Arkansas State Scout

[vol66]

Before the scout, some thoughts...

On the pitching front...

When I look at the stats, at who's thrown meaningful pitches in games and I take out Cox due to injury and Quint Robinson and Zach Reid, who have combined for 1 inning...we have 8 guys, 9 if you count Westphal (6.1 IP)

How are we going to make it?

Marks
Owenby
Martin
Serrano
Lee
Warren
Plenny
Kane
Westphal

If Marks starts on Friday nights and gets roughed up early the series is basically over...This is why he will move to Saturday starting this weekend. If we some how get a win on Friday, then we can throw the kitchen sink at them on Saturday. If we don't win on Friday this gives us a chance to still win the series.

I've been thinking about this for two weeks, but really a lot since last week's scout, when I used the phrase "worst case scenario". Even more since the news of Cox. We avoided it last week, we didn't waste the bullpen because the game was out of hand...what follows is MY worst case scenario...Mark gets to the fourth inning and starts having a problem in a close Friday game. Maybe it's tie game and CDS has to decide, are we going to go all in and try to win this game, he decides yes...in comes Kyle and he gives up a solo homer, but we're only down 1 run going into the 7th...We roll Lee out there and try to keep it close, we have no Andy Cox, so Lee goes the rest of the way, we lose a one run game...what now for the rest of the weekend, looking at the list above?

This is a real problem and there is really no solution in terms of arms. We have several guys who have yet to pitch AT ALL. We can't afford to lose the midweek game, thus Hunter Martin starting tomorrow...if we could get up big early, maybe we could get some other guys some work, see if we have anyone else to contribute on the weekend...we are about half way through the season, when do you think about redshirting some of these guys? It is a real conundrum.

Moving on...

Arky St. sits in next to last place in the Sunbelt Conference. They are much like us statistically. They have played the toughest schedule in their conference and their RPI is second to only Louisiana Lafayette who took 2 of 3 from AS last week. LLU is a good program, maybe not as strong as last year. Ole Miss had trouble with AS winning 2-1 back in February.

Team BA: .255
Team ERA: 3.60
Fld%: .965

Jr. RHP Derek Berginske has never started, he's pitched only 7.1 innings and he has an ERA of 9.39...we ought to be able to deal with that.

He only pitched 1.1 inning last season and it was in May, so I'm assuming he was hurt, but he did start 39 games in the outfield.

They've had 33 errors in 25 games...find #9 Jeremy Brown, a true freshman, and hit it at him, he accounts for 1/3 of the team's errors.

Ty White (.303) is 7/8 stealing base...

Zach George (.371) is the best hitter and Matt Burgess has 10 doubles and 2 hr's on the season.



This is one, and I'm saying this because of their starting pitcher and our starting pitcher, we should win.

Time for Derek Lance to step up from his slow start at the plate and help the team, he can do it.


GBO!!!

 

[RollerVol]

Thanks Vol66. Like what you said. So much up in the air. It doesn't sound good for our Vols, and I keep looking for a bright side...still looking. The team as a whole has to step up in a big way, but pitching is the key. Kyle has to step up in a big way and become the total pitcher I believe he can. Agree with what you said about Lance but that could be said about others.

GO BASEVOLS!