It may be a bit premature, but there maybe 3-4 All Americans on this team, maybe more. I love their fight.
I've always been a member of the "sunshine pumpers" club when it comes to the team, always seeing the glass as half-full and believing that CTW can do no wrong. But despite my usual optimism, I got a bad feeling sitting in he stands this weekend seeing both our starters get rocked. Big time. Did this weekend expose our freshman pitchers? They've done great against the puff teams we play in non-conference. But I don't know enough about Miss State to know whether the high hits/runs/HR was to be expected or lays bare a fundamental flaw in this team, such that making a serious run in the post-season isn't likely. Opinions?
It makes me wish we had gotten 1 quality, experienced pitcher from the portal. It, also, makes we wish CTW had used Olivia Miller more in the pre-conference games to not only give her more experience, but to save innings for Rothrock & Brown for this time of the season. Assuming he knows best, though. However, Rothrock did shut out UCLA and except for 1 pitch shut out Oklahoma State. But yeah - giving up 24 runs in 3 games is concerning. Miss. State has, right now, the #2 rated offense in the SEC, although I think Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M & Tennessee have better lineups top to bottom. They are definitely learning on the fly. I think the defense let us down, too, this weekend and opened the door for a couple of those big innings. We'll see how they do against LSU this coming weekend because LSU can not only hit, they have better pitchers than Miss. St., so we can't expect to score 27 runs on them. Our pitchers have given up the fewest hits in the SEC, but also have the fewest strikeouts, meaning the defense has to be solid.
Agree. MSU has always had good hitting teams and this year's team looks to be more athletic than usual. They did a good job putting the ball in play and a few weak ones found holes to add to their hit total. Also, they were playing at home and the Gator D wasnt up to its usual standards.
CTW had a verbal from Alana Vawter and then the Gamecocks swooped in with $67,000 from their Women’s Basketball NIL fund and she signed with them.
Probably but at possibly a lesser scholarship amount. Vawter I suspect would have required a full ride and with only 12 scholarships available that would have cut back on what portion of the remaining 11 Miller would get this season. Softball scholarships are divisible as opposed to head count scholarships using volleyball as an example. Confusing I know.
Speaking of scholarships..... Mississippi State has seven more players on their team then we do. Nine of their players have fewer than 10 AB; seven of their players have fewer that five AB. It seems like they have a sub-team that is just there to pinch-run. After almost every hit, they inserted a pinch runner. Assuming you can get speedsters who are willing to be on the team for the comradery, fun, and the travel -- and who agree to take no scholarship money, since softball is an equivalency sport not a head count sport -- why isn't it a pretty good strategy to load up your team with running specialists? Some of our more powerful hitters aren't very fast once they get on base.
Depends on if her offer was driven by us missing in the portal or by the entire staff transferring. Seems like they weren't upset by the latter so my guess she got a slot that was for the portal
You can only pinch run for a hitter 1 time in the game and have her re-enter. If you pinch run for her a 2nd time, she can't come back in.
True. But that pinch runner can't then pinch run for someone else, so you need one for every player that you want to be able to sub for. (no idea why you got a "Come On Man" for your post!)
For perspective Miss ST is only behind our ladies in the SEC offensive categories that matter. That should translate to them ranking very high nationally as well. That said our pitching got schooled by a really good offensive team but as ugly and downright scary as it was at times they showed the “fight and passion “ to get the job done on the road in the SEC. Probably won’t be a lot of smooth sailing here on out. Probably will be many more cardiac games lol. However every other team in the SEC has their own issues but what they don’t have is the history of success that our program has, the just do whatever no matter what to win mentality. They also, love him or hate him, don’t have CTW! Personally I like him but dislike his decisions sometimes. I’m confident he doesn’t care or know I exist lol.
As always very well thought out, insightful and knowledgeable. Pitching definitely got rocked but can’t forget the defense certainly wasn’t helping them either. I can’t imagine how hard the notoriously hard defensive practices will be this week lol. I too wish we got a talented veteran arm but we didn’t so that’s under the bridge. We’ve had a wealth of elite, talented freshman pitchers in the past but I can’t remember a time when they were expected/needed to take on so much so soon. In the past we’ve had elite, talented upper class man to bail them out if necessary. Not the case this season.
