Opening Weekend Shocks at Northwestern State Demons

[Kung Wu]

Good game Shox.

[1972Shocker]

Very disappointing to get that kind of starting pitching and lose the series.

[DUShock]

It is too bad Snavely gets the loss.

[Cdizzle]

Understatement of the century. It's gonna result in both of our losses this weekend.

Bullpen not good. Also not good run support for our starters, especially in 1&3. Would've been nice to pull this one and the series out.

[Shockm]

Bullpen not good. Also not good run support for our starters, especially in 1&3. Would've been nice to pull this one and the series out.

Starting pitchers were very good. The pen will probably get an adjustment. They need to find out who can’t get ready quickly enough to pitch from the pen. Ryan Stumpfig (sp) and Foster Gifford did great. I couldn’t tell from the box score how Lindman did but he had good moments last year. Munsch, Haase, and I think Marley were very bad.

Probably our two best hitters were hurt during the trip to Louisiana but we were weak and inconsistent from the plate. I can forgive the hitting in Game 1 because their pitcher was probably very good but there is no way their Game 3 pitcher could have been nearly as good.

[WuDrWu]

Yes, we don't have Charleton, Dibble and Meyers to close out games, but today was pretty tough luck. Really tough like actually. Snavely goes out for the 7th and gets Skinner to strike out. Then on a 1-1 pitch Kunert grounds to 3rd and AJ doesn't come up with it. Could have been an error. Snavely then gets Brown to strike out swinging. 2 down. Then, on a 1-0 pitch Kunert tries a delayed steal and Cadena has him dead to rights and as Kunert heads back to first he's hit by the throw and manages to get back safely. Hugely fortunate. Preston, a shade gassed, walks Stuart and Eric goes to the pen.

Great outing from Preston. Peters walks in to a mess, but doable. 1st and 2nd, 2 out. Horton pinch hits, swinging at the 1st pitch, Shaver stabs at a line drive to keep it in the infield but can't catch it. Bases loaded. Hard to blame Derek there but still could have been another out. Now the bases are loaded and 2 outs, and another pinch hitter. Still 1-0 Shocks.

Peters, after just barely missing 1-0 (it was a strike imho) and 2-0 (close but getting squeezed), loses the batter on a 3-2 count (no doubt a ball). Now bases full, 1-1 and Peters induces a ground ball that Shaver decides to go short side and the ump calls the runner safe (Sigrist furious and Wedge goes out to argue, bang bang play) and Derek could have easily gone to 1st for the out and a regular SS probably does. Runner on 3rd scores and the runner on 2nd never stops and scores as well. 3-1. Peters gets the next guy on strikes.

Tough game. Tough inning.

[Cdizzle]

Thanks for the recap. Was at the basketball game and just had scoretracker until I got back out to the car. Definitely a lot of almost there. Several almosts within our control as well. Hopefully over time we start to convert more of those almosts in to positive outcomes.

[ShockerFever]

At the end of the day, our relief pitching sucks and our offense is not well. Scoring 2 runs in 2 losses will probably do that to ya. A lot of blame to go around. Probably one of the few winnable series that we had on the road.

[Shockm]

In baseball the difference between winning and losing is very fine. A Sun Belt team is often better than a Big 10 and northern Big 12 teams such as K State, KU, and Iowa State, and SEC schools like Missouri , Kentucky, etc. The little things can be the difference especially when the score is 3-2 or when Connery Peters walks in a run with bases loaded on a 3-2 count after a couple of fouls. Our new coaches still have a lot to learn about the pen. We may not end up with a good team but Wedge deserves the benefit of the doubt.

[molly jabali]

In baseball the difference between winning and losing is very fine. A Sun Belt team is often better than a Big 10 and northern Big 12 teams such as K State, KU, and Iowa State, and SEC schools like Missouri , Kentucky, etc. The little things can be the difference especially when the score is 3-2 or when Connery Peters walks in a run with bases loaded on a 3-2 count after a couple of fouls. Our new coaches still have a lot to learn about the pen. We may not end up with a good team but Wedge deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, they are novice coaches....

Really? "deserves the benefit of the doubt"?

[WuDrWu]

If Paxton is at short, he makes the right play and we're out of the inning tied. I know it's next man up and everything, but the pitching staff, outside of a disastrous inning and a third on Friday, performed well enough to win all 3 games. Peters did not pitch poorly at all.

Now, I do think we faced a team that was overly aggressive at the plate. Of the 75 outs the Shocks got this weekend, 43 were Ks. That's insane. Still we managed to walk 19. Now while that's a 2.69 to 1 strikeouts to walk ratio (very solid as a staff) it seems like a bit of fools gold at this point. We're not going to strike out 14+ every game, but even when we did we managed to walk more than 6 a game. We're going to have to tighten that up and find a spot where we're willing to give more pitches to hit (NSU only hit .151 this weekend) but less free passes. 7 of the 15 total runs they scored were walks.

I'm encouraged by only making 1 error all weekend (a couple of close calls but for the most part we were clean) and fielded .989. I think we all expected the offense to be pedestrian at best. With all the injuries right now and basically no options at the plate, it's even less surprising we struggled to manufacture runs. This team is unlikely to win a bunch of 10-9 games. We're going to have to pitch and play defense to win. Pretty darned close this weekend.

I liked the way they played, and I was encouraged by the Saturday rebound and the attempt to comeback late yesterday. Down 3-1 they got one in the 8th and threatened more and Cade Clemons drove one almost to the wall in the 9th that darned near tied the game. Cadena threw out 1 of 2 attempts to steal (and really had another one) and we stole 3 of 4 bases. I'll take that fight on opening weekend. Far from perfect, but I think it's better.


A little surprising to me at least, but Texas Southern comes in for the first ever meeting against our Shocks. Fresh off being swept by a solid New Mexico State team that's probably better than NSU was, TSU gave up 10+ runs in all 4 games this weekend against the Aggies. New Mexico State hit .370 for the weekend! WOW Be clean this weekend, get healthy (hopefully get Wallace and DVV back or at least have them ready for the next road trip) and get well on TSU pitching. With 2 midweek games in Norman, the Tigers are likely 0-6 coming in here Friday. Gotta keep that streak going for them.

[Shockm]

Yeah, they are novice coaches....

Really? "deserves the benefit of the doubt"?

Did you only read one post? Fever was talking about how bad our team was and I was saying that even if the talent isn’t where we hope it will be, Wedge can still hopefully win games with Butlers bad talent but I will admit that this year may not be our year yet.

[CoachJ]

Did you only read one post? Fever was talking about how bad our team was and I was saying that even if the talent isn’t where we hope it will be, Wedge can still hopefully win games with Butlers bad talent but I will admit that this year may not be our year yet.

Why keep calling it Butlers bad talent... you should respect all these kids talents no matter what. Don't drag the players down regardless....

[CharlieHog]

A little surprising to me at least, but Texas Southern comes in for the first ever meeting against our Shocks. Fresh off being swept by a solid New Mexico State team that's probably better than NSU was, TSU gave up 10+ runs in all 4 games this weekend against the Aggies. New Mexico State hit .370 for the weekend! WOW Be clean this weekend, get healthy (hopefully get Wallace and DVV back or at least have them ready for the next road trip) and get well on TSU pitching. With 2 midweek games in Norman, the Tigers are likely 0-6 coming in here Friday. Gotta keep that strike going for them.

New Mexico State plays at a launching pad of a stadium. I don't think you can tell much from games played there.

[Shockm]

Why keep calling it Butlers bad talent... you should respect all these kids talents no matter what. Don't drag the players down regardless....

Well, let's review. We were 28-31 overall, and 8th in the American conference (nine baseball programs) with a losing record last year. That probably had something to do with bad talent and bad coaching. I respect our players but to think that it will be turned around in one year is not realistic. We are down to 31 players out of 35 roster spots and we have some good players and some that probably aren't as good. I'd like us to improve this year to a reasonable goal of perhaps 33-35 wins but I don't have an expectation of 33-35 wins. This year is more about changing the culture around the program imho.