Texas at Kansas State April 14-16, 2022

Faltine’s 2nd error of the night was costly. If he made that play, that would have been 3 outs. The gates opened after that error. Not Trey’s night.

Some strangeness on the base pads tonight also. Titanic must have thought he was Lou Brock instead of Babe Ruth.

Weird game.

Win the next two, take the series, and move on.

 

We’ll give up some home runs in this silly little ballpark. Our power guys like Ivan, Trey, Murph, and Campbell* ought to be jacking around a homerun per man per game over the walls of this goofball stadium. And the other guys need to get on base so we get some 2 and 3 run homers.

*throw in Silas and Messinger for good measure.

As the poet said, April is the cruelest month…

 

A devastating error by our best fielder. Followed by some good hitting on Pete who was around 100 pitches or so, then Southard—but no grand slam.

 

Same leg press machine probably.

 

Yeah, he’s more of a Frank Thomas or a Babe Ruth, than a Lou Brock or a Ricky Henderson.

 

Might be time to accept the fact that we aren't going to live up to early season expectations this year (although I hope I'm wrong). I'm still going to support the team, though.

 

3 run homer

 

Not might be time. It IS time to accept what this team is - Regional host. No more - no less. Omaha-caliber teams don’t lose to 15-16 (1-8) KSU. Tech lost, so this was a chance to make up ground in the conference race. They lose too much to be competitive in 2023. Time to look towards 2024.

 

In baseball everybody loses to crappy teams, so I’m not counting them out yet. I think we overlooked this team based on what I saw last night. These next 2 games are key for the season now.
Concerned about lack of leadership and fire. And you would also think our pitchers would improve with age, not get worse.
The upside is this team reminds me of a tournament team as opposed to a Season team.
I think they’ll be a different team in the tournament —if they get there.

 

Bad loss, no other way to describe it.

No. 7 Baseball falls to Kansas State - University of Texas Athletics

 

Well hell. This Thurs. - Sat. series got off my radar.

So I missed this terrible loss to a conference cellar dweller last eve.

 

Outside of the early season tournament at MMP, we kinda suck on the road.

 

Completely agree, and one could see the signs in the Tech series for sure (and really, before that going back to the poor showing in S. Carolina). Most of this is on Pierce - players do have to perform, but there were good reasons why this team was pre-season #1 and prohibitive Big XII favorite. He has done a piss-poor job managing the pitching staff all season (including last night, again) and needs to take himself off of 3B coaching (yet another runner easily thrown out at home last nite). Hope CDC is paying attention, and also remembers that this guy was about our fifth choice when we had to replace Augie...

 

We’re definitely a good team, but no business being in top 5….. probably 10 even. That #1 ranking was worse thing to happen to this team.

 

Agree that #1 ranking was a bad thing, although I'd put losing Witt as the worst thing that has happened. But in any case, there's still too much talent on this team for them to be struggling this much with inconsistency. That's got to be on the coaches.

 

WJH
Could you explain more?
What do think the coaches are not doing?

 

My take:

Without Witt, we're not #1. In fact, Tennessee is the overwhelming #1 thus far this year--and we defeated them. Even with Witt, Tennessee would still be an overwhelming #1 by this point of the year. For now, we're a marginal Top 10 team that may need to nail down a lot more conference series victories (possibly all of them) to end up a Top 8 team. I think we can do it. Our 3 weekend starters (Hansen, Stevens, and Gordon) are good, but even they have bad outings from time-to-time. Overall, the bats have been ridiculously good.

From a "watch out" standpoint, we're coming to look something like last year's Arkansas team: a lineup full of high batting average guys and homerun bashers, with good, but not great, pitching. Their bats went a little bit cold, and their pitching was off, and NC State took them down. I hope, and think, we can avoid that fate. Get hot in the Regionals/Super-Regionals and we're going to Omaha.

Obvious biggest issue: the bullpen. Harrison has been really good, Nixon has struggled but he's still real good, Cobb and Olivares have been ok, LBJ looks good if we'll ever play him, but after that...

Next biggest issue: finding a #4 starter--it's not going to be DuP, not this year.

 

I'm fine with our coaching staff. Tulowitzki has been fantastic and has made a great difference in our batting. Is there really anyone who wants to dump Coach Tulo???? Just about any college program in the country would love to have Tulo. Also, as of late this week, we had the top fielding % in the league. That usually points to good coaching.

What I wish our coaches would do better: coaching base running. Our coaches also like to give certain relievers who have fared very poorly many, many, many chances, including in important games... They like that Denny's Grand Slam breakfast.

 

For those giving up on this season already, please go look at the 2009 season. I know that was Augie Garido and that definitely matters and Im disappointed in the team but by no means is this season over, they might, MIGHT not do anything in the post season but I just cant give up that easy, seen too many times where they didn't look like champions and then all of a sudden they refuse to lose. From somewhere in the depths of their psyche they find something and it lights a spark, believe me, I gave up that year, won't ever do it again until the last out.

That year they lost to Rice on Tuesday and got swept by Kansas that same weekend, then a month later, lost to Rice again and lost 2/3 games to Kansas st. and tied the last game. So didn't even beat Kansas or Kansas st. that year! BUT......they took LSU to the brink in the championship game and if not for one damn lucky hit in the furthest reaches of Rosenblatt stadium only a few inches from one of the best left fielders did LSU escape. I never saw that heart coming from UT........but thats exactly what it was, heart.

 

In 2009, yes we had Augie and we also had Skip Johnson as a pitching coach. I know some here like the current pitching coach but I just dont see it. Losing Witt was a major blow and really exposed how thin and weak our bullpen is. I think this stretch has also exposed a few other holes. I agree that hitting is much improved this year. Not sure if its a change in hitting coach or just players are hitting better but its a nice improvement. Still dont see how ever get it done with Pierce. He will get us some wins but he just isnt the home run we had with Cliff and then Augie. Huge step down in quality. Same thing happened at Rice when Graham had to step down so time will tell.

 

My main complaints are:
1) Quit trotting players out that are not performing. For example, DuPlantier has had nothing short of several disastrous outings, and yet there he was again last Tuesday night starting against SFA. Predictably, he had to be yanked in the second inning. I don't give a **** what kind of stuff he has, you have TWENTY-SIX pitchers on the roster - time to give someone else a shot. Or explain why you recruited a bunch of crappy pitchers that can't beat out DuPlantier. It has to be one or the other. It also has to breed discord on the team to sit and watch non-performing players continue to play. Same for Daly, who has been in a sophomore slump all year - O'Dowd finally got to play Tuesday night with good results and what do we do last night? Put Daly back in. Result? 0-3. Nixon, Blaire and Morehouse have also chronically underperformed this year yet continue to see the field.
2) Players making the same mistakes over and over. Mistakes are inevitable, but good coaches make corrections. For example, I love Faltine, but he has been a strikeout machine. Teach him to be more selective and shorten up his swing with two strikes. Same with our relief pitchers - I can't count how many homers we've given up with 0-2 counts. Over and over. ****, walk somebody if you need to, but quit throwing meatballs. What's that definition of insanity again?
3) Leaving pitchers in too long. This has been a problem with Pierce ever since he's been here. It is getting old screaming at the TV "get his *** out of there" and watching lead evaporate over and over. It would be one thing if we had a consistent offense (which is always difficult in baseball anyway), but quit pissing away leads with stubbornness.
4) And speaking of stubbornness, Pierce, get your *** out of the third base coaching box and into the dugout. You have bigger issues (see 1-3 above) and surely someone on the staff can do better than you have at not getting runners hosed at home (which happened again last night).

Hope that suffices as more of an explanation. And, no - I'm not a coach. But these things are fundamental. Not getting them right is how you finish LAST in the Big XII, which is what we incredibly did in 2019, for example...

 

Melendez might be out for a while

 

0-0 Top of Second. Gavin Cash playing 1B.

 

Wind blowing hard out of left field. Stopped a HR for Ardoin.

 

Stevens already getting rocked.

 

I should know this
but is it on tv anywhere

 

Kash hit a single. One on. No out. KS up 2-0 in top of 3rd.

 

ESPN +

 

Walked Faltine. 2 on. No outs.

 

Bunt of beauty by Daly. 2nd and 3rd. One away. Campbell up and he’s been red hot.