Baseball is a simple game and we lost for simple reasons

We lost because sometimes we don't get the calls. And the umpires made sure of that tonight.

The psychology is simple. If strikes are not called when you see them and swing at them then you swing at whatever the umpire calls strikes... Simple and destructively detective. This make you swing at bad balls.

 

so its like football then, all officials are against the gators?

 

Just my two bits, but FLORIDA crowd was significantly better than it was in 2017. I’d guess maybe 3 or 4 times more fans. Obviously nowhere near LSU levels, but the improvement was noticeable all over town. Can’t wait to see what it looks like next time as more fans got a taste and caught the fever.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

On that, was it called by the rule and the rule is stupid?

 

All that being said, if Langford's drive on Saturday night is an inch or two up, we're at home Monday hoisting the trophy.

Baseball is a funny game sometimes...

 

On the Rivera call, the first baseman was all turned around and dropped the ball by himself with no contact from Rivera. Rivera ran a straight line to first base and touched first base as normal as can be. I believe the first base umpire called him safe. Then, the big shot home plate ump decides to intercept himself into a college baseball championship game for no reason other than his ego. It was a horrible call; not as bad as when the Saints receiver was tackled late in that game with no call. It was egregious. On the review, they should have looked at the play in total and the LSU player just botched it up with NO interference from the base runner. What is the base runner to do? Run 18” outside the baseline and just tag first base with the side of his foot so the first baseman can have the entire top of the base to do what he wishes? Total bull crap!
Typical of SEC refs in all sports that make these bonehead calls to insert their egos into the game and make the games not fun to watch.

 

Great write up, well written. Thanks!

 

All conversations need to end with your post ! This is the bottom line ! Period

 

We lost this game on Saturday night by 3 inches in the bottom of the 10th.

But yes to everything else you said. To win in Omaha you need pitching. Our starting pitchers were a disaster in the championship series. In 2017 we took a team that batted ok but had dominant pitching. Result= NC. In ‘05, ‘11, and ‘23 you can argue our batting was better than our pitching. Result= close but no cigar.

College baseball is a funny sport of sorts. Minnesota has been to Omaha only 5 times and won it all on 3 of those. Pepperdine only has 2 trips, yet won it all in 1992. No one would consider those two to be yearly threats to make it there in present times, and yet their win % on the big stage is 50% or above. No one would consider Minnesota a blue-blood in the sport like Texas, Miami, USC, Cal-State Fullerton, LSU, Arizona, Arizona State,and yet they have 3 titles which puts them right under those teams I mentioned and ahead of teams like Vandy and South Carolina.

The Gators have gone 13 times and only won once. Less than a 10% win rate and yet on a yearly basis we stand a much better chance than Minnesota or Pepperdine to make it to Omaha.

Arkansas is 0-11, UNC 0-11, Clemson is 0-12, F$U is 0-23. Just rotten luck for those programs. You figure at some point in those combined 57 tries somebody wins, but no. No team ever really has more than a 12.5% chance of winning when they get to Nebraska.

Sully wasn’t at his best in this championship series but we also didn’t have a pitching staff good enough to win it. Once our starters performed sub-par, Sully’s gameplan went to the crapper. Still came within 3 inches of winning this on Saturday night as Sun/Mon proved to be batting practice exhibitions.

One thing I know: Sully can get there, Sully can win there, and Sully can win the title. He’s done it before. He’s 1/8 which means he’s done exactly what the odds say you should do. He will take us there again and he will win it all again.

In Sully we trust. Go Gators!!!

 

Looking at the majors- the best teams only win about 60-62% of the games. (97-101 wins out of 162 game series.)
And bad/ mediocre teams still win 40% of their games. (65 wins.)
Compared to football or basketball its a huge contrast, where the best teams win 75-80%, and the worst win 25%. (Or more!)

That tells me luck is a big factor in baseball- and less in the other sports.

It's a funny game.

 

Meh.

 

No team sport requires more luck to win than college baseball.

Langford performed amazingly in Omaha. But on Sat night he hit a ball to a spot just low enough for the LSU guy to snag. That is luck on LSU’s part and lack of luck on ours.

 

If the ball goes over the outfielders head Saturday night and we go on to put the beat down Sunday nobody is talking about the pen or Cags pitching today. In fact we would probably be up there with some of the best teams ever. But because of what happened it exposes the lack of pitching. That being said I don’t think our own guys pen guys did that bad. In fact overall I think they did ok.

 

Obviously the HRs throughout the season make us feel all-worldly. But there were plenty of times during the tourney that they seemed sort of distant outside the obvious dramatics like Riopelle and Evans. And we can argue ad nauseum about the selection and usage of the pitching throughout the season and how it formed Sully's decisions in the tourney. But to me, the team felt just outside of being completely tuned in for a serious run at the title. I think we all hoped that the Sunday game was the point that the lightbulb turned on in earnest, Cags especially.

While I would have liked a trophy, I can't say we lost to an inferior team. I think we did remarkable, given what I saw were some hickups in personnel and big game environment. But overall, a very nice feeling about this season.