2019 Niner Baseball Thread

Two of the stolen bases were on failed pickoff attempts. Harris throws well. He’s not the issue.

Very true. Yett is a very good defensive catcher. The 2 pickoff attempts should have both been outs but were mishandled. We had both dead to rights.

The play that was the most costly, was the 1st & 3rd double steal. This has to be cleaned up, and I can assume Hibbs was referring to this play in the post game. Runner from 1st goes, Yett throws down to 2nd, and the runner from 3rd who was never looked at, trots in to score. Seeing that we lost by 1, that was a big run.

I’m sure Whitley will get plenty of time behind the plate this season. It seems we have always had a rotation at catcher. Yett caught roughly 2/3 of the games last season and I expect the same % this year.

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Well, thanks for that writeup. Those Diamond Niner guys didn’t know a thing about this game. :grinning:

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Bad loss in game 2 today vs. CANISIUS, 5-3. Poor production by the PHs today. 0-6, with one BB and multiple opportunities with men aboard.

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Yett on fire for the first game though. Hopefully we come back and take game 3 tomorrow.

Our #2 starter is becoming a concern. Got lit up by Canisius in game 2. He was up and down last season in the #3 spot. The question coming into the season was if he was capable of stepping into the role of #2 starter. After 2 starts he hasn’t done much to prove he’s ready. He’ll probably get 1 more shot this weekend against a much better Kent State team. Definitely something to keep an eye on as we get closer to conference play.

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All true…but scoring only 3 against THAT team isn’t very good either. I think we over-used the PH as well and it seemed each of them came up at key points and NONE of them delivered and haven’t through the first 6 games.

No excuses for Hibbs and company this weekend. Losing 1 of 3 to a lesser opponent can easily happen in baseball, but 2 of 3------- unacceptable. Terrible, terrible series loss.

Yeah, that sucked. Terrible performance.

Pitching seems even shakier than we thought it might be.

yuck.

Yep. 4 Freshman pitchers yesterday. Looks like we are throwing them into the fire and taking some lumps. Hopefully they develop quickly. They certainly have the talent.

Lots of experimentation going on with the line-up and pitching rotations with all the new pieces. I hope we get it figured out soon.

I’m guessing Gooding will be going today? Maybe he can step into a weekend role? He’s a vet who started a few mid-week games last year.

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I’m not sure that I agree with that, but only because I was worried about everyone beyond Brooks. Saturday is a big concern right now. Palinkas wasn’t good yesterday, but that’s life with a freshman in the rotation. The 4 guys who threw yesterday all have good upside. We just need a little more senior leadership on staff right now.

Well, its early still. I hope you’re right.

It is early, but the schedule isn’t waiting on us either. Hell, Morehead State scares me right now.

What (if any) pressure do you think Hibbs is under this year? I imagine if it isn’t much this year, next year would be time to be top of the table type of team in CUSA. Hill is here to win.

I think Hibbs has built our program to a pretty good level right now. From the transition from A-10 to C-USA, he’s built us up from a last place team to a Top Tier C-USA team in 3-4 years. We’ve hit that plateau of finishing 3rd-4th the past few seasons, and now the challenge will be to maintain that and to push forward for a C-USA Title and/or an a-large NCAA bid. I think the recent progress and all the work/ fundraising he did for the Indoor facility allows him some time to reap the benefits of his labor. Especially with that facility. The program is definitely trending upward.

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You are right, Hill is here to win. But, other than soccer, our baseball program has arguably been the most consistently competitive of all sports for the last several years. I think that there are other programs that are under more pressure. However, with the indoor facility, we now have facilities that are on par with the rest of the league and other area programs that we compete with. The trajectory needs to be moving towards the upper portion of CUSA and post season participation. We been just outside the bubble for the last few years.

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From my vantage point, barring a big falloff this year, next year will be when the real pressure is in place to compete for a CUSA championship. The facility is there now, should help level set some things on the trail.