Sooo I figured I would do a "take-aways" thread on baseball from this past weekend since I didn't do any live updates. Those who didn't missed some fun ball. We won the series but unfortunately we didn't sweep it. We lost the last game and that's hard to swallow since Eastern Michigan was picked to finish last in their division in the MAC. Not only that but they got the least amount of points out of the entire conference so with a team like that, you would think we could sweep them, even with the amount of young guys we have playing.
Now, I'm not sure how much to take away from this (probably not a lot, honestly) but there were some positives. Sanders came out super strong in the first match. He's got a nice curve ball on him. He fanned a career high 12 batters in that game. Tommy Eveld came in super clutch too. It was the eight inning and the bases were loaded. The score was 8-4 USF with no outs. We were definitely up against the wall. What did Eveld do? He struck out three batters straight!! Not only that but he closed out the game allowing no more runs the rest of the game.
Good pitching continued in day 3 so it wasn't the pitching that caused us to lose the game. Cavallaro set a new career best in that game with eight strikeouts in a career high tying seven innings. He started the game off allowing a lead-off single but then responded with retiring 12 of his next 13. Pitching was great this weekend and was much better than the previous game. I want to say it's because our pitchers have settled in a bit more now that the season is on but against an opponent like EMU, I can't say that.
Merrill had a rough weekend offensively and was taken out of the lineup by Sunday. Levi Borders on the other hand was hitting nicely. Stunkel played well as well. Chris Chatfield has really started to come into his own since the beginning of the season. He had a nice little single on day one and then on day two he gets an RBI double to extend the lead and then he turns around and has a go-ahead two-run shot off the scoreboard. The pitch was thrown way up at his head too and he still did that. I think he's going to be a special one here. He only had one AB on day three though. Maglich, Levi Borders, Chatfield, Stunkel and Merrill were all contributing runs during the first two days.
The bats just really fell off in game three. We did enough defensively to have won the game but only scoring 2 runs...you are just not going to win that way. It was scoreless until the fifth inning. EMU scored 2 and then we got two in the same inning. However, EMU added another in the 8th and we just couldn't match it. It was a very defensive match. We almost had it though. We started off with a lead-off walk but then had a PH which ended with an unfortunate 63 double play to get a quick two outs. The next batter grounded out, leaving us no real chance to come back.
However, errors were a BIG problem this weekend. This team is so much better than they played when it came to errors. Lucky for us, we were able to overcome them the first couple of games. We had 5 in the first and 4 in the second. Only 1 on the final day. Kingston was really upset about it and he really talked to his guys about it. Saying that they were better than that and needed to focus. I guess the message was clear because there were basically no errors in the third game. However, that one error came at the worst time possible. It was the eighth inning and EMU had a lead-off walk. Then they grounded to SS and Coco hesitated. Instead of charging the ball like he should have he seemed to wait on the ball to get to him but it didn't come. He then charged on it and tried to make the play at first but it was too late. That put runners on first and second with no outs. EMU then proceeded to sac to get that runner home to make the score 3-2. We would never recover.
So, pitching has been better but I need to see if it was just the result of playing an easier opponent or if they are starting to turn things around. I tend to lean towards the former. I want to see how the bats do as well. They were good against EMU but... Also, I'm impressed with how Chatfield has really come on. He's going to be fun to watch this year. Zech has been pretty good too contributing some runs and RBIs but Coco still has some growing to do. He hesitates a bit on defense which has been resulting in some errors multiple games.
We play Bethune-Cookman next.
Now, I'm not sure how much to take away from this (probably not a lot, honestly) but there were some positives. Sanders came out super strong in the first match. He's got a nice curve ball on him. He fanned a career high 12 batters in that game. Tommy Eveld came in super clutch too. It was the eight inning and the bases were loaded. The score was 8-4 USF with no outs. We were definitely up against the wall. What did Eveld do? He struck out three batters straight!! Not only that but he closed out the game allowing no more runs the rest of the game.
Good pitching continued in day 3 so it wasn't the pitching that caused us to lose the game. Cavallaro set a new career best in that game with eight strikeouts in a career high tying seven innings. He started the game off allowing a lead-off single but then responded with retiring 12 of his next 13. Pitching was great this weekend and was much better than the previous game. I want to say it's because our pitchers have settled in a bit more now that the season is on but against an opponent like EMU, I can't say that.
Merrill had a rough weekend offensively and was taken out of the lineup by Sunday. Levi Borders on the other hand was hitting nicely. Stunkel played well as well. Chris Chatfield has really started to come into his own since the beginning of the season. He had a nice little single on day one and then on day two he gets an RBI double to extend the lead and then he turns around and has a go-ahead two-run shot off the scoreboard. The pitch was thrown way up at his head too and he still did that. I think he's going to be a special one here. He only had one AB on day three though. Maglich, Levi Borders, Chatfield, Stunkel and Merrill were all contributing runs during the first two days.
The bats just really fell off in game three. We did enough defensively to have won the game but only scoring 2 runs...you are just not going to win that way. It was scoreless until the fifth inning. EMU scored 2 and then we got two in the same inning. However, EMU added another in the 8th and we just couldn't match it. It was a very defensive match. We almost had it though. We started off with a lead-off walk but then had a PH which ended with an unfortunate 63 double play to get a quick two outs. The next batter grounded out, leaving us no real chance to come back.
However, errors were a BIG problem this weekend. This team is so much better than they played when it came to errors. Lucky for us, we were able to overcome them the first couple of games. We had 5 in the first and 4 in the second. Only 1 on the final day. Kingston was really upset about it and he really talked to his guys about it. Saying that they were better than that and needed to focus. I guess the message was clear because there were basically no errors in the third game. However, that one error came at the worst time possible. It was the eighth inning and EMU had a lead-off walk. Then they grounded to SS and Coco hesitated. Instead of charging the ball like he should have he seemed to wait on the ball to get to him but it didn't come. He then charged on it and tried to make the play at first but it was too late. That put runners on first and second with no outs. EMU then proceeded to sac to get that runner home to make the score 3-2. We would never recover.
So, pitching has been better but I need to see if it was just the result of playing an easier opponent or if they are starting to turn things around. I tend to lean towards the former. I want to see how the bats do as well. They were good against EMU but... Also, I'm impressed with how Chatfield has really come on. He's going to be fun to watch this year. Zech has been pretty good too contributing some runs and RBIs but Coco still has some growing to do. He hesitates a bit on defense which has been resulting in some errors multiple games.
We play Bethune-Cookman next.
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