Hawaii

[SB Shock]

To hit fungos in practice. Maybe to pick up something that has changed in their swing that is causing them problems.

If u have watched any shocker baseball you know that shocker good hitting teams pounded pitchers when they made mistakes. Recent shocker hitters swing at bad pitches and let the good pitches go by. A hiring coach can't do anything about that.

If u still want to focus on hitting coach then please tell me why he was able to coach so many all-Americans? What has changed? Did he forget everything then about hitting?

[shoxlax]

[QUOTE=SB Shock;306448]To hit fungos in practice. Maybe to pick up something that has changed in their swing that is causing them problems.

If u have watched any shocker baseball you know that shocker good hitting teams pounded pitchers when they made mistakes. Recent shocker hitters swing at bad pitches and let the good pitches go by. A hiring coach can't do anything about that.

If u still want to focus on hitting coach then please tell me why he was able to coach so many all-Americans? What has changed? Did he forget everything then about hitting?[/QUOTE

I tend to agree, coaching someone up in baseball for some reason seems harder than other sports, especially hitting. Players can improve over the years, but they have to have the tools such as quick hands, eye coordination, brains to do so. We recruited a bunch of kids over the past few years that had no intention of coming here over the pros. Waste of two super regionals in my opinion. Kozma, Gould, the juco kid from Iowa, the list goes on.

[rrshock]

Recruiting is definitely a problem. That can be pinned on both of them. But shouldn't the hitting coach at least be giving them pointers to help out with the horrendous plate appearances guys are having?

I'm no coach and don't claim to know much about baseball, but something is definitely amiss here.

[Shoxu22]

To hit fungos in practice. Maybe to pick up something that has changed in their swing that is causing them problems.

If u have watched any shocker baseball you know that shocker good hitting teams pounded pitchers when they made mistakes. Recent shocker hitters swing at bad pitches and let the good pitches go by. A hiring coach can't do anything about that.

If u still want to focus on hitting coach then please tell me why he was able to coach so many all-Americans? What has changed? Did he forget everything then about hitting?

First of all Gene has been the hitting coach for 35 years. There is a misconception for some reason that JT is the hitting coach. He has given just as many hitting speeches as he has on pitching. Obviously he does work with the hitters, but Gene is the hitting coach. I agree, in that the offense has been down, but do you really think Gene has forgot everything about hitting? It's about adjustments and willing to make them on the players part. You can teach the perfect swing, but if the player does not make good decisions when he gets in the box, the hitting coach can't do much about that.

[ShockTalk]

First of all Gene has been the hitting coach for 35 years. There is a misconception for some reason that JT is the hitting coach. He has given just as many hitting speeches as he has on pitching. Obviously he does work with the hitters, but Gene is the hitting coach. I agree, in that the offense has been down, but do you really think Gene has forgot everything about hitting? It's about adjustments and willing to make them on the players part. You can teach the perfect swing, but if the player does not make good decisions when he gets in the box, the hitting coach can't do much about that.

So then you're saying it's the quality of recruiting?

[Hovpen]

Really hate to bring up the bats again, but these players are changing everything that they have been doing with the other bats for the past 10-14 years and trying to do it in one or two short seasons that they have been using them. Of course, every other team is doing the same thing so really shouldn't make much difference. Goes back to being patient at the plate.

[rrshock]

But not swinging at good pitches can't be blamed on the bats, right?

[Hovpen]

Nope, thats on the hitters

[GorHoops]

I agree with the post about the issues with Shocker baseball being with recruiting, not so much the actual coaching. It is hard for me to believe that Gene has forgotten how to teach a kid to hit. He no more taught the current guys how to hit any more than he taught Pat Magness to hit. But the talent has just fallen off. I posted this a while ago, but for example, my buddy is a baseball coach at Campus High. They have a senior OF named Justin Burba that was just named a Rawlings All American, played in the Area Code Games last summer (was MVP of one of the games), is the #3 player in Kansas, and got an 80% scholly to OU. From what I understand, WSU didn't even recruit the kid, at least they never talked to the Campus coaches. I don't really know how good the kid is, but it sounds like a kid that the local school might want to go after a little bit.

[SB Shock]

Really hate to bring up the bats again, but these players are changing everything that they have been doing with the other bats for the past 10-14 years and trying to do it in one or two short seasons that they have been using them. Of course, every other team is doing the same thing so really shouldn't make much difference. Goes back to being patient at the plate.

Bats are not the issue. Good hitters still hit the ball well. If you have better hitters than your opponent then you will score more runs. I looked at some studies last year and Scoring was brought back to 1998 levels - anybody remember the 1998 shox hitting team. I would settle for that.

2nd if you plot wsu scoring over last 15 years there is a down trend when there has been a overall uptrend in scoring in college baseball.

[NCAABound]

Over the past few years...our batting average has been mediocre at best. Then when you add on a poor slugging percentage because of a bunch of singles hitters...it's hard to score runs.

[SPEShockAlum]

We have three games left this weekend. All is not lost.

[shocker3]

Mitch Mormann is still pitching in the fifth. He is having a good night. He got the first 2 batters out before giving up a 2 out walk. He gets a fly out to end the inning.

[shocker3]

Dayne Parker gets the Shox 7th hit of the night. Walker Davidson pinch runs for him and gets thrown out trying to steal.

[shocker3]

A.J. Ladwig comes in to start the seventh. Mitch Morman's day is done. He leaves giving up 4 hits and 2 runs. A.J. is yet to give up an earned run in his young Shocker career.