we are only ranked lower than florida in one of the three polls i cited. their only series loss was on the road to a good ole miss team. their rpi is also very high. we are also ranked above arky in all three polls. and their pseudo rpi (and again, this sites pseudo rpi's are considered to be the closest to the real thing as there is) is ranked second. arkansas' only series loss was at home to us. ole miss has dropped two series. both at home. one to louisville, and one to tennessee. they were doing pretty good then went on a three game losing streak. something i hope we dont do, but is possible after dropping the two to auburn. they now have a pretty low rpi at 33rd.
i don't want to read deeper into this than i already have, but... :grin: however, for ole miss, pomeranz is an automatic "W" for those guys when he starts. we need to do a better job of attacking a starting pitcher, working his nerves, and get to the bullpen early. that is something the team last season had a knack for. i think when we get watkins back into the lineup we will revert back to being able to jump on people quickly. mahtook does a fine job of hitting (his OBP is good enough to leadoff,) but he is usually stranded on the bases. with watkins' ability to reach base, i don't think that i have to spell it out for anyone. dean, in my opinion needs to maybe be moved down in the lineup to see if he can rejuvenate that portion of the order. right now, i have a hunch that mainieri is trading Ws/Ls for the benefit of the latter part of the season. this team doesn't have much quality depth at all, and mainieri traditionally uses pretty much everyone who is abled at some point in the season to get them ready. it's a gamble, but he knows that a season in which the team fails to reach a Super is not acceptable at LSU. an acceptable season at LSU is simply a fighting-chance to make it to omaha, nothing more, nothing less. it's a formula that he is close to perfecting.
Better to work the kinks out now so we start peaking about a month form now!!! :geauxtige:geauxtige :geauxtige:geauxtige
These pollsters just don't have any respect. we'll just have something to play for come tournament time. Our team keeps improving, game...by...game !! LSU baseball team moves up one spot in Collegiate Baseball rankings | - NOLA.com
Florida, Florida St., UCLA and Virginia should all be below LSU, but Baseball America, for whatever reason, won't give us our due. As long as we're Top 8, though, it's all good.
UVA, FSU, UF and UCLA should definitely be ranked below us, and you could make a strong argument for texas too. i'm not sure what it is, but i can almost guarantee you that had LSU lost to tulane, and lost a game this weekend to go 2-2 on the week like UVA, UCLA, FSU and UF did, we would have dropped at least 2-3 spots. LSU, Ark and USCe are the three toughest teams in the SEC. i don't understand why people give so much praise to florida. i guess because of their RPI which is 5, but LSU's isn't too shabby at 9. we'll see how they handle arkansas this week, then we can see how we stack up head-to-head with them the following week. watkins could be healthy by then, we seem to have stability at 3B now and pitching might be starting to settle down. too bad the series in in gainsville because it should be some great baseball. being on the road this week against ole miss should be a nice test too, though. pomeranz showed that he is human. i think getting 2/3 is definitely possible there. if we go at least 7-2 the next two weeks with two series wins, i expect LSU to be soundly in the top three.
