Hookem2147

Grambling is the worst team in the tournament and it probably isn't close

There is some irony in the two 13-17 SEC teams currently playing getting shut out by G5 schools.

Grambling has two pitchers with ERA's under 5.00 and this is one of them lol.

There was. And it's usually directed at the bullpen, thinking college bullpens should be stacked. Most of the time, outside of your closer and a setup man or two, there is a reason a guy is in the bullpen. A fraction of the fanbase is still stuck in the dead ball era, thinking Texas staff should be putting up 2.50 ERAs every year. Anything hovering in the low 4.00's is pretty damn good nowadays and will have you around the top 20 nationally. That gives some people a stroke who have followed Texas baseball for a long time, but that's just the way the game is nowadays. The average SEC ERA over the years: 2019- 4.13 2021- 4.41 2022- 4.56 2023- 5.09 2024- 5.01 Our staff and ERA need to improve, but expectations need to be recalibrated as well. Also, the way they are scoring games nowadays is hilarious. You get a hit for pretty much anything. A ball through the legs of Jack O'Dowd last week is scored a hit, leading to 3 'earned' runs.

6 is the magic number. We are 29-6 when scoring 6 or more.

Grubbs slots in reasonably well in a non-ace role. He's having to pitch out of place on this staff and has held his own. Hopefully he sets the tone today.

When you don’t have a true #1, any pitching decison has the chance to backfire. Ace hasn’t pitched well enough the last month or so to give me confidence he could beat a team like Louisiana.

This was supposed to be the compromise after the 2022 season when Sean Allen was dumped and instead of a top pitching coach we got a mid 50’s volunteer JUCO coach who had never recruited a day in his life. And then we discovered a few months in “oh shit this guy who had never recruited before can’t recruit!” There is no pitching coach reshuffle coming.

From Dallas. More of a 4 than a true center but is a good rebounder.

Hard to envision a scenario where we win this regional without Boehm and Dre both throwing 3 days in a row unless we have Chad Hollingsworth reincarnated come down from the heavens for one of the games. Just the way it is. It's nice to have two guys you trust a lot out of the bullpen but that means they are going to have to shoulder an extremely heavy load. I have no idea where Whitehead is health-wise, but he was not in a very good spot leading up to the Big 12 tournament. I was kind of surprised they even threw him against Tech. I think the plan is for him to have surgery almost immediately after the season ends. The idea of him throwing 85 against that A&M lineup is terrifying. Would almost prefer LBJ in that spot if we are in the winner's bracket. There is a chance of a blowup outing with him, but he can also compete with that lineup if he is on.

I love how his time working for the pool company magically disappeared from his work history

That comment was about Louisiana.

5. Lose one of the first two and you have to go 4-1 to make it all the way through. Win the first two and you could go 3-0 or 3-1 to advance.

I don’t see the value in taking 14-15 pitchers. If we have to use more than 7-8 arms in this regional we are screwed anyway. And yes, there is absolutely value in carrying both O’Dowd and Kennedy as it gives you flexibility for pinch hitting/pinch running/defensive replacement

Guys like Howard may not even be active. You can only have 27 active in the postseason. C (2)- Schuessler, Galvan INF (6)- Thomas, Kennedy, O'Dowd, Flores, Powell, Borba OF (5)- Belyeu, Gasparino, Brown, Duplantier, Farmer, maybe Werchan or Cummings but I don't see a use for a 6th outfielder P (13)- Grubbs, Whitehead, Hurley, LBJ, Boehm, Duplantier, O'Hara, Tumis, Hamilton, Lummus, Harrison, Shaw (I guess), Tole (I guess) That leaves one spot. Maybe you dress and travel someone like Witt for culture and to be around in the dugout. If we need an actual 14th pitcher to appear in a game, then we are toast anyway.

It’s Louisiana, not LA Tech

I don’t know this for sure but I’m pretty sure the thought of extending Boehm last week for 60+ pitches was to prepare him for a potential start in a regional if the situation calls for it.

This honestly isn’t the worst idea but my guess is Grubbs takes the ball on Friday.

They struggled early in the year against better competition then put some things together and cruised through the Sun Belt before dropping both games of the conference tourney. They are good on the mound, probably around average at the plate.

I love it when someone gets called out for an awful take then responds by putting words in the other person’s mouth.

You are embarrassing yourself. Have you seen the Pac12 play this year and how many teams got in the field?

If we lose to Grambling we might as well end the program

I don’t think the 6th best RPI conference should be getting multiple hosts, but that is just my opinion. Their overall resume was better than Texas (silly discussion, we were never close to hosting). Arizona had 5 losing weekends on the year and a RPI in the 30’s. You just don’t typically see the committee reward that, but maybe they will weigh conference titles more moving forward. The biggest issue I continue to have is the committee seems to change their criteria randomly. One year RPI is king, then the next year it’s conference titles. There needs to be some level of consistency. Indiana State went out and played a tough non con schedule too and had the same number of Q1 wins as Arizona with a RPI of #10 and will be playing on the road.

Arizona was 11-1 in Q4 games. We were 13-8. Arizona was also the regular season and tournament champions in their conference. Also played the #1 non con SOS. I don’t think they deserved to host but our resume wasn’t close and we weren’t climbing 20 RPI spots to get into the low 30’s even with a 4-0 run.

Absolutely. But I have a feeling they are going to send one of the host snubs there. Maybe Miss State. Another angle they could want is LSU as the 2 seed. Jay Johnson back to the place he left LSU for.