The offense is not great, but it's doing enough to win the vast majority of our games. The problem is our pitching. Unlike last year we don't have an established #1 and #2 starting pitchers. Ranaudo has been hurt half of the year and really has not come back to form as of yet. Obviously, Coleman is gone and no one has been able to step up to take control of the #2 role. Same thing with our #3, it's been a crap shoot. I think this team is good enough to get back to Omaha, but it will be tough to win it all again if we don't get some consistency in our pitching. This weekend's series with Florida should tell us a lot about the rest of the season. If we can somehow go in there and take 2 of 3, we will be in pretty good shape. The SEC schedule gets easier down the stretch.
Speaking of Smoke - what ever happened to him? Where is he? There is still a lot of baseball to be played. I still think this team if a very good team - I just don't think they have the overall talent and leadership among the players that we enjoyed last year. This weekend's series will be interesting. ldskule:
I didn't read any other posts in this one except the first 3-4, so if this was said, I apologize. But the problem is 100% pitching. They are close to last in the SEC in ERA and close to first in batting average. The problem will become that the hitters will go into games knowing they need to score 10 to win, so you will see a lot of guys trying to hit grand slams when there is no one on base. That could become a major problem.
This would be a fairly accurate summation. For LSU's future prospects, we just need to make the tourney (which we will) and then have 2 starters get hot (one of which has to be Ranaudo). Hitting will be there and Ott is the best closer in college baseball.
This is a bad slump. 2 road series in a row against hot teams. We ran into a buzzsaw both times. I hope The Box is the cure.
