[SuperJon]

We need the Coastal a coach to teach us how to bunt.

FTFY.

[Stevev]

Another wasted opportunity

[krh44]

First 2 on and can't even move them to third. Our hitting has been terrible all year.

[SuperJon]

Josh Greene is now 6-11 with seven RBI in 2.5 half games against us. At what point do we pitch around him?

[ballcoach15]

Never let opponents best hitter beat you. Hopefully before the 9th inning we will start hitting. 2 measly hits so far. Pitiful.

[SuperJon]

Josh Greene got another hit.

Why am I still listening?

[flameshaw]

Is anyone getting the live feed? Looks like the BS has screwed the pooch again.

Ustream is down nationwide. It's not the Big South's fault.

Thanks, that is good to know. It has come back up. In the past the BS has a terrible record of live streaming videos. It has actually been a lot better this year. I was hoping it wasn't an instant replay of past performance.

[flameshaw]

I'm out. How many days until football season?

[flameshaw]

Here we go hpu up 2 to 0

They have a good plate approach. All the RH hitters taking Pennington to the opposite field.

Sounds like we have come out true to form and swinging for the fences

How can you tell if we are swinging for the fences? Is it a different swing than trying to hit the ball hard up the middle? How can you tell which one is which? We are taking the same approach the we did last year and this year, no difference. Do you want to say that we were swinging differently last year, when we won the conference championship and won two games in the NCAA"s?
We just aren't hitting the ball right now, in a team slump, all teams go through that. A few weeks ago we were scoring all kinds of runs and hitting the ball good, were we just trying to hit singles then? Were we just trying to hit it 20 feet into the outfield? smh.
I can understand the frustration, I am as well. But blaming the coaching for everything is just crazy. The players have some responsibility to execute. We don't have the talent we had last year. That might be a legitimate thing to blame on the coaching staff. But we have a couple of pitchers hurt/under perform etc. Maybe it is George Bush's fault?

[jinxy]

We AlWAYS swing for the fences. If were not swinging for the fences then we flat out stink as hitters and we have about 4 d1 hitters in the program right now based on the stats. Thats truth. Pitching has carried us for several years now

[Cider Jim]

Final Score:

HPU 8, LU 3

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=90584

[krh44]

We had another team slump at the end of last year as well. It has been like this all year though. How many games have we had runners on with no outs and end up not scoring or moving the runners.

Team Stats Big South Standings
RUNS 8TH, BA 9th, RBI 8th, Hits 10th
We did out hit Gardner Webb this year.

This is not what you expect from a team that was preseason ranked in top 25 going into the tourney.

Last night
Perritt 0-3
Britt 0-4
Close 0-4
Yactk 0-4
Paxton 0-3


I am not blaming coaches but there enough talent on this team to not be at the bottom of the BSC in hitting.

[SuperJon]

We can disagree on how Toman is as a coach, but the one thing we can't dispute is his philosophies as a coach. He's been here long enough for us to get a feel for how he does things.

Toman's hitting approach is simple:

1) Be aggressive.
2) Swing hard.
3) Pull the ball.

That's how he views hitting. Saying we're swinging for the fences is 100% accurate because that's Toman's philosophy.

A few statistics to back up the fact that our approach is to swing for the fences:

2015: 2nd most strikeouts in the league
2014: 3rd most strikeouts in the league
2013: 2nd most strikeouts in the league
2012: 3rd fewest strikeouts in the league

2015: 3rd lowest average in the league
2014: 4th highest average in the league
2013: 4th lowest average in the league
2012: 2nd highest average in the league

2015: 3rd most home runs in the league
2014: most home runs in the league
2013: most home runs in the league
2012: most home runs in the league

In 2012, we had Matt Hagen as the hitting coach. In the three years since, we've had no hitting coach.

We traditionally have near the top of the league in strikeouts, bottom of the league in average, and top of the league in home runs.

If that's not swinging for the fences, I don't know what is.

We are who we are.

[Chippy]

We had another team slump at the end of last year as well. It has been like this all year though. How many games have we had runners on with no outs and end up not scoring or moving the runners.

Team Stats Big South Standings
RUNS 8TH, BA 9th, RBI 8th, Hits 10th
We did out hit Gardner Webb this year.

This is not what you expect from a team that was preseason ranked in top 25 going into the tourney.

Last night
Perritt 0-3
Britt 0-4
Close 0-4
Yactk 0-4
Paxton 0-3


I am not blaming coaches but there enough talent on this team to not be at the bottom of the BSC in hitting.

Seiz carried us most of last year. You factor out his average and you have the same team average as you do this year with the same cast of characters. He's gone. Paxton is a lifetime .220 hitter. Keranen Stroosma, Salisbury, et al have produced very little. Yacyk hasn't homered in 3 months, Sankey a least a month. The strikeouts keep mounting with Sankey and Close getting the golden sombrero in consecutive games against HPU. The problem is we're giving up 1 1/2 more runs per game than last year that's what makes the hitting look so bad.

[Cider Jim]

Super, no discussion of Coach's BUNTING philosophy?

[SuperJon]

Super, no discussion of Coach's BUNTING philosophy?

Whole different conversation. Unfortunately, if you don't have numbers to back it up, people around here label you as just someone who is a hater.

[Trottalot]

We had another team slump at the end of last year as well. It has been like this all year though. How many games have we had runners on with no outs and end up not scoring or moving the runners.

Team Stats Big South Standings
RUNS 8TH, BA 9th, RBI 8th, Hits 10th
We did out hit Gardner Webb this year.

This is not what you expect from a team that was preseason ranked in top 25 going into the tourney.

Last night
Perritt 0-3
Britt 0-4
Close 0-4
Yactk 0-4
Paxton 0-3


I am not blaming coaches but there enough talent on this team to not be at the bottom of the BSC in hitting.

Yes you can put most of the blame on the Head Coach Toman for making bad decisions all the time. He makes out the lineup, puts on the hit&run plays, steals, bunts, and the one I hate the most....take sign, that puts the batter behind in most cases. He also decides who is pitching and whose coming in next. He should have started Lyons, because you just can't loss that first game especially to a lower seeded team. Yes the players have to get it done; but it's how they are taught to do it and how they are motivated to play these games.
The facts are that this team doesn't have "all that talent" that y'all keep talking about. You play in a weak mid-major conference that you finished fourth place. You couldn't beat the top three teams ahead of you and you got beat by a team seeded lower than you. So he's not bringing in all that much talent. So get a new coach, a players coach and you will see a lot better results. I'm surprised at the lack of comments about the senior leadership of this team. A lot of 0-4 and a ton of strikeouts; even a " Golden Sombrero."
And for those couple of Toman lovers; keep liking him and enjoy your baseball seasons ending earlier than they should. Y'all have a good day, you hear!

[SuperJon]

Yeah, we're not in a weak mid-major league. That's crap. We're 10th in the country in conference RPI ahead of the A-Sun, Sun Belt, Mountain West, CAA, Southern, and West Coast.

[ATrain]

Yeah, we're not in a weak mid-major league. That's crap. We're 10th in the country in conference RPI ahead of the A-Sun, Sun Belt, Mountain West, CAA, Southern, and West Coast.

QFT...the Big South has, for the past decade, been one of the better mid-major baseball conferences. Granted, a lot of that is a credit to Coastal's program with 2-3 teams behind them being above average, which in most years has gotten the league 2 bids. Winthrop's program slumping after Hudak's era peaked hurt a little bit, but other programs have helped to fill that hole. The past couple of years the league has been knocking on the door of sending 3 teams to the tournament. It could happen this year if someone other than Coastal or Radford wins the tournament.

[Trottalot]

Yeah, we're not in a weak mid-major league. That's crap. We're 10th in the country in conference RPI ahead of the A-Sun, Sun Belt, Mountain West, CAA, Southern, and West Coast.

Yes you do have 6 in the top 100 but the other 5 teams in the conference are awful, therefore it effects the look of the whole conference. The whole idea is "your a mid-major team' and not a very good one either.

[huntandfish]

Why not pitch your best in game one, they did and look what happened. Just think at times Jim thinks they are better than the other guys exp when playing CCU so he thinks he can get away with it. When you are the big boy with all the toys people what to knock you off. And remember last yr the HPU guy ran out and shoved it up our ... well you know. Just like last night. Good thing is we should beat the tick out of LC. Well I have heard that before. Coach may be looking at things in Columbia cause that is not a happy group of alums. Talked to a guy today and they are ready for a change. Its a crazy world in college sports now.

[LUDad]

Yeah, we're not in a weak mid-major league. That's crap. We're 10th in the country in conference RPI ahead of the A-Sun, Sun Belt, Mountain West, CAA, Southern, and West Coast.

Yes you do have 6 in the top 100 but the other 5 teams in the conference are awful, therefore it effects the look of the whole conference. The whole idea is "your a mid-major team' and not a very good one either.

Trotalot, I assume by your comments that your school team is a very good P5 baseball school. If you don't mind me asking, what school is that?

[SuperJon]

Why not pitch your best in game one, they did and look what happened.

I don't hate nor do I even disagree with the decision to start Pennington. It didn't work out so it's easy to second guess it, but it was a good move. Lyons traditionally doesn't do well on short rest. On top of that, he's thrown something like 230 pitches over 16-ish innings in his previous to starts. To go one step further, HPU hadn't seen Pennington but had faced Lyons less than a week before. If we beat HPU with Pennington, we go into a game against Radford with our best. It gives us our best chance to beat them. If we lose, we have our best on the mound to save our season.

There are two philosophies come double elimination tournament time:

1) You look at it game by game.
2) You look at the overall tournament.

Toman chose to look at the overall tournament. It didn't work out but it wasn't a bad decision.

[huntandfish]

Not sure I can agree with that. In any situation it's one game at a time can't be looking down the road. Maybe that's the issue we are looking to far down the road. Worried about RPI, at large etc... When you take it one at a time and you are in. RU 2015 is a great example.

[krh44]

Flames took 2-0 lead but Washington just tied it at 2