The Official Tennessee vs LSU College World Series Game 1 Thread (Sat. June 17 7PM EST) ESPN

[Tony45]

Skenes is good but the amount of help he got tonight was ridiculous. Hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do. There is a reason why the zone is what it is. Balls that are 6 inches off the plate aren’t hittable. That outside strike might have been “consistent” but it doesn’t make it any less bad because it’s still the same unhittable pitch.

Please stop the excuses that kid is unreal

 

[mr.checkerboards]

Rice said it best.

 

[nomads-11]

Skenes is good but the amount of help he got tonight was ridiculous. Hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do. There is a reason why the zone is what it is. Balls that are 6 inches off the plate aren’t hittable. That outside strike might have been “consistent” but it doesn’t make it any less bad because it’s still the same unhittable pitch.

Yes. If you have a ref calling crap 6" outside or inside....not much you can do. Hitting it inside that ain't hard....I never had a problem putting it in play, not that I made first much.

 

[Volstylexx]

So, as it stands, we have to best Stanford, then beat the loser of Wake/LSU, then beat the winner Wake/LSU twice.

That’s a friggin job. I wish we were in Florida’s bracket… lol

Wake has the arms to go head to head with us in the pen, but only the Vols are really set up to run the losers bracket into a natty. The odds are against us, only 4 teams (I believe ) have ever lost game one and went on to win the title. Odds have been against us all year, so i don’t put much into it though. The team that wins game one of the supers advances to the CWS 80% of the time. USM took game one and yet here we are in Omaha. game by game mentality at this point.

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

Crushed??? It was 6-3. The love fest for Paul Skenes is reaching such obnoxious levels.

Sounds like what the media was doing when Peyton was winning all those games.
This Skenes kid just happens to be the darling of MCWS news. It'll die down one day.

 

[Stoerner Fumbles]

Why aren’t we blaming our hitters for not making any adjustments, fouling it off even though they know it’s not a strike but WILL be called a strike, and fighting for another pitch?

I wouldn’t blame peak Derek Jeter for having a bad night against Skenes.

 

[AthensVol2007]

If I am UT ADMIN, I am submitting this game to the NCAA. Cant have this in the CWS. I dont care if you have Golden Boy Skenes pitching. Umpires gotta be better

Campos is who ran Cam Cannarella in the regionals; we need him the field for our games not behind the plate.

 

[TheMookieMonster]

Please stop the excuses that kid is unreal

It’s not an excuse. We deserved to lose and Skenes is good, but if you don’t think an extra half a foot on all corners of the plate makes a difference you’re naive. That umpire was terrible tonight.

 

[knoxvol52]

Yes. If you have a ref calling crap 6" outside or inside....not much you can do. Hitting it inside that ain't hard....I never had a problem putting it in play, not that I made first much.

 

[SonOfGodVolforlife]

So, we have to beat Stanford once, then (presumably) LSU once, then presumably Wake Forest twice to advance to the finals, where it is best of 3, correct? We have to win the next 4 in a row? I'm not up to speed on how it all works.

Me either trying to catch up to the rules and everybody just giving me crap bc idk the rules lol I can’t help it I just played basketball n football in school.

 

[mr.checkerboards]

Now that we scored a few late, I think theres legs to a pitching argument........ So im listening to Basillio and him and Russell are talking about an interesting idea...... Instead of Dolly, why not Burns tonight?

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

Tough loss but we will see lsu again in a few days and we will end their season

Is that what your Magic 8 Ball told you tonight?

 

[SonOfGodVolforlife]

It’s not an excuse. We deserved to lose and Skenes is good, but if you don’t think an extra half a foot on all corners of the plate makes a difference you’re naive. That umpire was terrible tonight.

I don’t even really watch baseball but I could see that those “strikes” wasn’t even close. Even the announcers were finding it hard to defend the strike zone.

 

[AllThingsTN]

It’s not an excuse. We deserved to lose and Skenes is good, but if you don’t think an extra half a foot on all corners of the plate makes a difference you’re naive. That umpire was terrible tonight.

Didn’t you hear? Our batters should’ve just adjusted to 100 mph a half a foot off the plate. Don’t you know how easy that is?

 

[BP4Prez]

Can we discuss why we went with Fanning in the 9th? We had just cut it to 2. Why not go with Russel?

 

[VolGee4]

It’s not an excuse. We deserved to lose and Skenes is good, but if you don’t think an extra half a foot on all corners of the plate makes a difference you’re naive. That umpire was terrible tonight.

He was partly unhittable because he got 6 inches every direction. The commentators were amazed at his walk rate this year, yet he should have walked at least 2 more. You can’t expect hitters to succeed when he’s getting those calls.

 

[spyfish007]

Not a big deal, but I just noticed something weird ... the SEC Network has adjusted Tennessee's SEC record to 16-15 ... they counted tonight's CWS game as a conference loss - which doesn't make any sense.

Back to the main point .... that strike 3 call on Moore was ridiculous. It wasn't close as the dumb a$$ color commentator said.

You are forgetting the SEC tournament loss.

 

[BowlBrother85]

Please stop the excuses that kid is unreal

It's a reality ... Skenes was given a large strike zone to work with.

Livan Hernandez was a good pitcher too. That doesn't mean that Eric Gregg called a good game behind the plate in Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS between the Marlins and the Braves.

 

[cobbwebb0710]

I’ll pull for FL over LSU any day of the week, but I think the overall matchups will favor Wake.

Agreed

 

[BowlBrother85]

You are forgetting the SEC tournament loss.

Yeah ... that's it. Still strange that they would even include that though.

 

[mr.checkerboards]

Can we discuss why we went with Fanning in the 9th? We had just cut it to 2. Why not go with Russel?

Why not Burns, we have a day off.

 

[AllThingsTN]

Can we discuss why we went with Fanning in the 9th? We had just cut it to 2. Why not go with Russel?

He gave up a bomb and had one bad pitch but I thought he looked pretty good outside of that. It was a headscratcher to me tho.

 

[TheBigOne10]

Maybe a blessing LSU showed us that big lefty, Cooper. Quinn Matthews from Stanford awaits next.

 

[nomads-11]

Not played BB much??

 

[mr.checkerboards]