A Sea Of Red

Coming of a 3-1 week and a great (and surprising) sweep of FGCU we've got another really tough week coming up. The Hokies visit Lynchburg on Tuesday before we travel to Georgia for our weekend series against KSU. We are 20-10 overall, 7-5 in ASUN play, and #36 in the RPI.

VT is 20-8 overall, 7-6 in the ACC, and #40 in the RPI. This is another ridiculous ACC offense. A team .322 average, with a 1.044 OPS, 69 homeruns, and 42 stolen bases. Six starters with an OPS over 1.000. Obviously they have several guys having great seasons and outfielder Gavin Cross is among them. He is one of the highest rated (#22) draft prospects for this summer's draft. They certainly don't have the outstanding pitching like UVA but it's still a really good team.

KSU is 21-9 overall, 10-2 in the ASUN, and #10 in the RPI. KSU is clearly a good team. I think they are very similar to FGCU as they both seem to slug their way to victories. They have a great offense with a mediocre pitching staff that has a 4.71 team ERA. They have a few standouts offensively with Josh Hatcher leading the way slashing .415/.469/.669 with 15 doubles. This is a huge series for our RPI as well as the conference standings since KSU is first in the east. Let's hope the our pitching dominates the Owls the way we did FGCU. We could be tied for first if we were to sweep them.

I haven't seen our baseball team play in person since 2020 just before the season was cancelled when we had a series at Clemson and I plan on being there for the Saturday game. KSU is only about an hour away. I'm really looking forward to it hopefully the weather is nice. As of right now there is a good chance of rain Saturday.

TH Spangler wrote: ↑April 12th, 2022, 9:52 am https://brobible.com/sports/article/lib ... ral-troll/

This is fantastic. I didn’t know about this.

ballcoach's favorite game day music. Someone check on him.

Headed to the park tonight! <Hopefully> we will have need of that song being played.

We win 9-2 yesterday.
Playing two games today starting at 1. Rain in the area for tomorrow.
We put an EIGHT spot in the first inning of game one…not a terrible start I guess.

Live stats aren't working.

olldflame wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 1:52 pm Live stats aren't working.

Try the live stats for the 4:30 game. That worked for me.

16-2!

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 1:58 pm

olldflame wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 1:52 pm Live stats aren't working.

Try the live stats for the 4:30 game. That worked for me.

Thanks. I never would have thought of that.

Who would have thunk of this outcome in first 2 games?

Final score 18-3 in 7 innings as a result of the ASUN's 10 run mercy rule for double headers after 7.

olldflame wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 3:19 pm Final score 18-3 in 7 innings as a result of the ASUN's 10 run mercy rule for double headers after 7.

I didn’t know about that rule. I was thinking it was odd to schedule 7 inning double header for conference games.

Normally dominate Fluharty has been terrible and Jackson won’t take him out of the game.

He gives up 5 runs in the 6th and the first two batters of the 7th get hits and Jackson still has him out there.
We are down 6-5 in the bottom of the 7th.

Live stats says it’s 9-6 but it’s 8-6 going to the bottom of the 8th. If we lose this game it falls 100% on Jackson’s shoulders. It’s inexcusable for him to leave Fluharty out there to give up 7 runs over 2.1 innings. Especially when we have only used 3 pitchers total in the first two games of the series.

Jackson loses this game. It what world is it logical to bring a pitcher back out in a 1 run game after he just gave up 5 runs in the previous inning.
We score two top 9 to tie it at 8 and then KSU walks it off.

The past two weekends we won 5 of 6 against the two teams ahead of us in the standings, including 2 of 3 on the road against KSU. I think that's pretty good considering how we were playing a couple weeks ago. The bats have come alive. And Jackson deserves a lot of credit for shaking things up to get them going.

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:16 pm The past two weekends we won 5 of 6 against the two teams ahead of us in the standings, including 2 of 3 on the road against KSU. I think that's pretty good considering how we were playing a couple weeks ago. The bats have come alive. And Jackson deserves a lot of credit for shaking things up to get them going.

That’s absolutely true. A few weeks ago I would’ve said we probably go 1-5 as opposed to 5-1. But that doesn’t change that fact that you don’t need the luxury of 20/20 hindsight to see tonight’s mistake.

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:28 pm

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:16 pm The past two weekends we won 5 of 6 against the two teams ahead of us in the standings, including 2 of 3 on the road against KSU. I think that's pretty good considering how we were playing a couple weeks ago. The bats have come alive. And Jackson deserves a lot of credit for shaking things up to get them going.

That’s absolutely true. A few weeks ago I would’ve said we probably go 1-5 as opposed to 5-1. But that doesn’t change that fact that you don’t need the luxury of 20/20 hindsight to see tonight’s mistake.

Sometimes you go with your gut and take a gamble and it doesn't work out like you hoped. Sometimes it does. Happens to the best of them. I'm not going to focus too much on that unless it becomes a pattern. We aren't there yet and I expect we won't get there.

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:34 pm

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:28 pm

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:16 pm The past two weekends we won 5 of 6 against the two teams ahead of us in the standings, including 2 of 3 on the road against KSU. I think that's pretty good considering how we were playing a couple weeks ago. The bats have come alive. And Jackson deserves a lot of credit for shaking things up to get them going.

That’s absolutely true. A few weeks ago I would’ve said we probably go 1-5 as opposed to 5-1. But that doesn’t change that fact that you don’t need the luxury of 20/20 hindsight to see tonight’s mistake.

Sometimes you go with your gut and take a gamble and it doesn't work out like you hoped. Sometimes it does. Happens to the best of them. I'm not going to focus too much on that unless it becomes a pattern. We aren't there yet and I expect we won't get there.

Again, I agree with what you’re saying. It’s extremely frustrating tonight but it’s not a pattern so no need to stay on this for too long.

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 6:37 pm Live stats says it’s 9-6 but it’s 8-6 going to the bottom of the 8th. If we lose this game it falls 100% on Jackson’s shoulders. It’s inexcusable for him to leave Fluharty out there to give up 7 runs over 2.1 innings. Especially when we have only used 3 pitchers total in the first two games of the series.

Would love to hear his explanation. Timely pitching changes has been a strength this season.

TH Spangler wrote: ↑April 16th, 2022, 6:07 am

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 6:37 pm Live stats says it’s 9-6 but it’s 8-6 going to the bottom of the 8th. If we lose this game it falls 100% on Jackson’s shoulders. It’s inexcusable for him to leave Fluharty out there to give up 7 runs over 2.1 innings. Especially when we have only used 3 pitchers total in the first two games of the series.

Would love to hear his explanation. Timely pitching changes has been a strength this season.

Me too. I’d like to know the reasoning for him staying in the game after the first 2 batters of the 7th got hits.

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:34 pm

aredd33 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:28 pm

flamehunter wrote: ↑April 15th, 2022, 9:16 pm The past two weekends we won 5 of 6 against the two teams ahead of us in the standings, including 2 of 3 on the road against KSU. I think that's pretty good considering how we were playing a couple weeks ago. The bats have come alive. And Jackson deserves a lot of credit for shaking things up to get them going.

That’s absolutely true. A few weeks ago I would’ve said we probably go 1-5 as opposed to 5-1. But that doesn’t change that fact that you don’t need the luxury of 20/20 hindsight to see tonight’s mistake.

Sometimes you go with your gut and take a gamble and it doesn't work out like you hoped. Sometimes it does. Happens to the best of them. I'm not going to focus too much on that unless it becomes a pattern. We aren't there yet and I expect we won't get there.

I agree that coach and team has make a terrific turnaround. To win 2 out of 3 at KSU and almost take the sweep that included a double-header is great. However, KSU announcer did make an interesting comment about Fluharty that gives me pause. He first spoke of Fluharty's dominance but he mitigated that statement by stating that the analytics showed that Fluharty threw a high percentage (he stated the percentage but I forget, somewhere between 70-80%) of fastballs and insinuated that KSU may be able to tee-off on him. In the future when Fluharty is pitching against a good hitting power team he might want to mix pitches up a bit more (assuming he did pitch a good percentage of fastballs against KSU). Of course if you have a lot of movement on your fastball or you can consistently hit 95mph or above it may not matter as much. Just a thought.