Ugh. Feels like notre dame. I hope not. We are so good. Why can’t Tennessee catch a break in some of these sports we are exceeding at ? We all want to bring home a national championship. Ehhh. I hope we win. I think every fan is thirsty for a championship. Go vols. We haven’t lost a series since Bama. Sundays have been good. Let’s go.
A few observations after attending first 2 games:
1) Evansville plays loose and with confidence as evidenced by their very seasoned lineup.
2) They have at least 600 fans at LNS and they seemed to be loud and pretty classy
3) LNS will be a different environment tomorrow night—hopefully louder and more passionate than today.
4) CMO will be back at 2B tomorrow. I hope he’s better as his leg was obviously giving him discomfort today. He didn’t even take infield practice today so I hope it isn’t anything serious.
5) Zander will calm the waters tomorrow.
6) Ensley just missed a grand slam by a few inches IIRC. He’s been on an absolute tear.
7) Tears is playing incredible defense in RF. His arm is lethal.
It’s a conservative approach that teams use when the proportional walk ratio is high on a pitching staff. I don’t think it was wise given the quality of our hitting. Once they noticed we were doing it, they threw all first pitches in the zone. It really hurt us getting behind in the count so often. We didn’t pitch well, and we didn’t get runners home, but the take call was a coaching error. They are a good team and they scouted us well. They obviously have a read on Kirby, maybe even a tell. He can’t throw to them again. On paper, tomorrow is ours, but today was ours on paper too. Have to play smart and take this one.
Not trying to be argumentative, but we had the tying run at 2nd and go ahead run at first with our best player at the plate. Given the circumstances, I think that approach worked well and, if anything, is was psychological for our guys to be patient and work a good at bat instead of focusing on winning it with one swing.
What Volstylexx said. I'll add that there's an unfortunate baseball reality
which would only be fixed by something radical, like reducing fielders to 8,
where making contact — if the ball doesn't go over the fence — kinda sucks. It makes an out most of the time. BABIP hovers around 30%, which demonstrates the extent to which contact is overrated, (again, unfortunately) and especially so in 0 and 1 strike counts. (except when that contact is a bomb over the fence, of course!)
You, as the batter, have three strikes as leverage. It turns out that being very conservative in counts of 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, and 3-0 is best (that's to say, laying off of almost anything besides a fastball in your wheelhouse, i.e. your batters should have a very good SLG on zero-strike swings!!) because the worst case leaves you still having a strike to give before you go into 2-strike approach mode, but the alternative is that (1) if you make contact, you're often hitting the ball into an out [unfortunate baseball reality, so much athleticism on defense], and (2) your batters are going to foul off/swing-and-miss at pitches that the umpire was going to call a ball, keeping your batters out of the juiciest OBP, BA, SLG, etc.-favorable counts.
And all of the above is exacerbated if the pitcher your facing isn't even doing a good job of throwing strikes anyway. Make them throw strikes, and have a good 1 and 2-strike approach. Don't make contact when you don't need to, that's the direction the game is going because it's already the reality of making contact. It's so much more luck-dependent than having a good eye and working a walk.
But wheelhouse fastballs should be crushed, hopefully over the fence, no matter what the count is.
I was there, too. Sure, the stadium was packed. But until the 9th inning it was extremely quiet after we got up 3-0. That’s just a fact. Many times I tried to stand up and get people around me to do something and the crowd just kind of sat there.
I didn’t even specifically call you out. I’m talking very broadly. So if you, personally, feel attacked by that statement then maybe deep down you feel like you could have done more.
Not trying to be argumentative, but we had the tying run at 2nd and go ahead run at first with our best player at the plate. Given the circumstances, I think that approach worked well and, if anything, is was psychological for our guys to be patient and work a good at bat instead of focusing on winning it with one swing.
I was there, too. Sure, the stadium was packed. But until the 9th inning it was extremely quiet after we got up 3-0. That’s just a fact. Many times I tried to stand up and get people around me to do something and the crowd just kind of sat there.
I didn’t even specifically call you out. I’m talking very broadly. So if you, personally, feel attacked by that statement then maybe deep down you feel like you could have done more.
Ugh. Feels like notre dame. I hope not. We are so good. Why can’t Tennessee catch a break in some of these sports we are exceeding at ? We all want to bring home a national championship. Ehhh. I hope we win. I think every fan is thirsty for a championship. Go vols. We haven’t lost a series since Bama. Sundays have been good. Let’s go.
We caught the biggest break in the tournament by hosting a 4 seed in the Super Regional... I'm fully confident that we blow it open tomorrow and treat them like the 4 seed they were assigned.
Been feeling down all afternoon. And then it just hit me. We’re still one win from Omaha. One win. That’s all we need. I believe this team will go get it!
Make no mistake, everyone in vol nation knows what’s at stake tomorrow. A loss tomorrow would send vol nation in a frenzied meltdown and would be the ultimate choke job to lose 2 straight to a 4 seed on our home field. Tony and vol baseball must win this game tomorrow. No way we let a 4 seed come into our house and knock us out at chance for a national championship. We are the number 1 team in the country, play like it tomorrow. In Tony we trust! Go Vols! Beat Evansville!
New to the baseball forum here so forgive me if this has been covered. Why do we struggle so bad with off speed pitches? We seem to do well with 95 mph fastballs but struggle with 85 mph off speed pitches. We haven’t seen a fastball since the end of our sec regular season. Our kids have to know it’s coming and just can’t stay back on it. I’m almost certain they have been hearing constantly to wait in it and drive it to opposite field. Driving me insane!!
Been feeling down all afternoon. And then it just hit me. We’re still one win from Omaha. One win. That’s all we need. I believe this team will go get it!
My bride has been sulking. Lol. I have a hard time letting a sporting event ruin my night. I’ll pour myself a nice bourbon, light a cigar and sit in the pool.
My bride has been sulking. Lol. I have a hard time letting a sporting event ruin my night. I’ll pour myself a nice bourbon, light a cigar and sit in the pool.
