Shox vs. Western Illinois

[1972Shocker]

I guess we established that we can kick sand in the face of a 95lb. weakling. Not sure it tells us much more than that. We will see where we stand at the end of the month once we finish up at TCU to complete a 7 game road swing to SIU, Okie State and TCU.

I have to say going 5-5 on this homestand was underwhelming.

[DUShock]

The wife and I made it out for the first game but left before the second started. I did listen to the second game on 1330. The SHocks played well enough to win, still some simply mental errors but it is a win. On to Valley play & SIU!

Go Shocks!

[shockfan89_]

Admittedly Western Illinois is not a good team but like 1972Shocker said, at least we can beat bad teams.

Positives

It's not always easy to remain focused for two games against a lessor opponent on a cold March day.
Hitting - 24-66 .364 for the DH. Hopefully some guys got well before starting MVC play
Stolen bases - 10 for 10 in the 1st game and didn't attempt one in the 2nd game. I think we are going to need to be more aggressive in bigger games.
Error(s) - Only 1 for the DH although I saw a couple more that could have been errors but we got favorable scoring.
Strike outs - Only 4 in the DH.
Jeb Bargfeldt continued to look good (even if it was a poor hitting team).
Green beer was flowing and very much appreciated. IT WAS COLD!

Concerns - Pitching

WIU was hitting .221 coming in and they hit .333 against us in the 1st game and .266 for the DH.
Extra base hits - We gave up 3 doubles and 2 triples.

Overall 5-5 on the homestand is underwhelming but I thought we would go 6-4 and I thought we played well the first two games of the UCSB series. We really need to sweep this weekend at SIU and then hope for 1 win from the 4 road games at OSU and TCU. That would put us at 4-3 for the road swing and move us up to 12-15 on the year. Even when I try to be optimistic things seem bad...

In other news, Dallas Baptist is now the #1 RPI team in the country. I know it doesn't mean anything, but it is still nice to see.

[Play Angry]

A sweep in fairly convincing fashion is a nice step at this point, even if WIU is pretty terrible. Hopefully it sets the table for another sweep in our favor this weekend.