The Bullpen Implodes
by Poseur on Mar 12, 2009 10:17 AM CDT
in Baseball
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PrintThese midweek games are killing me. After blowing out SLU, LSU had to turn around the next night to face ULL. This forced Mainieri to find a fifth starter. Now, most Major League teams don't have a reliable fifth starter, but LSU needs to have won because of the shortened schedule. So Mainieri looked down his bench and settled on Nolan Cain. How did that work out?
Well, LSU was down 7-1 midway through the 4th. Cain and Mathews combined to make ULL look like the '27 Yankees. To LSU's credit, they rallied back and tied the game in the eighth, overcoming the deficit, a rain delay, and an ever shifting strike zone from the home plate umpire. Then, Ott picked a bad time to throw his first bad pitch of the season, and ULL won on its 9th inning home run.
LSU simply doesn't have the pitching depth to handle two midweek games. Then again, almost no one does. So, as we head into the SEC schedule this weekend, what does the staff look like?
Ranaudo and Ross are locks for the rotation. There's been noise about moving Bradshaw out of the weekend rotation because, um, he had one bad outing. This makes no sense to me, but whatever. The talk is that Coleman will be the Sunday starter. Matulis will be our Tuesday starter and whoever steps out of the locker room first will start on Wednesday.
If Coleman is a starter now, then Bradshaw takes over the Coleman swingman role in the pen. Bertuccini is still our fireman, coming in at the worst moment with runners on. And Ott is the closer.
After that, the pen is pretty thin. Byrd only has thrown 2 innings and I'm not sure why. He could be the other midweek starter or he could be on of the few lefties in the pen. Zeigler's the other lefty option after converting from the outfield.
Who's left? Cain, Nicholson, Alsup, and Mathews have all been varying degrees of unreliable. I honestly don't want any of those guys pitching in a close game right now. Which means, during the weekend, we have a three-man rotation and three-man pen (maybe four if you count Byrd).
Which means I can't wait until we're done with two midweek games. It's killing the staff.
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As usual you can blame the NCAA
And the new shortened season that’s been mandated to “even things out” for Big Ten teams. You still have to play the same # of games, but you have fewer weeks to do it in.
My friend is a professor at a school with a top tier baseball program (not LSU). She’s got a couple players in her class, and they hate the five game a week schedule. On top of being tiring, it wrecks their academic schedule.
But this is the kind of affirmative action bs we can expect from the NCAA who decides its’ “unfair” that northern schools have winter.
by 4.0 Point Stance on Mar 12, 2009 11:16 AM CDT reply actions
Wow
What a shock that the NCAA are a bunch of liars. For all of their talk about the student-athlete, they advocate a policy which makes it harder to be a student. Either make the start date earlier or lower the number of games. This is ridiculous.
I don't disagree with anything that was said...
But ULL, in theory, should have the same pitching problems as us. In fact I think they started a freshman last night.
Our freshman should beat theirs. End of story.
I think these guys are in cruise control mode waiting on the long ball to save them every game. I see the same problems with this team this year as we saw last year at this time. Streaky pitching, bad base running, and no timely hitting. The only difference has been that this year, we’ve shown what we can do when we are hitting on all cylinders.
But I don’t want to complain about midweek games yet, when ULL is playing with the same handicap.
Good points
I was using the game for a launching point for discussing the whole staff, not just this game. Really, just two pitchers playered miserabled: Cain and Mathews. Mathews is a walk on and Cain is not terribly good. They let up 7 runs between them.
ULL, on the other hand, is more willing to empty their pen to beat LSU. the game means more to them than it does to LSU. That said, it was Ott who gave up the game winning homer, and he’s one of the top pitchers in the pen.
People are bitching about the base running, and I’ve done it already, but really, there were two base running errors in the game, and one of them didn’t really upset me (Landry trying to extend the single into a double). And Ochinko hit into a double play with the bases loaded, but he also hit the homer to tie the game. Other than that, LSU did a terrific job converting their base runners into runs last night. there was plenty of timely hitting.
I have a firm policy of not bitching about the offense in games in which they score 9 runs.
I agree with this policy. I don’t know how you can complain about “timely hitting” where we knocked a 2 run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th.
by 4.0 Point Stance on Mar 13, 2009 10:08 AM CDT up reply actions
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Last Update: May 17
# - SEC Tournament Seeding
Team Name = Eliminated from SEC Tournament
| West | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
2 LSU Tigers  |
17 | 10 | 40 | 13 |
| 5 Mississippi Rebels |
14 | 13 | 34 | 19 |
| 7 Arkansas Razorbacks |
13 | 14 | 36 | 17 |
| 8 Mississippi St. Bulldogs |
13 | 14 | 31 | 21 |
| 10 Auburn Tigers |
12 | 15 | 29 | 24 |
| |
7 | 20 | 19 | 33 |
| East | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
| 1 Kentucky Wildcats |
18 | 9 | 41 | 12 |
| 3 South Carolina Gamecocks |
17 | 9 | 38 | 13 |
| 4 Florida Gators |
16 | 11 | 38 | 15 |
| 6 Georgia Bulldogs |
13 | 13 | 30 | 22 |
| 9 Vanderbilt Commodores |
13 | 14 | 26 | 25 |
|
8 | 19 | 24 | 28 |
