The pitching staff dominated for the most part. Neeley, Warren, stallings, lingenfelter, Schultz and Darling all looked very good. Lipinski struggled over his 2 innings of work. I remember two errors, one by Derkay at first base and one by Jordan Rogers at third. Hitting was just ok. Pete Derkay had a bomb to right center for his 1st collegiate HR. Looked like they missed a couple of hit and run plays which made the base runners look bad. Outfield looked very solid. Santiago hit good and his arm looked even better than last year behind the plate.
Spoke to my scout buddy again who told me the freshmen pitchers will be dominant over the next few years. He mentioned all of them and said he thought they had the chance to be the best freshmen staff in the SEC. With the 4 freshmen that pitched tonight and the 2 injured lefties, I am very excited as well for the future of our staff. One of the coaches at the golf tournament told me that Heflin will be back for the spring and has looked good in the bullpen this fall and that Walsh has TJ surgery next week on his elbow. He said he was extremely impressive before his injury a few weeks ago. Serrano will have so many more options this year that he didn't have last season out of the pen and the starting rotation. Not sure where some of the upperclassmen that pitched last season will fit in to all of this. However, competition makes everyone better.
I was hoping to see Brandon Chinea play but he sprained his ankle and wasn't available. All in all I thought it was a great start and makes me excited for 2017!