A Sea Of Red

Nice comeback to get the win 9-6. Price had his worst outing in a while, but hung in there for 6 innings to get the game to Bertsch, who ended up getting the win with 3 perfect innings of relief. Problem now of course, is that Jackson is probably not available today. He only threw 40 pitches, so he may be able to give us an inning or 2 Sunday.

Upon review, plate umpire blew the first bang-bang play at first base. Longwood first baseman clearly came off the bag. Scott flew out of third base coaches’ box at first base ump to insist on appeal.

Then the first base umpire blew another call the very next inning when LU 3B made great throw to get Longwood runner. Scott justifiably blew up again at 1B ump, and now that guy is behind the plate today. Could be fireworks.

We lose 8-6,

ballcoach15 wrote:We lose 8-6,

...to the team that doesn't belong in the same division as Liberty.

Horrific loss being at home. At large is completely toast even though it was a long shot before. The most concerning thing so far in the jackson era is the lack of development from pithching. Youd like to see some improvement and development. Next year will be the key year but it is a bit concerning the way its happening. Just loads and loads of walks and continually putting ourselvses in the most difficult situation possible with all the walks. I can live with getting hit at times but the games are just unwatchable with all of the walks and choppy innings.

There is no question our pitching is extremely shallow. There is also no question that we are vulnerable to a left handed pitcher on a good day. That's what happened here. Anyone who thinks that the solution to the latter is as simple as putting Yacyk in the lineup and keeping him there no matter how many times he strikes out is fooling themselves.

Longwood is not a good team, but they had 6 BSC wins before this one. There is no such thing as an automatic win in conference play. Another loss today would be some cause for concern, but it would take a complete collapse for us to fall below the #4 seed for the tournament. Regardless of seed, we are facing a huge uphill task in the tourney with our lack of pitching depth. The only way I can see us winning it is scoring a ton of runs by everyone working the system for a bunch of walks and Todd and a couple of other hitters getting hot.

Brockman comes in and strikes out 4 out of 5, gives up a blop single and gets pulled...

Was at the game on Saturday and watched the other two on TV. We were literally given the Friday and Sunday game on errors and lost Saturday's game. We have a lot of left-handed hitters in the lineup and they threw a lot of left-handed pitchers at us, during the series.
Bottom line is, that we don't have the overall talent to win the BSC. Our starting pitching is weak, we don't have a closer out of the bullpen and some our our best players are not having good years. Some will want to blame it all on Toman, but that ship has sailed and sunk. We are going through a transition period right now and that is some of the reason for our current situation. There are some other tweaks that might be considered questionable, that may/may not work out, we will have to see.
I do not think that it is fair to judge the coach, good or bad, based on the first two years of results. Next year, is going to be the time to start that exercise.
Finally, I agree that Longwood is currently not deserving of DI status, (very, very marginal at best). The fact that we lost to them, has more to say about us than them.

This is Jackson’s second year. I like where we are.

jbock13 wrote:This is Jackson’s second year. I like where we are.

I like the direction we are headed, we just have a significant journey to get to where we want/should be. Continuous improvement, should always be the main objective and how we measure progress.

flameshaw wrote:

jbock13 wrote:This is Jackson’s second year. I like where we are.

I like the direction we are headed, we just have a significant journey to get to where we want/should be. Continuous improvement, should always be the main objective and how we measure progress.

I agree with both of you. If we can finish in the top four this year with our three best pitchers out and two years off a seventh place finish, I’m good with that progress. We aren’t at a place where we’re competing for an at large but I think we are moving that direction. Softball and baseball have shown what consistent progress looks like and I think baseball can do that too.

Basically, we have won 2 of 3 BSC games this year, and Longwood has won 1 of 3. That is how this series went. The idea that somehow losing that one game was "horrible" is not based in reality. They started a lefty and he pitched well. With our lineup, that is going to be an issue, and Saturday was no exception. Get over it.

As far as the idea that the 2 wins were a "gift" because Longwood made errors is concerned, guess what....... WE DID NOT. It's part of the game.

olldflame wrote:Basically, we have won 2 of 3 BSC games this year, and Longwood has won 1 of 3. That is how this series went. The idea that somehow losing that one game was "horrible" is not based in reality. They started a lefty and he pitched well. With our lineup, that is going to be an issue, and Saturday was no exception. Get over it.

As far as the idea that the 2 wins were a "gift" because Longwood made errors is concerned, guess what....... WE DID NOT. It's part of the game.

Maybe you didn't watch the games? Yes errors are part of the game, but the ones that were gifted to us were plays that 99% of low-end high school teams make. And both times, they were made in the bottom of the 9th inning, so yes, they were absolute gifts. We are talking Bill Buckner-type errors....................................... I mean gifts. But hey, whatever makes you feel better is fine with me.

flameshaw wrote:

olldflame wrote:Basically, we have won 2 of 3 BSC games this year, and Longwood has won 1 of 3. That is how this series went. The idea that somehow losing that one game was "horrible" is not based in reality. They started a lefty and he pitched well. With our lineup, that is going to be an issue, and Saturday was no exception. Get over it.

As far as the idea that the 2 wins were a "gift" because Longwood made errors is concerned, guess what....... WE DID NOT. It's part of the game.

Maybe you didn't watch the games? Yes errors are part of the game, but the ones that were gifted to us were plays that 99% of low-end high school teams make. And both times, they were made in the bottom of the 9th inning, so yes, they were absolute gifts. We are talking Bill Buckner-type errors....................................... I mean gifts. But hey, whatever makes you feel better is fine with me.

Friday's was the eighth and today's was the eleventh inning. And Bill Buckner was a major leaguer so it can happen to anybody.

LU may not win BSC, but who will? There’s no clear-cut favorite going into tourney.

JK37 wrote:LU may not win BSC, but who will? There’s no clear-cut favorite going into tourney.

Can't really argue with that, even though Campbell has been impressive in conference play (15-3). However, 2 of those 3 losses were to LU. I honestly don't know who has the deepest pitching staff. I just know it isn't us That seems to always be a key factor with the format of the conference tourney.

It is horrible. The whole series was horrible. Losing to unca at home was just as bad. Those 2 programs have very very little d1 talent. Kyri washington is the only kid i can remember in the last 5 years that was a real problem

Conference record comparison is comedic. Longwood got 3 of their wins against unca and 1 against csu and 1 against radford. Campbell swept and dominated them and winthrop swept and dominated them. They played hpu at home and lost 2 of 3.

So the 3 teams were competing with for the title went 8 and 1 and hammered them and 2 of the 3 series were in farmville.

It was a very very poor weekend of baseball for us. We should feel fortunate that we got 2 wins the way we played.

Btw this past weekend dropped us almost 23 rpi spots and we won 2 of 3.

Jk that is my thinking as well. I would lean campbell or winthrop though. We played very well for 2 or 3 weeks about a month ago and pitching was showing signs of improvement but weve went backward the last 2.

Ace getting roughed-up on Friday was most telling thing of weekend. Gotta at least have him rolling come tourney time.