BASEBALL CENTRAL: Vols at #3 Vanderbilt

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Tennessee (13-10, 3-3) will head west on I-40 to take on in-state rival and No. 3-ranked Vanderbilt (22-4, 5-1) this weekend at Hawkins Field in Nashville, Tenn.

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Discuss.
 
#2
#2
I'll be there Friday night! vandie is a great team, but I'm anxious to see the young Vols with guns blazin'. CDS is on the right track. Cheering on the Big Orange among the whining quiche-eaters.
 
#3
#3
Really hope we can take a victory somewhere in this series, but just don't see where it is going to come. We've struggled to generate runs against average pitching, and now we are going up against Ziomek, Beede, and Pfeifer. From what I've seen of Vandy this year I think we can generate some runs off of Pfeifer, but we've seen how much of a struggle sundays can be for us on the mound. Really have to hope that Godley is lights out on Friday.
 
#4
#4
Anybody else think flipping the rotations
Would be best way to get to Hoover??

I would pitch Godley on Sundays
 
#5
#5
BruinVol said:
Anybody else think flipping the rotations
Would be best way to get to Hoover??

I would pitch Godley on Sundays
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Interesting thought, I would actually pick us to win if Godley was pitching on Sunday. That is assuming vandy wouldn't flip their rotation for the week in response.
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#6
#6
vol2013 said:
Interesting thought, I would actually pick us to win if Godley was pitching on Sunday. That is assuming vandy wouldn't flip their rotation for the week in response.
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That just doesn't happen. These are real baseball teams that want to win today. You saw it from a few mid majors Price's junior year, but not from SEC teams, except maybe the last couple weeks of the season. Moving the rotation concedes a game message-wise, and we just will not do that. I don't think anyone would. Ziomek looked very human in his last outing. He is not unbeatable. Moral of the story is you don't concede a game in this conference, unless it's David Price, which no one is this year.

Vandy is amazingly well balanced and very deep. We are definitely going to have our hands full. But I guarantee we want this series more than any other this entire year. We are going to play like it. We just have to remember to slide early with that stupid turf they have. It almost caused 2 injuries against UF and has caused many outs due to oversliding.
 
#7
#7
It certainly could send the wrong message to flip the rotation but finding a way to win one game on weekends like this is easier said than done. I wouldn't do it yet but if things turn south its worth considering IMO.
 
#8
#8
BruinVol said:
It certainly could send the wrong message to flip the rotation but finding a way to win one game on weekends like this is easier said than done. I wouldn't do it yet but if things turn south its worth considering IMO.
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I agree its worth considering. And I really think its more the mentality of doing it that is the problem. If we had a Saturday and Sunday starter that were solidified and consistent, we might be able to get away with it. But Godley is the guy. He has to be on the mound on Fridays because it gives us the best chance to win today. I really do think we can sneak out of Nashville with a win, and I truly believe throwing Godley on Friday gives us the best chance to do that.
 
#9
#9
BigOrange51 said:
I agree its worth considering. And I really think its more the mentality of doing it that is the problem. If we had a Saturday and Sunday starter that were solidified and consistent, we might be able to get away with it. But Godley is the guy. He has to be on the mound on Fridays because it gives us the best chance to win today. I really do think we can sneak out of Nashville with a win, and I truly believe throwing Godley on Friday gives us the best chance to do that.
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I agree that Friday is the best shot. Only a slight underdog on Friday but bigtime dogs on sat and sun IMO
 
#10
#10
I knew that Vanderbilt was putting in artificial turf playing surface. However, I had no idea that the only clay/dirt would be the pitching mound however as the basepaths and all other "brown" surfaces" are also artificial surface as well.

What a bizarre thing for a supposed big time program to do.

I appreciate that Vanderbilt does not want to use all that money they suck off the SEC to hire groundskeepers and staff to move and remove tarps and care for grass but there has to be a limit here.

Running and sliding on carpet base paths? No dirt in the batters boxes?!?!

WTF?!?!?
 
#11
#11
fryeguy93 said:
I knew that Vanderbilt was putting in artificial turf playing surface. However, I had no idea that the only clay/dirt would be the pitching mound however as the basepaths and all other "brown" surfaces" are also artificial surface as well.

What a bizarre thing for a supposed big time program to do.

I appreciate that Vanderbilt does not want to use all that money they suck off the SEC to hire groundskeepers and staff to move and remove tarps and care for grass but there has to be a limit here.

Running and sliding on carpet base paths? No dirt in the batters boxes?!?!

WTF?!?!?
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I absolutely hate the turf. I understand the reasoning, but it just isn't baseball. I have no problem with turf for grass, but baseball needs dirt. Interestingly enough Vandy didn't touch a dirt field until the opening of SEC play, having only left Hawkins Field for Belmont and Oregon.

Its even uglier when its wet. The mound is not even real clay. Its indoor clay. They do not water it. It being wet caused a balk in the Sunday Florida game, which ended up costing the Gators the game.

You will certainly see how the turf acts this weekend with all the rain in the forcast. We WILL get tagged out at least once oversliding a bag.
 
#14
#14
fryeguy93 said:
I knew that Vanderbilt was putting in artificial turf playing surface. However, I had no idea that the only clay/dirt would be the pitching mound however as the basepaths and all other "brown" surfaces" are also artificial surface as well.

What a bizarre thing for a supposed big time program to do.

I appreciate that Vanderbilt does not want to use all that money they suck off the SEC to hire groundskeepers and staff to move and remove tarps and care for grass but there has to be a limit here.

Running and sliding on carpet base paths? No dirt in the batters boxes?!?!

WTF?!?!?
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Seriously??? Many , many top notch programs are going to turf just like this. It's the new wave and I assumed you of all posters would know this. 20years from now I wil notl be surprised if more D1 schools do have turf than don't.
 
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#16
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BruinVol said:
Seriously??? Many , many top notch programs are going to turf just like this. It's the new wave and I assumed you of all posters would know this. 20years from now I wil notl be surprised if more D1 schools do have turf than don't.
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schools are putting down turf. Vols have put down turf behind home plate.

However, very few schools have put carpet down in base paths. This fundamentally changes the game far too much.

If they want maintenance free dirt, then put down the stuff down at Keeneland and Churchill Downs- not berber!
 
#17
#17
fryeguy93 said:
schools are putting down turf. Vols have put down turf behind home plate.

However, very few schools have put carpet down in base paths. This fundamentally changes the game far too much.

If they want maintenance free dirt, then put down the stuff down at Keeneland and Churchill Downs- not berber!
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I have been to a lot of turf fields and I know none of them that have real dirt around the bases.
 
#20
#20
fryeguy93 said:
schools are putting down turf. Vols have put down turf behind home plate.

However, very few schools have put carpet down in base paths. This fundamentally changes the game far too much.

If they want maintenance free dirt, then put down the stuff down at Keeneland and Churchill Downs- not berber!
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I can think of 1 field where there is turf and dirt bases. The maintenance to get dirt out of the turf is way too much. You are ignorant in your discussion of turf because you obviously haven't been to enough turf facilities. It's not the 1980s
 
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#21
#21
There are two issues surrounding vandy and their turf. When they decided to go that route they wanted to make sure that it was a fast playing surface as a number of the new turf fields play really slow and vandy thought that would hurt their style of play. With them doing that it has made the sliding areas much more fast than most of the fields. The other issue is when the field is wet it increases that exponentially. Yesterday did just that with the rain.
 
#22
#22
thegreatwhite1 said:
I can think of 1 field where there is turf and dirt bases. The maintenance to get dirt out of the turf is way too much. You are ignorant in your discussion of turf because you obviously haven't been to enough turf facilities. It's not the 1980s
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You mean other than every artificial turf MLB field of course.

Tennessee has artificial turf right up home plate area and all that despicable dirt.

Tropicana Field has the audacity to have all dirt basepaths and not just cutouts around the bases.


Getting the granulated dirt or clay product out of artificial turf is hardly a back breaker. Neither is vacuuming sunflower seeds.

There's no excusing Vanderbilt for playing the game on a de facto padded table top.
 
#23
#23
You see a lot of cold weather schools that do all turf. Some, like Cincinnati, use real dirt. Cincy's surface was laid before this turf trend really got going, so you could say they are behind the times a tad. I am not positive on this, but I don't know of any major schools south of Vandy with all turf fields other than Texas. The SEC shouldn't take part in this trend. We can afford to keep up grass. It will never catch on in the bigs because it's too different a game. The fact that it doesn't happen in the show means minor league teams won't do it. That really should trickle down to the big time college baseball programs who have the ability financially and weather-wise to have green grass all year long.

There are plenty of excuses to go to an all turf field, but IMO they do not outweigh the negatives.
 
#24
#24
fryeguy93 said:
There's no excusing Vanderbilt for playing the game on a de facto padded table top.
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Again you are letting your hate for vandy cloud reality. Realty is vandy and MANY other college programs have just the same surface around the bases. Vandy is a follower here and only doing what many other schools have done with turf.
 
#25
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BruinVol said:
Again you are letting your hate for vandy cloud reality. Realty is vandy and MANY other college programs have just the same surface around the bases. Vandy is a follower here and only doing what many other schools have done with turf.
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While not the norm, it is not unheard of for a school to have a surface like this. Several schools in the SE have this including Chattanooga McCallie and Lexington Catholic. I would guess most of UT's players have played on this type of surface before last night.

I have even seen a couple of places where the mound is brown turf as well.
 
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