-5/16 Tenn
• 5/8-5/10 Grambling State-Arkansas Pine Bluff 5/14-5/16 Bethune Cookman
• 5/8-5/10 LaTech- Liberty 5/14-5/16 Sam Houston
• 5/8-5/10 UK- UF 5/12 Northern Kentucky 5/14-5/16 Arkansas
• 5/8-5/10 Southern- Texas Southern 5/14-5/16 Alabama A&M
• 5/8-5/10 Tenn- UT 5/12 Belmont 5/14-5/16 Oklahoma
• 5/8-5/10 Bethune Cookman- Alabama State 5/12 UCF 5/14-5/16 Grambling State
• 5/8-5/10 Ole Piss-aTm 5/12 UT Martin 5/14-5/16 Alabamer
• 5/7-5/9 NorthWestern- Mcneese
• 5/8-5/10 aTm- Ole Piss 5/14-5/16 MSU
• 5/7-5/9 New Orleans- Texas A&M-CC
• 5/7-5/9 MSU- Auburn 5/14-5/16 aTm
• 5/7-5/9 SELA- Nicholls
• 5/8-5/10 USC-Alabamer 5/12 Winthrop 5/14-5/16 Vandy
• 5/8-5/10 Tulane- South Florida 5/14-5/16 Rice
• 5/14-5/16 Georgia- Auburn
• 5/8-5/10 Florida- UK

So tonight we are New Orleans, SELA, and MSU fans

First game of the day to track is Milwaukee vs Youngstown State, starting in at 10am central. Milwaukee has been playing better of late and YSU is terrible. Hopefully they can get the win and give us another 4 RPI points.

Which should be enough to move us up one spot.

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Wow, typing out that we are hoping for 11th is so bad. This year has sucked.

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I was reading your comment and thinking the exact same thing… so if all the dominoes fall our way, we get 11th? I could not have read that right.

Well Milwaukee went down but Dartmouth is up ..

Northeastern beats Stony Brook. It would be real nice if they went on a heater and moved into Q3.