Not to wax nostalgic or anything, but that was hardly EVER the case when Skip was coaching this program. When postseason came, the better the pitcher, the more All-American accolades he'd received, the more you wanted LSU to face him, because you knew he'd get his comeuppance...he always did. Just ask Justin Wayne of Stanford, Mark Prior of USC, Robbie Morrison of Miami, the Anderson guy at Rice...the list goes on.
What about that ACE from Witchita State that we faced in '91. All world stud that LSU just demolished. He is another on that comes to my mind. LSUDAN
That is exactly what I was alluding to. Whether or not the relationship is causational or just purely correlational, is a different story. But the fact remains...
Tyler Green. Knuckle-curve. Pitched for the Phillies. Darren Dreifort in '93 was another. LSU used to regularly pound Tim Hudson when he was at Auburn, also.
But our flaw the past few years since facing those guys is that our team went from having 2-3 GREAT hitters (Todd Walker, Joey Bell, Furniss, Cresse, etc.) and 3-4 other very good hitters to what we have now--a lineup consisting of a few good hitters but no one that's really "great" and the rest inconsistant. Remember not too long ago when it was almost shocking to see a Tiger player batting under .300?? and if he DID bat under .300, it was somewhere around .280. Now we have Sprowl hitting .265, Liuzza at .244 and Will Harris struggling to stay above .200 (.209 --only 28 hits in 134 AB's not heading into today's game). No offense to any of those guys (they play their hearts out, I know), but with those numbers, they wouldn't have seen as much playing time as what they have this season unless they were a top-notch defensive player.....But in both of those cases, Liuzza still wouldn't have played. He hasn't had much success throwing out runners this season... Patterson is agruably our best all-around hitter at present. He can hit for average and power. But in past years, Patterson would not have been the best hitter at LSU....possibly not even the 2nd best. His .371 average might have lead the team, but his 19 HR's and 49 RBI's wouldn't have... Even pitching-wise, we have dropped off in the talent department. No more Ben McDonald's or Paul Byrd's.... We've seen LSU go from having All-American-studded teams surrounded by another 10 very good players to having a team of good players with 1-2 very good players. I, for one, would be THRILLED with another CWS appearance--even if it's another 0-2 campaign. We just simply don't have the talent to "win it all" like we used to. Of course, once you get there, anything can happen, but in year's past, it was "ok, we're here and we're gonna march right THROUGH YOU."
Who is getting the start for us tomorrow? Dirks would seem like the logical choice because that is the rotation, but I think that Smith is the better pitcher and could match Hochevar pitch for pitch. We've already proven that we can hit Hochevar somewhat, we got 2 runs and 7 hits (which may sound bad, but its pretty good against Luke) off him in 8 innings. If Smith (or Dirks) can hold UT's hitters then I like our chances of winning the game off a UT reliever.
