Pitching question

Most of the guys last night aren't coming in on the weekends very often because they can't throw strikes consistently. Its fine in a midweek against Southern to get them some reps, but you can't have that when you're playing a loaded SEC team. The bullpen has been really shaky this season.

Jay needs to find a day 3 starter pretty quick.

Yes, Yeskie is instructing them to walk people. That’s why he is paid the big bucks! The powerhouse!

No excuse, but last night, that strike zone was super tight. There were several pitches called balls that should have easily been strikes. Those ones that result in B4 hurt bad...

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Jay needs to find a day 3 starter pretty quick.

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Here we go with this fricking BS talking point again


Every

Single

Year

Most highly rated guys that come to LSU have never really had to hit spots before. When you throw 90+ and have a decent curveball and changeup, it doesn’t take much to get high school batters out.

The short answer to that is Jay recruits guys who throw upper 90s. These pitchers tend to struggle with locating more than the guy topping out at 91.

The longer answer is that the way we call pitches doesn't allow room for error. By the end of the season, Jay and Yeskie will have narrowed down the reliable arms, and only those guys will get meaningful work. Our pitching always improves.

The hardest part about watching this team is reminding yourself that Jay Johnson isn't coaching only to win today. Jay is constantly doing things that will help the team later this season and next season. He's seeing who can perform in which situations, and those are buttons he will be pushing at the end of the season. At the same time, he's getting work to the guys we need next year. As bad as Schmidt looked most of last year, Johnson made sure he not only had experience in SEC games but also pitched in the regionals and super regionals. Those things helped Schmidt be the dude he is right now.

Mainly spots. In college and the pros, if you put a fastball down the pipe it is going 350' plus the other direction.

These kids have to work the edges of the zone, which leaves small margin for misses.

Its just tough. Thats what separates elite guys, from guys with good stuff.

You have swerved into a probable reason for why we are walking so many. The short answer is that it is execution.

It’s partly because pitchers have good and bad days. We have a fair amount of inexperience that adds to control issues. The pitching coach calls a pitch and location based on analytics from previous at bats by the hitter. When the pitch and location called are a small window, execution can be a problem. Loosen the window frame and it could give the hitter an advantage.

A proving ground that this is whats going on is when it is 3-0 and the pitcher puts one center cut, to me, means he can’t execute what’s called. If he misses or misses badly, to me, it means he is having trouble executing any pitch.

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My question is, why are we having this same conversation every year seems like with LSUs pitching staff? Will they ever find a group of pitchers that can consistently pound the strike zone?

I feel like every year we talk about how deep the pitching staff is only to realize we can only count on 2 or 3 relievers out of about 10 or 12 at most

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Literally every college every year has this issue. They don't pound the zone. You pick apart the very edges as much as you can trying to get batters to chase bad stuff, and make weak contact.

Every kid on staff could "pound the zone" and SEC hitters would pound it right off the score boards.

If you throw above 85 in any level of HS and have at least one offspeed pitch you can absolutely throttle everybody you face in HS aiming down the middle and letting it rip.

These are 18-19 year olds coming in, and in most cases getting taught how to actually pitch vs throw for the first time. It takes a while to develope. But every year we get better towards end of the season- thats the proof that the LSU staff is doing their job.