Sully’s hunch proved correct last night. Mac’s night shows how we are struggling at the plate. Without him last night we end up with 2 runs on the board. Worried about Halter but something tells me he has a solid game tonight.
Mac has produced!! His selection has been way more than justified. Not sure about some of the other sticks lately but Mac has earned a run here. Give him another 3-4 games. Hard to argue with the results so far!!!
Winner!!!! But this kid was a gamer and state champ at age 14-15. Venice kids are unbelievably coached and productive. Look at our guys from Venice in Guthrie, Rivera, Aaron Rhodes, Guscette and Robertson will impress.
I went back in the thread and found this nugget shortly after the season started and discussed the preseason batting order that went Jud, Sterlin, Josh, Kris, and Wyatt. We see now Kris is not there but I little tweaking and Sully could go with.... Jud Fabian Sterlin Thompson Josh Rivera Wyatt Langford BT Riopelle Mac Guscette Colby Halter Kenny Calilao Deric Fabian
I like this line up a lot. Moving Halter down may help him as he’s just not seeing it well. A lot of his issues stem from front shoulder and I’m sure he knows that. Deric is going to have to bunt a little more as he’s struggling catching up to fastballs right now. He will be fine and think he’s perfect at the 9 spot. Like Guscette in the 6 spot too. Kid’s baseball iq will always drive him situationally. If we need a sac fly he knows that. I really like Josh in the 3-5 spot. He will always find a way to give ya good quality AB’s most of the time.
shane— In all of your descriptions of our hitters I see the most “flags” with Deric and Colby. It’s kinda alarming to me that all of a sudden Deric can’t get to the FB’s—but when I watch him what I see is his swing has gotten way too long—earlier he was doing a good job of pulling his hands inside the baseball and getting the barrel to it. Got to get back to what works. Colby’s not seeing it well like he was earlier—and that has led to him pressing IMHO.
Yeah, agree, other teams can start Deric with fastball and he’s behind it. Halter ( had a son that was a lefty swinger) would benefit watching some Chipper video. Chipper always focused on front shoulder as taught by dad. We used to teach/talk about “staying short and staying on the ball” and we would show. Both young men are very long and “off” the ball with head flying causing front shoulder to go. Looks like they are trying to pull everything.
Matherly: I hate to put this all you but it's been a while since you've been able to proudly proclaim someone was from Ocala. . .get them boys back on track lol. Really interested to see if we see any difference in the lineup today (both in terms of personnel and batting order). Can't keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Yea don't post at games or if I'm watching on TV. I'm going radio today so I can follow along. I only hope I get the chance to tell everyone where they are from. I appreciate calling me out for it though. HA The last thing I'd want is somebody trying to claim they were from Marianna.
Last night's game turned in the 6th when Gators loaded the bases loaded wit no outs and failed to get even a fly ball sac- KC trying to pull, rolled one over to 3rd for easy force at plate, D Fabian- overmatched weakly popped to 1st and Rivera skied to left 1-2 batters too late. Bottom of 6th... we know what happened and that was that. Lack of clutch hitting or a lack of strategy to try to scratch out at least the first run of the game. Put a play on for god's sake with Fabian.
Unfortunately Halter is batting .254 against RHP and since we have faced a bunch of RHP lately his average continues to slide towards it. I guess we should expect him to go 1 out of 4 today if Georgia stays with righties.
In light of another horrid weekend who would you like to see as our 3 starters against Arkansas who comes to Gainesville this Thursday? You answers must include only pitchers on the current pitching staff, nobody like Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddox, or Randy Johnson. Obviously Hunter Barco is in the mix but what would your 3 day order look like? I have no idea either but I'll give it a few days to see who is bold enough to put their idea out there. Starting Pitchers for the Gators against Arkansas Thursday - Friday - Saturday -
Another disaster from the bullpen. 0-3 vs. Georgia with 3 much better teams to face over the next 3 weekends.
@74nole once offered an idea for the batting order by way of the best batting average on down. Not to get into stats but rather Sully needs to do something to shake things up in a big way. Here's how the batting order might look like. This does not include subs with few at bats but Armstrong has to be included. .353 - Sterlin Thompson .321 - Wyatt Langford .315 - BT Riopelle .304 - Colby Halter .278 - Kenny Calilao .273 - Mac Guscette .262 - Jud Fabian .260 - Josh Rivera .250 - Kris Armstrong The averages going forward are really going to drop over the next few weeks. Those that are hitting should get more opportunity. One other possible change, Guscette is only batting .133 against LHP so he sits when we face a lefty.