Well, from the article I read earlier today we sewed up #1 seed in Big XII tourney by co-sharing the regular season title.
I still think Witt is the best bullpen solution if he can go 2 days out of 3 for 2-3 innings total. Pierce is a wildcard with his pitchers. Curious who gets the start Wednesday. I don’t believe Pierce handles the bullpen this way in the post season. Ace probably doesn’t start the 9th yesterday. Minchey probably doesn’t start the 9th like today. Beyond the first inning, I think we faced the tying run for only 1 batter, right? And the nations top hitter hits into a double play. For the whole weekend. That’s a rare feat.
I'd guess Gordon on Thursday, and LBJ on Friday Wednesday...........Hurley, Burke, Tole ? Or does he just go: Wed ..... Gordon Thurs.....LBJ 3rd game.....Witt Maybe keep Gordon and LBJ to under 90 pitches since it's not quite a full week's rest.
I’d guess one of those 3 you mentioned for Wednesday then Gordon, LBJ and Witt. If we’re hosting a regional, I am not convinced Gordon goes game 1. Then consider we might get a Saturday, Sunday, Monday regional. That could mean Gordon pitches Wednesday and not again until Sunday.
Yeah. How about for Wednesday, we start Hurley, then go to Morehouse for long relief, or vice-versa. Tag team Hurley and Morehouse. Hurley nearly laid an egg today, but he's got good numbers. Save Tole and Burke for the games started by Gordon and LBJ. Shaw or Whitehead come in to stop whenever needed in any game.
Hurley sounds good. Should you or I tell DP? Im thinking Morehouse as a 7th/8th inning guy. Burke needs some innings. Tole too. Lummus and Whitehead for innings with multiple lefties up. I’d prefer Shaw as a late inning guy. If not Tole or Burke after the starter, I might go Sthele.
We have plenty of decent options in the bullpen, but only Shaw has been very reliable, almost every time. As far as numbers go, I like the WHIP as the key stat for relievers. Around 1.50 is decent and acceptable. Around 1.25 is good. Around 1.00 is very good. Our relievers: Name.......WHIP Shaw.........1.04 <----very good Lummus.....1.17 <----quite good Burke.........1.23 <----good Tole............1.27 <----good Hurley.........1.34 <----pretty good Sthele.........1.55 <----ok Minchey.......1.57 <----ok Morehouse...1.59 (probably a "natural" mid-week starter for this year; I think we may have misused him) Ace..............1.62 (this surprised me; I feel confident when he comes in for relief, but his numbers aren't there. This isn't terrible or anything though.) Andre DuP....1.64 Stuart..........1.67 Grubbs.........1.85 Howard........1.89 Walbridge.....2.04 The top 9 (down through Ace) are who we have to juggle and work with. Guys like Stuart, Howard, etc. are for if we get a 6+ run lead in a Regional against a 3 or 4 seed and are in the 7th, 8th, or 9th innings. I do think some of the others will make decent or better pitchers next year, but they aren't there yet. Coach is showing a lot of late-season confidence in Minchey and Grubbs. If we find ourselves fighting out of a loser's bracket and are deep into our pen, Minchey and Grubbs are two that we may get to see for more than one or two innings.
Gordon absolutely starts Wednesday then we don't see him again until the regionals, same with LBJ Thursday. Hopefully that means Friday off because Texas is in the winners bracket and you see Witt Saturday and a bunch of 2-3 inning relievers for any additional games Saturday and hopefully Sunday. There is no need to blow up the staff in Arlington, the bigger games start the following week and i am just not convinced that Texas can do anything to get a host slot even winning the tourny.
I’m going with the Big 12 getting one host spot. Given momentum, a regular season tie and the return of Witt, we are slotted #1 with OSU a very close 2nd then WVU. If OSU beats us and finishes higher in the tourney, that spot goes to them. Probably same for WVU. How much does Pierce value the tourney title and chasing a host spot? No idea. For my personal fandom, I care considerably more about the ncaa tourney. The Big 12 tourney this year potentially has a big impact on the ncaa tourney for us. Committees are pro-SEC and ACC, but I think that still leaves 1 host for the Big 12. If a Big 12 team goes undefeated in the tourney, all but 1 SEC/ACC are guaranteed losses so that’d be a net positive for the 12. Some of those teams will have two losses. Neither of the ACC/SEC have double elimination tourneys although some teams could walk away with two losses. For instance, Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama could all walk away with a single loss and no wins. RPI-wise, they are all in the 12-16 range. An undefeated OSU, you would think jumps one of those, if not all 3. There are 9 SEC teams in the top 16 RPI. A quick look shows the most conference host sites historically is 7. I could see 8 but 9 is probably a stretch. There are 3 ACC bubble teams as possibles to host. I’d bet they get 1 at most.
As for the starting rotation, it’s entirely Pierces objectives. If it’s to win the Big 12 tournament. If it’s to host a regional. Then your 4th starter goes against KU. They are the worst team by a reasonable margin. You have to win a minimum of 4 games. There really isn’t a reasonable advantage gained for the regional in having our starters pitching a day earlier. Our bullpen is rested. Maybe too much for some of them. We need several of them to get warmed up for the regional. Tole and Hurley both came out slow this weekend. Unless we go out early, they should get some good work.
I believe he will. That’s just baseball. Everybody slumps. Just need to get out of them quickly. Campbell was slow out of the gates. EK was poor versus OU. Same with Powell. Brown was not very good at KU. Right now, we’ve got a lot of guys in good grooves. Can they maintain for another month? That’s hard to do, but our guys have good swings. They hit it hard. We have guys that can bunt. Most move decently well. We are pretty well balanced (righty/lefty, power/hit for average, bunt for hits) and have some capable bench options (I’m not saying great or consistent but guys that have shown they can add value).
IDK what Pierce will do but the rule of thumb is to pitch your best in sequence as usual, losing that first game can sure throw a wrench in your plans cause you were being cute with your pitching staff and lost the 1st one.
Our lineup is extremely hard to pitch to, we have 3 lead off hitters in the top 3 holes (Thomas, Campbell & Powell), we have two 2 hole hitters (GG and PB) following all those "lead off" hitters with EK backing all of them up who is a borderline leadoff/two hole hitter, its a more dangerous lineup than people are giving them credit for and the potential i saw pre-season. After EK we had Carlson then O'Dowd (is Carlson out for the rest of the season now? ) You mention value, Dup is a high value guy that comes to mind, seems to be a clutch hitter when called upon. *If Carlson is out, its imperative that someone steps up, Dup and or Flores for us to have a good run.
So i was staying away from this forum cause i had something I had to take care of but I put it on record and was going to watch it later yesterday.......the recording was corrupted apparently.....i put in a ticket for it be resolved but its still not working this morning. I'm glad they won but I haven't been able to watch the performance yet. FYI, Sling sucks!!!!
You might try switching to DirecTV streaming. I upgrade to their second tier to get LHN during baseball season, then revert back to the basic package the rest of the year.
Hook Em!!! According to what I thought they announced during the trophy ceremony, we are the official conference champions because we hold the tie breakers. WVU was not presented a trophy.
They really screwed the proverbial pooch this weekend, but kudos to a non-baseball-powerhouse rising up and having a surprisingly good year. A very good year. They did quite well this year indeed. No shame on them.
Oh I know, but as an example, the 2021 regional saw our #3 start game 1. To me, if your objective is to win the tourney, you’d rather have Witt start the championship versus OSU or WVU than TBD. The win expectation of TBD is higher versus KU than championship opponent. Good thing is that we have capable arms for TBD whenever that happens. And for that matter Gordon could go Wednesday and come back for an inning or two Sunday. Options, we’ve got them.
West Virginia posted on Twitter that they were Big XII champions and that no one could take that away from them....I'll see if i can find it.
So you’re thinking Gordon logs 3 starts in 9 or 10 days? That Sunday game he could start but only go 1 or 2 innings and still technically start.
Let them relish it and pretend. They had quite a good season, and they're not a historically good program. Cheers to them. They should rejoice. Of course, in reality, it was a shared title. One where we got the #1 tie breaker. We should celebrate too, but we aim quite a bit higher than conference championships.
