WSU vs. New Mexico

[SHOXAAC]

So this makes sense, but once the ball is declared a homerun all of that should be moot. Its just rules for the sake of having rules after that point.

There is also this crazy rule that states if a batter hits a sharp ground ball to any infielder and said infielder transfers the ball to an eligible defensive player covering first base prior to the base runner reaching said first base that player is declared out. Just when you thought you understood all the rules.

[ShockerDropOut]

Sawyre Thornhill extends his hitting streak to 18 games with a grand slam that wasn't as he passed Brock Rodden who was waiting to see if the ball cleared the centerfield wall. I think he will be credited with a 2-run single. Thornhill out for passing Rodden and Rodden out for running into th dugout after touching 3rd instead of going home. I guess thinking he had been called out.

So I think it is 12-0. I guess if you are going to have a Keystone Cops moment its best to do that in a blowout win. So a very rare 2-run grand slam double play ends the inning.

Sorry, these are D-1 college baseball players. I would be pissed if it was a Babe Ruth level team. HCEW should rip them a new one. Physical mistakes happen, this type of mental mistake should be a "teaching moment".

[BAShocker]

Too bad Sergio Lopez-Chavero missed the extra point.

(Those under the age of 30+ or so may not get that comment).

[shoxlax]

Sorry, these are D-1 college baseball players. I would be pissed if it was a Babe Ruth level team. HCEW should rip them a new one. Physical mistakes happen, this type of mental mistake should be a "teaching moment".

Don't think the HCEW part of your request will be a problem.

[WstateU]

That was the first and hopefully last damnedslam of my life.

[WuDrWu]

So that was odd, and even though they won, it was not a good day at all.

To say HCEW was heated would be an understatement, and Rodden and Thornhill have been 2 of his most reliable players all season.

Passing a runner isn't the most unusual thing. The second out was, to say, unusual at the least. The combination of events that must occur to even have it be possible is rare. Wedge lit into them something fierce, and it didn't stop there. I sat reasonably near the dugout today and you could easily hear an animated Head Coach more than once. NSFW discussions. A grand slam double play...you won't see one of those very often.



Will Stark has been a nice surprise. This is a very good thing for us.

Seth Stroh made a positive step today. His appearance as an everyday player is a must for this team to be successful at the level they expect.

Cam needs to build up stamina, today helped. Will Stevens threw better yesterday if only for an inning. That's also something that has to happen for this team to succeed. Both Stevens and Stroh have the mix of talent and physical ability that we do not have in abundance........yet. Weird thing about Cam....was having trouble throwing strikes at 92...but when he bowed up and really threw it (94-96) he was dotting it beautifully. Just seemed odd. LJ was meh at best. I'm glad Shaver got into a game, but his arm is not live (lack of work has something to do with it) BUT at least he didn't walk anyone. Stumpy struggled again. This is difficult to understand. We HAD to bring on Holden to close a GD 13-7 game for crying out loud. And worse yet, if he got in trouble I'm not sure what we were going to do...Creighton Hansen was tolerable for an inning yesterday and he has the arm talent to be a piece.

Midweek games are going to be a serious problem, we just don't have the pitching yet. We might get lucky with the weather this week but upcoming week with OSU, ECUX3 and OSU again makes my skin crawl.

Drew Miller, Gage Williams ....those guys aren't the answer but I applaud their efforts today. It's past time for the big boys to step up.

X made a little bit of progress this week....that would certainly help.

So frustrating because our non-con was super sharp. A&M is going for the road sweep of LSU at Baton Rouge today. Tx State and OU were both on 7 game heaters. Every team outside of the 2 home series had winning records (Iowa has played a daunting schedule and is home for #7 Texas Tech and they might be .500 or below now). Every opportunity for this team to be in a great position going into conference.......

Last week's coach's show was, shall we say, animated, and that was due to 1 loss. This week, 2 losses and a less than inspiring effort today.....might want to tune in tomorrow night.

[Shockm]

So that was odd, and even though they won, it was not a good day at all.

To say HCEW was heated would be an understatement, and Rodden and Thornhill have been 2 of his most reliable players all season.

Passing a runner isn't the most unusual thing. The second out was, to say, unusual at the least. The combination of events that must occur to even have it be possible is rare. Wedge lit into them something fierce, and it didn't stop there. I sat reasonably near the dugout today and you could easily hear an animated Head Coach more than once. NSFW discussions. A grand slam double play...you won't see one of those very often.



Will Stark has been a nice surprise. This is a very good thing for us.

Seth Stroh made a positive step today. His appearance as an everyday player is a must for this team to be successful at the level they expect.

Cam needs to build up stamina, today helped. Will Stevens threw better yesterday if only for an inning. That's also something that has to happen for this team to succeed. Both Stevens and Stroh have the mix of talent and physical ability that we do not have in abundance........yet. Weird thing about Cam....was having trouble throwing strikes at 92...but when he bowed up and really threw it (94-96) he was dotting it beautifully. Just seemed odd. LJ was meh at best. I'm glad Shaver got into a game, but his arm is not live (lack of work has something to do with it) BUT at least he didn't walk anyone. Stumpy struggled again. This is difficult to understand. We HAD to bring on Holden to close a GD 13-7 game for crying out loud. And worse yet, if he got in trouble I'm not sure what we were going to do...Creighton Hansen was tolerable for an inning yesterday and he has the arm talent to be a piece.

Midweek games are going to be a serious problem, we just don't have the pitching yet. We might get lucky with the weather this week but upcoming week with OSU, ECUX3 and OSU again makes my skin crawl.

Drew Miller, Gage Williams ....those guys aren't the answer but I applaud their efforts today. It's past time for the big boys to step up.

X made a little bit of progress this week....that would certainly help.

So frustrating because our non-con was super sharp. A&M is going for the road sweep of LSU at Baton Rouge today. Tx State and OU were both on 7 game heaters. Every team outside of the 2 home series had winning records (Iowa has played a daunting schedule and is home for #7 Texas Tech and they might be .500 or below now). Every opportunity for this team to be in a great position going into conference.......

Last week's coach's show was, shall we say, animated, and that was due to 1 loss. This week, 2 losses and a less than inspiring effort today.....might want to tune in tomorrow night.

Just a feeling that Stuempfig has mentally moved on. He is graduated after this year, and he knows that baseball isn’t in his future. He hasn’t had “it” once this year. I’d rather see younger players like Stevens or Bye who have potential get his innings.

Hansen looks to be a head case yesterday. Looked good on a pitch or two and then wasn’t close to the dish on a pitch or two. His focus and mental outlook needs refining imo. Mental focus isn’t easy thing to do with these kids who have spent their young baseball lives mowing down their opponents with fast balls.

Greg Brummet was a rare kid who developed a strong mental outlook and focus quite quickly and easily during his Shocker career. He was a rare blend of natural talent that had limits, and he blossomed into a really good college pitcher who was never going to be good enough to get to MLB.

[1972Shocker]

Sorry, these are D-1 college baseball players. I would be pissed if it was a Babe Ruth level team. HCEW should rip them a new one. Physical mistakes happen, this type of mental mistake should be a "teaching moment".

Right you are, and no doubt HCEW did 'splain to them in clear and certain terms. Thankfully, it did not cost the team a win.

Plus I also posted:

Shocks somehow manage to turn this one into a game. Shocks will probably hold on for the win but it will not be the feel good win it could have been between the lack of focus baserunning and the continued struggles of the Shocker bullpen.

[WuDrWu]

Iowa split their series with #13 Texas Tech beating the Red Raiders today 6-3. Texas State is #23 and now 18-3.

ECU lost to Charleston and continues to struggle at 10-10. T A&M-CC hammered Nebraska 21-4. Houston is much improved over last year, which could possible really hurt us....last year we went 7-1 vs UH, if they are as improved as it appears, they could put us in a hole from which we never recover. AAC teams went 6-1-1 today (ECU lost to Charleston 10-3 and Tulane tied Nova on get away day when the game ended in the 10th, 3 apiece).

[Kung Wu]

If the young bucks can get crankin, its not too late to have a nice season, is it?

[1972Shocker]

So this makes sense, but once the ball is declared a homerun all of that should be moot. Its just rules for the sake of having rules after that point.

What if he passed the runner before it was declared a homerun. Which, I think, may have been the case today.

But the bottom line is if the rule is you are our if you pass a teammate running in front of you (regardless of the situation) than the easy fix is don't do that.

Not exactly sure what Brock Rodden was thinking. He initially went half-way as he should and the runners on 2nd and 3rd were tagging up as they should. For some reason Rodden decided to break hard back to first base. I don't know if he thought maybe if he tagged up as well he would be able to advance if the ball was caught or maybe thought the ball was caught.

Thornhill based Rodden going full throttle on his second stride after rounding first base and I am not sure he even saw Rodden. It appeared as if he was focusing on the ball and the centerfielder. Her certainly was not in his home run trot at the point. The first base coach saw it immediately but I don't think he was trying to warn Thornhill to throttle down. But that's kind of hard to tell for sure. I am not even sure Thornhill realized that he passed Rodden until after he crossed home plate and headed back to the dugout.

I've seen this before on a home run, but never on a grand slam and never resulting in a double play.

It may be worth listening to Monday's coach's show just for Wedge's take on this. This is easily fixable and probably is already fixed. Wedge has other much more pressing issues the most prominent of which is the lack of quality depth on the pitching staff. This will be especially challenging with 5 games in 6 days starting on Tuesday (weather permitting). Actually, make that 10 games in 13 days starting Tuesday.

[WuDrWu]

If the young bucks can get crankin, its not too late to have a nice season, is it?

Define "nice"?

This team can still be very good. However, we've had very few positive surprises (Rodden and Thornhill have been better than expected, but they've essentially replaced 2 people most of us were counting on in Sigrist and Stewart....and Tolle has been a very pleasant surprise and Holden has been superb, probably add Cam Bye but I expected him to be good) and numerous disappointments, so far (basically have got nothing from Stevens and Stroh, Kocis was injured early on and isn't back and Sigrist's shoulder continues to be an issue).

If you would have told me before we took the field vs La Tech that Seth, Garrett and Jack would be a combined .221 with 2 doubles, 0 triples, 1 HR, 12 RBI, 15 BB and an almost unthinkable 45 Ks in only 104 ABs after 19 games, and Will Stevens would be 0-1 with an 18.00 ERA, then I would have assumed that we totally melted down and were probably 6-13.

We need Kocis healthy and playing like last year. Rodden has 2nd locked down, so Sigrist is likely a DH or 1st the rest of the year unless we throw caution to the wind and play Tolle there like today (except when he pitches of course). X is really the only option at 3rd, and yes we need him to hit more than .175. We need Stroh playing to his capabilities. His struggle so far is a headscratcher for sure. Chuck Ingram is getting better but still Ks too often. 3rd OF is up for grabs (right now both LF and RF are open).

But we're not going anywhere without some front line pitching. Jace and Payton aren't enough. We must have Will Stevens. That would solidify our weekend. LJ, Favors, Bye and Holden should be able to handle the back end work IF those starters were strong enough. I suppose there's a chance Cam Bye could be Will Stevens, but then Will Stevens needs to be Cam Bye (out of the pen). That would give us enough to compete, I think, well enough on the weekends. That still leaves the midweek games, and like I said, they look messy right now. There's literally no one we can count on. Somebody, probably a couple of guys (Boyer and Cranz are the most likely) has to step up and "get it" for us to be where, I think, we should be, and that's a team in the top 3 of the league, competitive with all, and in the mix for post season play and a threat to win in Clearwater.

[SB Shock]

If the young bucks can get crankin, its not too late to have a nice season, is it?

AAC is the 10th ranked conference. It has been really a disaster year for the AAC. There is only 1 bid coming out of this conference.

[1972Shocker]

Nice Roundhouse article focusing on Brock Rodden:

https://goshockers.com/news/2022/3/20/ticket-office-rh-hes-the-ultimate-teammate.aspx

Brock Rodden reminds coach Eric Wedge of the prototypical Shocker infielders of the past – a Mark Standiford, a P.J. Forbes – those who excelled with an intensity and hustle that amplifies their physical tools.

"I love the way he plays the game," Wedge said. "He's in the dirt with every pitch, whether it be at home plate or in the field. He's hard-nosed. He epitomizes what Shockers are."

Rodden, a sophomore second baseman, is giving Wedge lots of reasons to enjoy his work at the plate this season. He went 3 for 4 with a home run in Sunday's 13-7 win over New Mexico at Eck Stadium to cap a 12-for-25 stretch that raised his batting average to .320.

He leads Wichita State (9-10) with six home runs, three in the past four games. He drove in 10 runs in the past four games, giving him a team-leading 21.

[1972Shocker]

AAC is the 10th ranked conference. It has been really a disaster year for the AAC. There is only 1 bid coming out of this conference.

I assume that ranking is based on the RPI. Is that what the NCAA selection committee primarily uses in evaluating at-large invites?

If that's the case, then yes the AAC is looking like a one bid league with only 2 teams in the Top 100 of the RPI. ECU is at #74 and UCF is at #95.