Shox vs. Bradley Game 2

[shocker3]

Another great day at the yard. The weather was nice, Kris Gardner and Cale Elam pitched great, Mikel Mucha made a fantastic throw (and Baker made a good catch and tag) and Eric Harbutz got the timely hit on an 0-2 pitch to win the game.

I hope the rain holds off and we have another great day on Sunday. I can't believe how fast this season has gone. It seems like just yesterday we were in San Marcos waiting for the rain to stop so we could start the season.

[shocker3]

Overall, in fairness, I thought the Shox had some very well struck balls that went for outs today. Dayne hit two balls that were snagged by the 3B that would have been basehits with almost anyone else running. Micah Green squared-up two balls that were outs (his hit was a soft 'tweener). Coy's triple would have been an inside the park HR if he wasn't down one wheel. There were two bang-bang outs at 1B. Blah-dee-blah. But that is baseball. Credit to the BU starter - no walks helped his cause. I was impressed BIG TIME by Gardner. He spots his pitches really well and doesn't make mistakes up in the hitting zone. He really keeps hitters guessing and the BU guys were out on their front foot flicking at Kris' junk all day. I was disappointed when 10 pulled him, but I'm assuming he was nearing a pitch count and wasn't going to finish the game anyway. Elam was sharp, especially vs. his outings in the last 2-3 weeks.

If the Shox want to shake-up the tournament, they're going to have to figure out some consistent hitting vs. some pretty darn #1 and #2 good pitching in the league. Sometimes they do it (Friday) sometimes they don't (today). As long as the Shox starters continue to be stingy, they have some chance.

-'85.

Kris Gardner's pitch count was 107 when he was pulled. He pitched a great game but there is no way the coaching staff was going to let him throw too many more pitches. Elam was sharp. He threw 16 pitches, 13 of them were strikes.

[WSUwatcher]

I could only imagine how playing Alcorn St. would have affected the rpi. Warren Nolan also shows WSU's SOS at #32 now. He is also predicting that WSU will finish with a rpi of 38.

Yes, it's good that Alcorn stayed home. Even a win would not have helped, which is something WSU would be well advised to keep in mind when making out future schedules: SWAC teams may be easy to buy, but they cost you in ways other than money. On another subject related to RPI, it's too bad Oklahoma ducked the Shocks this year, now that they've surprisingly won their first two against Baylor -- they would have helped WSU's opposition record.

By the way, Warren Nolan's projections are off in at least one respect with regard to WSU: he projects a final record of 35-24 for the Shocks, which isn't possible unless they somehow add a D-1 game (not likely at this point), considering that they've played 53 and have just five games left.

[shocker3]

Yes, it's good that Alcorn stayed home. Even a win would not have helped, which is something WSU would be well advised to keep in mind when making out future schedules: SWAC teams may be easy to buy, but they cost you in ways other than money. On another subject related to RPI, it's too bad Oklahoma ducked the Shocks this year, now that they've surprisingly won their first two against Baylor -- they would have helped WSU's opposition record.

By the way, Warren Nolan's projections are off in at least one respect with regard to WSU: he projects a final record of 35-24 for the Shocks, which isn't possible unless they somehow add a D-1 game (not likely at this point), considering that they've played 53 and have just five games left.

Good point about Alcorn State. One of the reasons for the great SOS this year is that we played several strong teams (Purdue, Tulane, Dallas Baptist, Texas-Arlington, Hawaii etc) but another reason (along with the Valley being stronger which was helped by playing 21 games against Dallas Baptist) is that we only played 5 games against 201+ RPI teams.

We and most other teams in this area usually play a lot more games against 201+ teams. Trying to fill a 56 to 60 game schedule makes it very hard not to play some of those games, but keeping them to a minimum like we did this year helps your SOS and therefore your RPI a lot.