Baseball vs Bethune-Cookman, Wed 2/28, 6:30 pm

Swing it Cags!

 

Looks like everything is good here...was watching basketball...
Go Gators!

 

Good job with the bounce-back win Gators!

 

Good job by the Audio-Visual club. The biggest improvement always comes between the 1st and 2nd games.

 

I recall a Jeff Gidcumb at UF in the late 80s who was a damn good pitcher. Perhaps this is his son? Not a common name.

 

Yes. Jack Gidcumb - Baseball - Bethune-Cookman University Athletics

 

Back from the game. I was puzzled after Philpott did not start, assuming Sully was holding him for the Miami series, Philpott comes in as the closer. Leaves me wondering if Sully is thinking of trying him as the extra closer if needed in a weekend series??? I was thinking if he wasn't our midweek starter then he would be best as the second alternative for middle relief to Slater on a weekend. Its always a moving target with Sully in the early season.

 

It would be interesting to see if someone wanted to do the research and find out, how many times let's say in the last 5 games has this team had runners in scoring position and scored runs with good old base hits, as compared to homeruns or deep fly balls. I get sac flies are part of small ball but it seems we are getting stuck in the rut again trying to win every game by going deep. I mean if we want to play small ball then where are all the sac bunts to move a runner and ground balls the other way to score a run. It seems we lack clutch hitting in the worst the way. Everyone's waiting for the next guy to hit one out. We do get hits, walks and HBP to get guys on but most of our runs seem to be from bomb shots. That's the MLB formula, I get it but it can sneak up and bite you at the worst of times.

 

The dude has a .688 on base percent that leads the team and has plus speed. If he isn't the right guy to leadoff he sure would make a heck of a 9 hole hitter.
Maybe he would be a better DH than Donay at least. But I like him at third.

 

Last 5 games:
HR: 12 events, 23 runs
Non-HR RISP hit: 10 events, 14 runs
Non-HR Runners on hit: 1 event, 1 run
Non-hit (SF, BB, WP etc.): 8 events, 9 runs

 

Agree -We're only 8 games in and I'm still optimistic, but getting more skeptical about this team. The Miami series will tell us a lot more, I think. Starting pitching is still a questions mark. Clutch hitting is as well, as we have stranded a ton of base runners. No matter how good the guys on this team are, it's really hard to replace stars who were national runners-up. No Langford, Rivera, Sproat, Waldrep, Riopelle, Halter, Abner, even Nesbitt and Ficarrotta. I know the freshmen pitchers are exteremly talented and we have some good additions to the roster, but right now we only have 6 guys hitting over .200. And the pitching so far has been pieced together game to game. The best part has been the defense, where we're fielding at a .992 clip, with only 2 errors on 8 games. I love the coach, the program and this team. But I'm biting my nails a lot right now!!!

 

Thank you Neutrino for finding this.
So 12 events HR style to 10 events with RISP. Obviously you score more runs with each HR to be included in the total runs, but its the events I was wondering. At first glance one might think 12 to 10 is close enough not to make much of it. But if considered in the context of getting a hit, such as a single, it should be much easier than getting a HR, one would think. Singles imply hitting them where they ain't or bouncing one thru the infield or lacing one in front of an OFer. HR are just about always solid contact on a hard hit ball with a good exit angle. Thus we should have much more events getting hits to score runs with RISP. Interesting though we do not. If we are as a collective team trying to hit one out with RISP might be the problem why we are not taking advantage of timely hitting when all we got to do is swing for more singles instead of the fences.

Tonight we saw several innings get shutdown because of double play killers. That doesn't happen very often in college baseball. Maybe the team is working on it. We've had other issues with batters around Cags not stringing some hits together. We had one game when Cags got 4 hits but the 1, 3, and 4 hitters only had something like 1 hit that night and the rest of the team only had 3 hits combined. Weird night maybe but a missed opportunity to feed off of Cags big night. I expect in Miami this weekend the team that scores more consistently through the games will win or least have a better chance. But the team that relies on gorilla ball might find it difficult to maintain their enthusiasm and high level of play both in hitting and pitching over the whole weekend.

 

Nice win.
GO GATORS!!!! ⚾️

 

Agree, it's how you go long stretches of innings (see Stetson) without plating any runs. But we may just be dinosaurs cause it's everywhere