College Baseball 2024

[Dawg83]

I do think it’s clear that State’s pitching is largely in a better spot this year. Not saying they’re great, but they’re not the abject disaster they were last year, at least so far.

 

Now I don’t know if this team will hit SEC pitching at all. But for now they’re in a nice stretch of play.

[Bulldogs4]

With a few exceptions we seem to be throwing strikes and have cut down the BB’s considerably. 
We will see if that holds up. With Mershon & Kohler back in the lineup, we are much better defensively in the infield and offensively as well. Our power is anemic so far. 7 HR’s in 13 games and almost all of them are from Jordan. 
 

Certainly better than the early showing we had but not enough for me to have much confidence as of yet. 
 

Edited March 6, 2024 by Bulldogs4

[BrickCity]

Does anyone want to talk about how bad the Cspire camera crew did last night? Every single ball hit to the outfield looked like it was launched into orbit. Turns out to just be a routine fly ball= False Hope 

[pancho]

yea, the college games in pearl have always had issues with viewing or hearing etc.

[Dawg83]

1 hour ago, pancho said:

yea, the college games in pearl have always had issues with viewing or hearing etc.

Or no viewing options whatsoever until a couple of years ago. For a while it was the one game a year you couldn’t watch on TV or streaming.

[David44]

Yeah, I think as a whole MSU pitching looks much stronger than last year. The pen came in and did very well.

That last guy looks like a legit SEC closer to me. USM pitched well too, for the most part.

They have some holes in that batting order right now. 1B should not be hitting in the 9 hole. 

And I like the FR catcher, but he better start throwing some base stealers out. 5 SB is about 4 too many

for me.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2024 by David44

[David44]

And I agree, that broadcast was just awful. The on screen scoreboard was wrong nearly all the time,

showing wrong # of outs, ghost baserunners. I think they finally, mercifully took it down after the rain delay.

[Bulldogs4]

Brooks Auger was one of the four or five pitchers that went down with injuries in the disastrous 2022 season and he did not pitch at all last year.

 

If he stays healthy this year, he can be a huge part of the back end/closer type pitcher that you have to have to be successful. 
 

USM has tremendous pitching but like State they are on the short end of the bat errrr stick at the plate. Runs will be hard to come by unless they improve immensely very quickly. That seems unlikely at this point. Pitching and fielding are going to determine whether State or USM will be successful going forward. And some semblance of timely hitting to help you win close games. 

[Bulldogs4]

Regarding the broadcast, I was out and about last night and just simply listened to Jim and Jay on the radio. They are much more enjoyable to listen to than the TV people any day of the week. 

I always like it when Coach Polk is on the broadcast. What a treasure we have in that man and he is so knowledgeable. I know he and Jay Powell alternate/rotate. 

[David44]

Pretty good weekend for us in D-1 baseball. Miss State sweeps and moves to 12-4.

Ole miss sweeps Morehead State to get to 12-5. USM rebounds from the MS midweek loss,

takes the 1st 2 games and series on the road against a good La Tech team that came in 12-1.

We may (or may not...) have hope for following college sports once basketball has ended.

Big weekend coming, Ole Miss hosts SC , MS host LSU, and USM hosts Marshall.

 

[Dawg83]

On 3/11/2024 at 9:39 AM, David44 said:

Pretty good weekend for us in D-1 baseball. Miss State sweeps and moves to 12-4.

Ole miss sweeps Morehead State to get to 12-5. USM rebounds from the MS midweek loss,

takes the 1st 2 games and series on the road against a good La Tech team that came in 12-1.

We may (or may not...) have hope for following college sports once basketball has ended.

Big weekend coming, Ole Miss hosts SC , MS host LSU, and USM hosts Marshall.

 

Lol and then State immediately loses to South Alabama.

 

I don’t think this is a good State team, I think they just played the weakest part of their weak schedule the last two weekends.

[maroontide06]

37 minutes ago, Dawg83 said:

Lol and then State immediately loses to South Alabama.

 

I don’t think this is a good State team, I think they just played the weakest part of their weak schedule the last two weekends.

Let me know if you need some intel for tomorrow night’s game.  Hopefully it won’t have the same outcome LOL!  But hey it won’t be the first time I’ve seen State lose a baseball game either, even at that ballpark.

[maroontide06]

Also, what’s the deal with Dohm?  I hope he’s ok and able to pitch.

[Dawg83]

37 minutes ago, maroontide06 said:

Let me know if you need some intel for tomorrow night’s game.  Hopefully it won’t have the same outcome LOL!  But hey it won’t be the first time I’ve seen State lose a baseball game either, even at that ballpark.

The trend seems to be that State baseball and basketball cannot win at the same time. So maybe baseball is just taking some lumps to make sure the hoops team makes the Big Dance. lol.

[Bulldogs4]

The ole base on balls bugaboo bit State last night. Three of the walks given up ended up scoring runs. Obviously nobody is going to be perfect but keeping the walks at three or less per game is a big formula for winning games. 
We had five BB’s last night and it cost us a win. 

[pancho]

USA is probably the best overall team Lemo has faced this year and they have a team full of dirt bag types. check back after the florida series and check which way the winds are blowing.

[Dawg83]

3 hours ago, pancho said:

USA is probably the best overall team Lemo has faced this year and they have a team full of dirt bag types. check back after the florida series and check which way the winds are blowing.

Opening with LSU, @ A&M, and @ Florida are some pretty brutal winds to endure, mate.

[maroontide06]

State had bases loaded with one out and couldn’t get a runner home.

[Bulldogs4]

Positives

A win, Holcombe had a good outing, we won, we won.

 

Negatives

anemic hitting, do our players have low iron levels?, one run after 10 innings, 2 runs after 11 innings.

 

It is hard to have much confidence this weekend against LSU a team we have not won a series at Dudy Noble since I don’t know when…20+ years? 
 

But effectively speaking we are now 0-0. We will see how it goes. 

[maroontide06]

It was good to see Holcombe do better and watch some free baseball in the process, but man oh man we’ve got to do better at getting runs home.  I understand the wind wasn’t really in a hitter’s favor tonight, but when you’ve got bases loaded in the bottom of the 3rd with one out you’ve got to push some runs across.  There’s no excuse for not scoring there.

[pancho]

Lemo seems to have a team that is evenly matched with USA and UNO.

[Dawg83]

11 hours ago, Bulldogs4 said:

Positives

A win, Holcombe had a good outing, we won, we won.

 

Negatives

anemic hitting, do our players have low iron levels?, one run after 10 innings, 2 runs after 11 innings.

 

It is hard to have much confidence this weekend against LSU a team we have not won a series at Dudy Noble since I don’t know when…20+ years? 
 

But effectively speaking we are now 0-0. We will see how it goes. 

2003 was last time State won a home series vs LSU. Have won series in Baton Rouge since then, including last year, inexplicably.

[maroontide06]

3 hours ago, pancho said:

Lemo seems to have a team that is evenly matched with USA and UNO.

You seem correct in that assessment.  UNO probably should have won last night, but their third base coach got greedy and waived the runner to come to 3rd and State tagged him out on the way to 3rd.  It was a rare, ironic break that actually went State's way.

[Bulldogs4]

7 hours ago, Dawg83 said:

2003 was last time State won a home series vs LSU. Have won series in Baton Rouge since then, including last year, inexplicably.

State’s record against LSU at home since then is 7-20. Pathetic. LSU should just always play us at the Dude. 

 

Ironically, our record against LSU since then at Alex Box and Hoover is 14-17. Which is not bad overall. 
 

We still lead the overall series 217-193. So at one time we had a much larger overall series lead. 
 

Of course none of this means anything this weekend. 
 

 

[pancho]

the folks I'm talking to today are less than optimistic of winning 1 against LSU simply due to LSU's pitching but LSU has eaten it up so far at the plate this season.