Game Thread Lady Vols Softball Team week 11

#51
#51
The yard stick to see how far the LV's have come this season was Oklahoma and they came up woefully short in all aspects of the game.

As one poster called me out about dominant pitchers.....he said that there were no dominant pitchers in college softball but there were some aces out there.Well Oklahoma's ace sure " dominated " the Lady Vols today
 
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#52
#52
At least Leach showed up ready to play today. She had been the weak link.
 
#53
#53
hokievol12 said:
Our pitchers were far from excellent, the 3 run shot off Gabriel was right in the batter's wheelhouse, belt high and no movement or extra zip on the pitch...but the defensive support was much worse than the pitching. Take away what should have been 7-8 legitimate errors, not 4, and Gabriel, Moss, and Gaffin would have made the game at least competitive. Vines lets a ball get past her for extra bases, Geathers drops a rather easy fly in right field, shortstop boots an easy grounder and an easy pop up, 3rd base drops an easy pop fly in foul territory and misses a gound ball...even the Oklahoma pitcher would have been victimized by such poor defense! I'm convinced our pitching is good enough to compete with anyone if the defense shows up and plays. Defense prevented 1 or even 2 possible wins at Florida! They were terrible. Our players reacted as if the ball was covered with mosquitoes carrying the zika virus, lol.
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I'm not going to defend the defense after talking most of the season about how poor it's been...but the opportunity for an error would largely never have happened if any of the pitchers had hit their spots.
 
#54
#54
WVU05UT09 said:
Pitching has been our weakest point since Abbott left. If you are going to have a staff as weak as ours you need the hitting battery of Auburn to compensate if you want to be elite. Which we are not.

Impressive by OU even more when you consider the freshmen they are playing.
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Not really. When both Ivy and Ellen Renfroe were pitching from 2010-2014, our pitching was as good as any in the nation. Sometimes, it was our hitting that fell short and didn't give enough run supports.
 
#55
#55
LVJeff said:
I'm not going to defend the defense after talking most of the season about how poor it's been...but the opportunity for an error would largely never have happened if any of the pitchers had hit their spots.
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What I noticed was Oklahoma players making PLAYS behind their pitcher. What I saw on the Tennessee side was players fumbling grounders and booting pop fly balls. Several of those runs would have never scored if our pitchers didn't have to record 4 or 5 outs per inning.
 
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#56
#56
it didn't matter if they hit their spots or not, Oklahoma was not waiting for perfect pitches to hit. They hit just about any type pitch thrown today.
 
#57
#57
Nobody expected 9-0 scoreline for sure. I thought the game might be closer than that. But hats off to OU, they killed us. Since 2013, OU has owned TN going 5-1.

The Weeklys planned on using all three pitchers (2 innings a pice according Ralph) and that's fine. But the order in which they brought the three pitchers into the game could have made some difference IMO. If I were the Weeklys, I would've gone with Moss as a starter, Gaffin as a middle-inning reliever/closer and Gabriel as my last pitcher/resort. I think Moss could have set a nice tone for us as as starter and given some nice innings for our (young) hitters to relax and find their groove. The three-run bomb Erin gave up in the second inning really deflated our entire team. (Erin didn't look good in the first inning either.) I knew then and there the game was pretty much over. When we gave up the three-run bomb, all the pre-game plan against Parker went out the window. Against Arkansas on Wednesday OU's offense struggled against Grace Moll, a drop ball pitcher, so I thought Gaffin might be effective against OU lineup. Over all, Moss and Gaffin weren't that bad. They just didn't get a lot of support from the fielders. Once again, the three run homer changed everything.

It would have been an uphill battle anyhow for our lefty dominant lineup facing one dominant lefty pitcher such as in Paige Parker going into the game. The task became almost impossible when Pendley hit that bomb. OU fed off of that, and our players just lost the will to fight. Ball game. The momentum was totally on OU's side.
 
#59
#59
It's fast-pitch softball. Not fat-pitch-and-then-make-a-great-fielding-play softball. The pitching was the bigger breakdown of the two.
 
#60
#60
OU is just a bad matchup for TN. I hope that we won't have to face OU in the postseason. We're gonna lose to them. Again. It's not that TN is not as good as OU. We could very well be. But sometimes you run into an opponent who just can exploit your weakness a little more, and make your strength not as effective than other people. I know that all too well as a competitive athlete. To this day, someone still has my number no matter how hard I try. The best I can hope for is make my loss not as bad as last week. Or the week before. Or three weeks ago. Or 2 months ago.

Flush it, and move on to Lipscomb game!
 
#61
#61
LVJeff said:
It's fast-pitch softball. Not fat-pitch-and-then-make-a-great-fielding-play softball. The pitching was the bigger breakdown of the two.
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I don't think our pitchers are expecting the "make a GREAT fielding play..."...just make the ROUTINE play and get me out of an inning without throwing 15 additional pitches. This game was a disaster defensively...I've seen high school teams play better. The comments made by the announcing team noted that poor defense was possibly affecting the pitching...and it did.
 
#62
#62
Embarrassing loss, really. Shows we're not ready for prime time. We need to get better in all phases--especially pitching and defense. You can't give teams extra outs and runs with bad defense--cannot do it.
 
#63
#63
hokievol12 said:
I don't think our pitchers are expecting the "make a GREAT fielding play..."...just make the ROUTINE play and get me out of an inning without throwing 15 additional pitches. This game was a disaster defensively...I've seen high school teams play better. The comments made by the announcing team noted that poor defense was possibly affecting the pitching...and it did.
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Why TN couldn't muster a run? Was it OU's pitching or fielding? It was their pitcher.

This statement "poor defense was possibly affecting the pitching" only proves the point. You can't let poor fielding affect how you pitch. If you do then you're a poor pitcher.

I have railed about the poor fielding since the beginning of the season. But the pitch comes first.
 
#64
#64
LVJeff said:
Why TN couldn't muster a run? Was it OU's pitching or fielding? It was their pitcher.

This statement "poor defense was possibly affecting the pitching" only proves the point. You can't let poor fielding affect how you pitch. If you do then you're a poor pitcher.

I have railed about the poor fielding since the beginning of the season. But the pitch comes first.
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Oklahoma knew the importance of getting a big road win for their RPI. They are ranked 9th nationally and are trying to get into the top 8 for the NCAA tournament. That would allow they to play at home all the way through the super regionals. We didn't understand that obviously and really didn't come to play today.
 
#65
#65
508mikey said:
What ? Did you not see the Renfroe sisters pitch ?
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The Renfroe sisters are phenomenal individuals and great pitchers. But I doubt even they would consider themselves elite.

Elite in my mind is the type of pitcher who just takes over a game and can do it over and over again in a season across all planes and speeds. Neither sister was all everything. Ivy brought power but lesser spin. Ellen had ridiculous movement but not as much power. The best of the best do both. In fairness to them they did exactly what they were recruited to do. Ralph and Karen knew the strategy they were going to use all along I just don't think you'll win a championship that way. Batters are better, technology and video, and scouting are utilized to such and extent in the game today that pitchers without a complete arsenal will get destroyed by elite teams.
 
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#66
#66
LVJeff said:
Why TN couldn't muster a run? Was it OU's pitching or fielding? It was their pitcher.

This statement "poor defense was possibly affecting the pitching" only proves the point. You can't let poor fielding affect how you pitch. If you do then you're a poor pitcher.

I have railed about the poor fielding since the beginning of the season. But the pitch comes first.
Click to expand...

OU'S pitching is definitely better than ours, I agree..but even Parker had some outstanding plays made behind her during the game, and a catcher who happened to have a cannon for an arm! They had both outstanding pitching and defense...the orange team had mediocre pitching and horrendous defense...resulting in a 9 run margin of victory. With dominating pitching, OU can overcome a bad fielding day and still win...Tennessee pitcher's can't. The defense has to improve. The defense holds the key to any post season success.
 
#67
#67
That Oklahoma pitcher adapted to the umpire's style and our pitchers didn't. That was the difference. She was a very good location pitcher. Also, I think if that fly out of Overstreet's had gone out in the first inning it could have given our team some confidence and been a different game. That was a big psychological moment.
 
#68
#68
WVU05UT09 said:
The Renfroe sisters are phenomenal individuals and great pitchers. But I doubt even they would consider themselves elite.

Elite in my mind is the type of pitcher who just takes over a game and can do it over and over again in a season across all planes and speeds. Neither sister was all everything. Ivy brought power but lesser spin. Ellen had ridiculous movement but not as much power. The best of the best do both. In fairness to them they did exactly what they were recruited to do. Ralph and Karen knew the strategy they were going to use all along I just don't think you'll win a championship that way. Batters are better, technology and video, and scouting are utilized to such and extent in the game today that pitchers without a complete arsenal will get destroyed by elite teams.
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Disagree completely. Ivy and Ellen were as elite as they come. Somebody please pull some stats to prove it.
 
#70
#70
2Alum4EverVol said:
Disagree completely. Ivy and Ellen were as elite as they come. Somebody please pull some stats to prove it.
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We're arguing over inches here but inches that determine championships. On a grading scale of A-F clearly they get A's. I'm just saying in comparison to championship winning pitchers like Jennie Finch, Danielle Lawrie of Washington, Jackie Traina, Lauren Hager, and Kalani Ricketts they were lacking that last bit of extra something special to bring a team over the top. Primarily that extra something being they were more versatile. I remember Traina specifically talked about realizing the summer before her Senior year she was too predictable to batters so she added pitches to change her game.
 
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#71
#71
hokievol12 said:
OU'S pitching is definitely better than ours, I agree..but even Parker had some outstanding plays made behind her during the game, and a catcher who happened to have a cannon for an arm! They had both outstanding pitching and defense...the orange team had mediocre pitching and horrendous defense...resulting in a 9 run margin of victory. With dominating pitching, OU can overcome a bad fielding day and still win...Tennessee pitcher's can't. The defense has to improve. The defense holds the key to any post season success.
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I appreciate the dialog but we'll have to agree to disagree, as the saying goes. I agree TN's pitchers aren't strong enough to overcome bad fielding - but even if TN's fielders had made no errors and made every play they could have made against OU, TN would still have lost this game 5, 6, or 7 to nothing. TN needs better defense, I agree. But they need better pitching even more.
 
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#72
#72
Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I thought the defense stunk worse than pitching yesterday. Parker for OU wouldn't have looked so great either if she had been supported by the vaunted Tennessee defense yesterday...if every error had truly been recorded as what it was...an error...she would have been forced to pitch around multiple errors in multiple innings...and been tagged with at least 5 runs. The Florida series was telling...Tennessee pitching was good enough to win 2 of those games if the defense had decided to show up...and that was on Florida's home turf.
 
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