A couple of things stuck out to me in that article. The first, and in my opinion the biggest, is this quote:
“Honestly, it’s just looking for a fastball and adjusting to whatever else is coming,” Sankey said. “Then I just try to work the middle of the field. I got a changeup and I was able to hit it through the hole.”
In the past, we just tried to pull everything and hit it as hard as we could. Credit the staff for making the changes and adopting this approach. I truly believe it's this approach that's allowed us to get so many 2-strike and 2-out hits this year.
Liberty has won 12 of its last 13 since starting the season 6-6...
After tinkering with the lineup the first 8-10 games, which Toman said he would before the season even began, he hasn't done much in terms of huge changes since. He's found a pretty consistent lineup with a few tweaks here and there and the team has been able to gel. In the past, if a guy had a bad game, he was jerked out of the lineup for the next couple of games. That hasn't happened this year.
“We made up for not sweeping the last conference team,” Toman said. “We had an opportunity to and we didn’t, and we felt like we let that one slip away. Once you win those first two, you want to win the third. I’m proud of the guys for finally getting over the hump a little bit with that. That was good.”
This sounds small, but admitting that we've let that third game of a sweep get away is a big step to getting past it. He's stressing the importance of getting the sweep.
Everyone on here knows I've been a huge Toman critic, but from the Big South tournament of last year until now he has coached differently. He has been much more loose. He's coached like the guy that he is when players come on their visits. He's given guys a chance to own this team and lead this team. A perfect example is allowing Grauer to call pitches on a regular basis. He trusts his players to go out there and make the plays in a way that he hasn't trusted his previous team.
I don't know if he purposefully made some of these small changes or if they're just a matter of learning how to be a head coach and experience, but regardless of the reason, he's doing a great job with this team this year. We will go where he leads us, and if he continues to lead like this, I've got no doubt we'll be in a regional this year.
- By LU Armchair coach
- By Humble_Opinion
- By Ill flame