This forum is pure hardball. Bring the heat in this discussion of Flames baseball.

Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke

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By jinxy
Registration Days Posts
#455419
We look like a drunk slow pitch softball team. Our offensive approach is an embarassment to the game. Down 3 and we continue to try to crush hrs and fly out and strike out. This is the best we have??? Really??
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#455420
jinxy wrote:We look like a drunk slow pitch softball team. Our offensive approach is an embarassment to the game. Down 3 and we continue to try to crush hrs and fly out and strike out. This is the best we have??? Really??
We are back to Toman ball.
By krh44
Registration Days Posts
#455423
SuperJon wrote:
jinxy wrote:We look like a drunk slow pitch softball team. Our offensive approach is an embarassment to the game. Down 3 and we continue to try to crush hrs and fly out and strike out. This is the best we have??? Really??
We are back to Toman ball.

2 run would have been enough to win this game but error in first on a would be double play leads to 3 runs and the error by Seiz in the 2nd leads to 2 more runs. But you are right we look like a drunk softball team. Sad way to end the year.
By Trottalot
Registration Days Posts
#455424
See you later Flames!! This team has been overrated and over talked about all year and it showed big time this weekend. A very weak schedule and a very watered down and weak conference resulted in the big inflated record for Liberty. Lost to the #2 and #4 seeds; didn't even get a chance at the #1 seed Virginia. Toman is the worse coach in D1 baseball and got what he deserves; another loss. OVERRATED!! :D I'm loving it.
By ballcoach15
Registration Days Posts
#455427
15 fly ball outs against a ground ball pitcher. Got lead off man on several innings it seemed. very bad job of hitting . hopefully we have some incoming freshmen who can hit. need a 3B and DH.plus gonna need catcher . if Close and Seiz get drafted gonna need 2 more bats.
By thepostman
#455429
I don't post a lot about baseball because I am far from an expert but if what I saw this past weekend was "Toman Ball" then what happened earlier in the year when we showed patience at the plate? Did Toman just tell them 'swing for the fences'? I am not trying to be a jerk or anything like that I just honestly don't understand how things can change so much over the course of the season for the worse. It doesn't quite makes sense. So educate me, please.
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By flameshaw
Registration Days Posts
#455430
First, Toman is a good coach. About 2 months ago, most here would have voted him coach of the year. Obviously, this is the best job he has done since coming to LU.
That being said, since the middle of the season, only Lambert and Perritt have played better, every one else regressed. I do believe it goes back to reading their press clippings and believing the hype that surrounded the team. Once that happens, it is hard to overcome. It is mostly psychological and unless you have been there, it is hard to explain and even harder understand, but it is very real.
I hope Toman returns next year. Of the many games I saw this year, he made no major blunders. We failed to execute the last half of the season. Hope Bean can get his confidence back. He has to be questioning his ability big time, he has the tools.
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By jinxy
Registration Days Posts
#455432
I think its pretty clear we need a full time hitting coach. I dont know how much of the approach is attributed to toman. Sj has said for about 3 years hes all about big swings and driving the ball. Im all about winning which is working the count and going the other way. Toman has to find a 3b somewhere its been a total dead spot since breams junior year.
Last edited by jinxy on June 1st, 2014, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By flameshaw
Registration Days Posts
#455433
jinxy wrote:I think its pretty clear we need a full time hitting coach. I dont know how much of the approach is attributed to toman. Sj has said for about 3 years hes all about big swings and driving the ball. Im all about winning which is working the count going the other way. Toman has to find a 3b somewhere its been a total dead spot since breams junior year.
Do you realize how dumb that statement is?
By ballcoach15
Registration Days Posts
#455434
When we swept coastal and got to 21st in polls we stopped hitting .

i think we need more speed. need to bunt steal hit n run more . stop waiting for a 3 run HR.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#455435
thepostman wrote:I don't post a lot about baseball because I am far from an expert but if what I saw this past weekend was "Toman Ball" then what happened earlier in the year when we showed patience at the plate? Did Toman just tell them 'swing for the fences'? I am not trying to be a jerk or anything like that I just honestly don't understand how things can change so much over the course of the season for the worse. It doesn't quite makes sense. So educate me, please.
We had a totally different approach earlier in the year. We worked counts. We hit the ball where it was pitched instead of trying to pull the ball every time. We were patient at the plate. We didn't swing for the fences. All year I was giving him credit for changing how he's done things. Then, after we beat Clemson, our approach completely changed. We started going for the three run bomb again. We started swinging at the first pitch every single time.

Once we knew we were in, we stopped playing with a chip on our shoulder and started coasting. Toman doesn't care about conference championships. He cares about regionals. Once he got his regional, we lost four of our final seven conference games (that's including the tournament). We took our foot off the gas after Coastal and couldn't get it back.
By ProudFlame
Registration Days
#455436
While it is true that this season didn't end as expected, it was an amazing season. If you knew these young men, you'd know that they did not get bogged down in press clippings and hype...they are humble, yet very competitive guys. If you knew Coach Toman, you'd know that he does care about conference championships...he wants to win every game. If you had been at today's game and had seen our team's heartbreak afterwards, you'd understand the heart, soul, sweat and countless hours of practice and community service that is dedicated to the baseball program and to the school. Most importantly, you'd see the lifelong friendships that have developed, the commitment to one another and the shared pain of a season that ended too soon. I'm super proud that my son is a part of this program. THANK YOU to this year's team for a fun and exciting year.
By cuda54
Registration Days Posts
#455437
sometimes a coach has got to light a fire. You could see it coming early in the season. It didn't matter how several hit, or fielded
they knew no matter what they did they would always be in the lineup. Heck it didn't even matter how you played at practice
you knew you weren't going to sit. We pulled out games early on that we should have won easily. All everyone kept saying is we
know how to come back. Well somewhere along the line it catches up to you. Today we go back to a 3rd baseman who doesn't hit
and a dh who doesn't hit and kept them in until the end. You have people in there that have hit better than them all year. Sometimes you have to have the guts to change it up as a coach. We could have won yesterday and today imo .
By jlread
Registration Days Posts
#455439
It seems like they all sorta lost hope after the shortened pitching depth with Herndon and Lyons etc out.
Last edited by jlread on May 31st, 2014, 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#455440
If we could develop our pitching throughout the season, we wouldn't have this problem. I have no clue how Parks goes from a summer ball all-star to whatever he was at the end of this season. His mechanics were all sorts of wacky.
By JakeP50
Registration Days Posts
#455444
jlread wrote:It seems like they all sorta lost hope after the shortened pitching depth with Herndon and Lyons etc out.
When Herndon and Lyons went down the pitching took a major drop, but our bats were on fire and could bail a pitcher out pretty easily. When the bats went cold lack of depth on the mound really showed. This was a much better season than I expected when we first started and had to blow people out of the water to win a game.
By krh44
Registration Days Posts
#455448
This was not the way expected the year to end after last years run in Columbia. It shouldn't take away from what this team did. Even before our hitting woes the last few weeks I think we needed another strong bat in the lineup. Herndon going down was a big blow and you don't know how that affected the mindset of the team. Last year we got hot at the end of the year and had a incredible BSC tourney run and played well in the regionals. Lately we were swinging for the fences, having too many errors, and getting behind in games early. Oh well, only good thing about baseball being over is that football is around the corner.
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By jinxy
Registration Days Posts
#455451
It was a good season and there was progress. We really struggled down the stretch and injuries to Herndon and Lyons no doubt hurt us. There was a clear difference in our hitting approach the last 3 weeks. The progress has been slow and steady but Toman has built the program up little by little each year. We will need to bring in a lot of talent next year because I'm sure we're losing Close, Seiz, & Perritt to go along with the seniors. Taormina and Paxton will help out with their returns. I also think we lose Blake Bivens who is one of our top signees and could be a weekend type starter if he makes it to campus. Its frustrating no doubt but you look at what happened in the college baseball world yesterday and there were all kinds of upsets from teams with a lot more pedigree than us. Look at Oregon State getting whacked 14-2 at home yesterday. It's a shame we peaked about a month too early.
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