Well, I liked it.
In a big SEC matchup, Tennessee went on the road and defeated #1 Ole Miss last night 12-1. The Vols hit 5 HRs and lead all of college baseball with 64 on the season. The win pushed their record on the year to 21-1 and 4-0 in SEC play. Their only loss of course was to the Horns.
Hey, guess what was #1 on ESPNâs Top 10 plays this morning? I hadnât seen it before then and figured the descriptions here were exaggerated. Nope. The pitcher was literally staring at hi shoes until just before the runner crossed the plate.
Iâd have to watch other video but Iâm guessing thatâs a bad habit of the pitcher that Tech scouted and exploited.
And/or he was doing it earlier in the same AB.
Tech gets the walk-off granny in the 10th to win game 2 against Texas.
âJust one mistake at the end of the game.â -David Pierce, probably
By the same guy who stole home the day before
Poor Aaron Nixon had to try to close with a one-run lead in the 10th after 35 pitches Friday night. Texas lost the game with a four-run meltdown in the 8th to tie the game and made it official in the 10th. Nixon had nothing left, understandably, and Duplantier has been a bust as a mid-week starter all year. No surprise at all he gave up the slam.
Long way to go this season, and UT will bounce back, but the pitching staff, which once looked so deep with high-quality arms, now is in disarray. What I cannot understand is how/why pitchers at this level, who are way better than I ever was, struggle to throw strikes consistently.
The Vols ended up sweeping that road series against Ole Miss out-scoring them 23-7 in the process. Tennessee is now #1 in the Top 25 rankings.
Horns managed to avoid the sweep Sunday against TT but their recent lackluster play caused them to fall to #8 behind both Tech (#7) and Okla State (#6). TCU is at #12.
DBU and Texas State are at #19 and #20 respectively.
Wow, two extra inning losses and a run rule over a ranked team on the road, and you drop from 2 to 8.
At the end of the day the Horns probably win the conference and play their way to Omaha but the better question is why they were still at #2 last week. Theyâre in the midst of a pretty mediocre stretch with an 8-7 record over the last 3 weeks with 4 of the wins coming against Southland and ASUN conference teams.
Footnote: ASUN was formerly the Atlantic Sun conference. Yes, I know that was really helpful.
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I agree that it was odd they didnât drop more after the trip to SC, but since then, theyâve gone 6-2 and probably outscored the competition by 40 runs. At the end of it all, just top 8 is important.
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Iâd like to know a little more detail before hammering the ump on this one. Did the hitter step out repeatedly? Had he been warned? Was it completely out of the blue? Some context here would be important.
On a side noteâŚhow many times have we talked about hitters who have to step out, re-adjust their batting gloves, cross themselves, point to the sky, draw their initials in the dirtâŚbetween every fucking pitch, even ones they donât swing atâŚand now enforcing an actual rule makes the umpire the bad guy?
Agree.
Context would help.
Fuck that, we havenât crucified anybody in a while and weâre getting antsy.
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I assume you all discussed this (or at least shared it) but I learned last night that I am friends with Peytonâs grandparents.
Have yâall watched some of the video of that Tennessee pitcher? Maybe some of them have been posted here. I think I read his current extraordinary velocity is a relatively new thing. I wonder what the story is there?
This guy?
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