Watched Ralph Weekly's recent interview and he seemed to be okay with an idea of going with just two pitchers, Erin & Matty in the NCAA tournament. Ralph said that the team won't miss Gaffin's pitching in the circle as much as her hitting in the batter's box & her leadership on the field, and I completely agree with that assessment. What's new? i seriously doubt we'll see Bria Bush in the circle for the remainder of the season. Ralph sounded as if Bush is making a progress but I doubt the validity of it. If we're gonna have a third pitcher at all, then it will be Gretchen Aucoin I think, and when that happens, then it can only mean one of the two things; either we're way up or we're way down..
Just like the rest of you, I'm not sure what exactly is going on/wrong with Bush; has her reported pre-existing injury dating from high school days slowed down her development in her rookie year (seems to be a poor/unsatisfactory excuse/explanation from what I've been able to observe) or was she never an elite (?) pitcher that we were widely led to believe? She was certainly advertised/hyped to be (much) better than what she has shown so far with some fanfare before her arrival at Rocky Top. At this point, I tend to think the latter is the case; as someone (I forgot his name) expressed on the other thread, I'm afraid that Bush's days at UT are numbered and she'll get recruited over in the next couple years. Unless Bush's pitching does an amazing 180-degree turn next year, my fingers crossed, we probably won't see her here anymore. That'll be pretty unfortunate b/c she seems to be a really sweet person, and UT has been her dream school since she was 8 years old. But we'll move on.
I like the lineup we used against LSU in the SECT, and expect Erin to pitch against Marist. We'll save Moss for AZ/OH St. Darn it, we'll surely miss Gaffin in the 6th spot. She had a hot bat too before the freak injury happened. Why couldn't that cursed pitch hit her anywhere else but there??
