Raeph Rhymes hit a wall and so did Bregman... Both guys were just simply not effective. Pitching was flawless but our offensive production stunk and we failed to hit ballls into the gap. In the first game Rhymes had a man on first and instead of bunting laid one down and got caught into a double play. Poor strategy and poor coaching. Shold have made some adjustments in the line up.. Maybe throw Alex Edward or Foster into the mix to try and get the bats fired up....
Last time we were here, we had the 'good' bats and we played in Rosenblatt, not TD Ameritrade. Hopefully, CPM learned something about how to play ball in that stadium, so he doesn't make the same mistakes when we get back here next year.
One problem is the fact that we didn't really face any top-tier pitching this year...at least not like what we saw in the postseason. Stanek might have been the best we face, and we split our games against him. Our hitting was likely an illusion spawned from a lack of good pitching in the SEC. But that's just my opinion.
I just hope something can be done to even things out between piitching and hitting. I think a move to the major league style ball would be a major step. They went too far in limiting offenes. As is you have to play small ball, and that just gets old. I may be old school, but I just prefer that Earl Weaver/ Skip Bertman brand of baseball where you work for the 3 run home run and the big inning. The old addage is if you play for one run that is all you get. Steals and sac bunts and hit n run all has a place in the game, but as it is now that is the only way to generate any offense.
What I don't understand is that college baseball does not have a big following. It seems like gorilla ball is what would put butts in the seats and bring new fans to the game. Why are they going the opposite direction?
Oregon ST scored 11, Miss St scored 5, NC State scored 8, Oregon St scored 5. The bats have made a difference in big blasts and how the game is played, but teams are still scoring runs. LSU had no game plan for the new park, the bats went cold and Mainieri isn't known as a master motivator. LSU had waaaaay too much talent to go 0-2. Part can be blamed on players getting in a slump which happens and it happened to the heart of LSU's lineup at the worst possible time,but a good bit falls on PM too. He better adjust to the way some of these parks play, because Omaha isn't building a new one any time soon.
The new bats were designed with safety in mind. A ball hit with the old bats straight back at the pitcher was going to seriously injure or kill someone eventually. I'm all for offense, but before the rule change the gorilla ball was out of hand and the game didn't even resemble baseball. Those two factors demanded a change and the NCAA took action. At the time there was an outcry for something to be done. I think you are starting to hear the grumbling that they went too far with the changes. It's been the number one topic of discussion on local sports talk here in Omaha all week. Hopefully the NCAA is taking notes and will reverse course somewhat. The best two solutions I have heard from experts are a ball more like MLB that will travel further or bringing in the fences in at TD. As for your team, they played with heart. I was at both games and I saw no quit in them. They didn't adjust to the ballpark as well as others did. With that being said, I wouldn't go as far as saying it was coaching. The talent this year is fairly even.
Never heard that adage, but its well in play in Omaha. With UCLA in particular, they treated every base runner as a must-have scoring opportunity. Everyone tells us UCLA plays for the 2-1 game, but I think their ideal is 9 runs. 9 innings of, get the leadoff man on, and then everyone who follows him makes whatever sacrifice is necessary to get that one guy across the plate. We play for big innings, and with the combination of the nation's best pitching and a monster ballpark, that's no way to play in the CWS anymore.
