Shockers host Oklahoma

[ShockerFever]

Nice work for Tommy Blownsave.

[SB Shock]

Ball 5
Ball 6

[SB Shock]

came back an go the K

[Play Angry]

Big whiff for Chandler.

One more to go.

[Cdizzle]

I'll take it.

[Play Angry]

Sanburn was good enough in a very combustible situation. Gotta think that ends the debate over the closer role for now.

Combined line for Shocker pitching tonight: 9 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, 4 BB, 11 K



Awesome to get the win against a solid OU squad on a night when the hitters just didn't have it.

[SB Shock]

Shox win 2-1

[ShockerFever]

Gift-wrapped W. Sure, we'll take it.

[WuDrWu]

Maybe, but when you pitch like our kids did, you make your own breaks. Gotta give 'em credit for half the game.

[1972Shocker]

Sanburn was good enough in a very combustible situation. Gotta think that ends the debate over the closer role for now.

We'll see. HCTB said that swtich was going to happen a while back but it never did. Sanburn just seems to have more closer-like stuff to me. I suppose you probably need a couple of guys that can close. I just don't have that much confidence in Tommy but he may be the best opiton we have other than Chandler.

Have to give some credit to Coach Steele. It hasn't always been pretty but the Shocks have a team ERA of 3.41 through 18 games. I don't know if that will stand up throught the tougher portion of the schedule post-Furman but so far so good.

[Play Angry]

After the walk-off bomb at Creighton in the 9th, Steele and Butler wavered (using Tommy in a lower leverage save opportunity Sunday after using Chandler in the higher leverage bridge 7th and 8th innings with a slimmer lead), but hopefully this adds some conviction to the move.

[Play Angry]

Our staff WHIP is just a shade under 1.14 and K/9 is 9.84. Last time we were close to this level of efficiency on the mound was the terrific staff from 2007 (1.11 WHIP). Incredibly, we've never paced for strikeout numbers equal to this year's output so far - the closest we've been dating back to 1978 was the 2007 staff, which posted a K/9 of 9.01, and the 2009 staff, which posted a K/9 of 9.1. These numbers are likely to regress some (although they have actually improved moderately since entering the teeth of our SoS last week), but the cumulative SoS sits in the 40s after today's game so this is not a case of gaudy numbers put up against chopped liver a la Syracuse's OOC hoops schedule every year.

There is a lot of season left but this is incredibly impressive work to date by Steele. 2 years ago he inherited a staff that posted a 5.97 ERA, 1.61 WHIP and K/9 of 7.7.

If watching this staff's progress hasn't been a blast then I don't know what to say. Awesome, awesome work and keep it rolling Shocks.

[Play Angry]

WSU's RPI improves to 9 with the win, SoS now sits at 40.

[Cdizzle]

I don't have a lot of experience following baseball RPI and such, but it still seems quite early to use it with that much confidence. Multiple-game series in baseball just reduce the connectivity so much relative to number of games played.

Still, REGARDLESS of competition level, the pitching numbers are starting to be pretty impressive. I'm still highly skeptical this squad will get where it needs to go, but credit where it is due. The pitching staff has been having repeated meltdowns in recent seasons, even against crappy opponents, and it just isn't happening nearly as frequently thus far this season.

Hopefully Vickers gets to 100% soon. We need another quasi-reliable bat to help reach that tipping point where the overall quality of the lineup starts helping everyone get better pitches.

[SB Shock]

I don't have a lot of experience following baseball RPI and such, but it still seems quite early to use it with that much confidence. Multiple-game series in baseball just reduce the connectivity so much relative to number of games played.

The season is getting to 25-30% of the season being played - so it not really early any more. WSU ISR is 13, which says they are on pretty solid ground. WSU projections right now is 44-11 which would give them a RPI of 23.

Based on Warren Nolan projections the AAC has the chance to send 3-4 teams to the NCAA. RPI are projections. Current RPI in "( )"

30. UCF (73)
12. East Carolina (28)
23. WSU (9)
37. S FLA (116)

[Play Angry]

I don't have a lot of experience following baseball RPI and such, but it still seems quite early to use it with that much confidence. Multiple-game series in baseball just reduce the connectivity so much relative to number of games played.

It's the basketball equivalent of Christmas/New Year's week right now for the baseball season's progression, so we're probably a week or two past the point where fans start looking at RPI with anything more than a smirk and kicking off the time when it rounds into form and serves as an increasingly valid measure. Still volatile, but decreasingly so with every passing weekend.

One thing that stands out is the fact that our strength of schedule (based on today's numbers) is projected to go down (worsen) slightly in conference play. A lot of folks here cite a weak OOC schedule to date and they are simply wrong. The top of the AAC is quite good, and the bottom is quite bad - our OOC slate features a lot of "good not great" and "bad not terrible" teams, but the overall product is solid.

I expect some regression but there are a lot of positive signs in the nerd numbers for folks so inclined to dig. We are not just getting lucky against mostly bad teams from a quant perspective.

[Cdizzle]

We should probably break off the RPI usefulness discussion somewhere else (or in the comments). I guess what I'm getting at is that while WSU has played 18 games, it has only played 9 unique opponents, which is more equivalent to early December basketball than New Year's basketball. I don't intend for this to be bashing WSU's schedule (or even specific to WSU), just trying to talk relative usefulness of rating systems.

[Cdizzle]

So, some regression to a theoretical mean that is above previous years, but not as good as what we have seen the first 18 games? Seems reasonable.

[Play Angry]

That's an interesting point on number of unique opponents - definitely concentrates the impact of opponents' W/L, etc.

[ShockerFever]

The season is getting to 25-30% of the season being played - so it not really early any more. WSU ISR is 13, which says they are on pretty solid ground. WSU projections right now is 44-11 which would give them a RPI of 23.

Based on Warren Nolan projections the AAC has the chance to send 3-4 teams to the NCAA. RPI are projections. Current RPI in "( )"

30. UCF (73)
12. East Carolina (28)
23. WSU (9)
37. S FLA (116)

WSU is not going 44-11. Just stop.

[Shocker1976]

The season is getting to 25-30% of the season being played - so it not really early any more. WSU ISR is 13, which says they are on pretty solid ground. WSU projections right now is 44-11 which would give them a RPI of 23.

Based on Warren Nolan projections the AAC has the chance to send 3-4 teams to the NCAA. RPI are projections. Current RPI in "( )"

30. UCF (73)
12. East Carolina (28)
23. WSU (9)
37. S FLA (116)

My friend's projected 42-14 record is looking more accurate each passing week; we discussed this morning the value of requiring an incoming head coach to retain the pitching coach who had assisted for years the fired former head coach. IMO an argument can be made that this season is year two for the current head coach, as he now has HIS coaching staff handling the roster.

[1972Shocker]

I have commented before that forcing Kemnitz on Butler gave Butler a built in excuse if things did not go well. Whether or not Kemnitz was the problem or not is very hard to know. But pretty much all aspects of the transition was managed less than ideally.