LBSU Game 3

[SB Shock]

LBS 6, WSU 2 (Going to top of 8th)

Muncrief walks first batter he see's. Throw another ball away on pickoff play. But does come from behind on 3-1 count to get a K.

Strike out his 3rd batter for the 2nd out.

Gets ground out to get out of the inning. Nice recovery by Muncrief who looked like he was going to walk his first two batter he faced.

[SB Shock]

when I was listening it was 2 to 2 so a lot more than a solo shot :(

Shox in the 4th, had two outs when Kelley gave up:

Single
Single
HBP

Womak game in and:

Walked a run in
Single scoring 2 runs.

The HR came in the 5th - a solo shot.

[SB Shock]

Dirks double to lead off.

Jones and Gilaspie meekly hit ground balls to the pitcher. Maybe Coleman can hit his #4 HR...

[SB Shock]

Coleman strikes out.

[SB Shock]

Going to the 9th

LBS 8, WSU 2

[SB Shock]

Kenny Williams has a sawed-off double. Score Workman.

LBS 8, WSU 3

[SB Shock]

LBS 8, WSU 3 - FINAL

Story of this game is WSU pitchers walked 6. WSU batters put up 10 hits, but can't execute and still struck out 9 times. WSU also commited 2 errors (by pitchers).

If Womack is WSU closer then this is going to be a long year. Hell, if this is the best of the depth that the WSU bullpen has to offer it's going to be a long year.

[BenWSU]

We strand too many players.

[KC Shox]

Hopefully Womack is still trying to knock the rust off after recovering from his injury. If he doesn't, then the issues are going to compound more than the numerous issues this team already has.

[rrshock]

This stranding runners has been going on for over a year now. I can understand stranding them every once in a while, but it happened alot towards the end of last year, and now appears to be happening again this year.

Why?

[Snapshot9]

Because we don't hit the ball is why? Plain and simple. Every year, we look to have a good team on paper, but it doesn't play out that way in real life.

Yes, I remember the super regional, but fact was, we got handled pretty well in the super regional by their pitchers. Our batting is lacking again this year.

We should have won at least one of the games. Anything else would have been a plus.

[Shocker85]

This stranding runners has been going on for over a year now. I can understand stranding them every once in a while, but it happened alot towards the end of last year, and now appears to be happening again this year.

Why?

It has been happening off-and-on for 30 years, although I believe that since the bat change it has become more evident. The Shox scoring average is not as high as it once was.

Gene has always gravitated toward playing for the big inning and is resistant to small ball, where you essentially play for one run at a time (i.e. bunting runners over with 0 outs even from 2nd to 3rd, slapping the ball the other way, squeeze play, etc.). Gene will grouse about his hitters not being able to execute the sacrifice, but Gene himself is not committed to it. He often has guys attempting to bunt for hits, rather than giving themselves up with a true sacrifice attempt. In these instances, strike 1 and 2 get bunted foul, and then the hitter is deeply behind in the count and bunting with 2 strikes is generally foolish.

The clutch hitting has not been good recently, and the strikeout totals are mounting. I believe there is a fundamental problem to the hitting approach which a) makes hitters unable to take pitches the other way where they're thrown outer-half, b) make contact early in the count, c) hit breaking balls. This results in seemingly always hitting from behind in the count and getting bad swings because they're guessing which pitch is coming.

The multiple failures to get runners in from 3rd with less that two outs this past weekend is inexcusable. I'd lay half the blame on execution by hitters and half on the approach taught by the coaches and/or their in-game strategy. There's no shame in the squeeze play, it doesn't have to be a suicide squeeze, and furthermore, it is one of the most exciting plays in baseball when executed to perfection.

Who has primary responsibility as hitting coach? Look there for answers.

--'85.

[Shirley Schmidt]

Who is the hitting coach?

[ShockerFever]

Very, very disappointing.

Womack doesn't look good. He's gonna hafta shape up quick or this will be a long year.. or somebody else has to step up.

The foundation of WSU every year is their pitching. We're not getting that this year yet.. The hitting is not surprising. At least when we don't have hitting, our pitching backs us up. When we're without both, we're not even a good team - a very bad one.

This stuff gets old.

Again, it's early. But a sweep is not a good sign.

So much for taking advantage of a good ranking early.

[verbeak]

I believe Gene is the hitting coach. Correct me if I'm wrong.