Shocker SB at East Carolina

[WuDrWu]

Sometimes you HAVE to wonder what in the actual **** are we thinking?

[1972Shocker]

Sometimes you HAVE to wonder what in the actual **** are we thinking?

At times I do, but it all worked out well. Seems like there are times when they could utilize the bunt more effectvely but that is just not HCKB's style generally. I am not sure what you were referring to but I am guessing the attempted steal by CC to end the top of tthe 4th.

The Shocker bats brought it today espcecially CC and Taylor with help from Jess, Sophie and Caroline.

By far the best outing of the year for Lauren. She was far from perfect with 5 walks and hit batter in 5 innings and going to a lot of 3 ball counts. But only giving up 3 hits and 1 unearned run (due primarily to a couple of walks and a wild pitch) she was more than serviceable.

They had Alex up in the 4th when Lauren was wobbling and was perhaps 1 pitch away from coming out of the game and they had Chloe up in the 5th until the Shocks tacked on 4 runs.

Actually getting the series sweep was pretty impressive conidering our recent pitching struggles and the makeshift lineup we are playing.

[flyingMoose]

Other Sunday Games

Memphis 0-6 Charlotte

UAB 4-5 Florida Atlantic

USF 2-6 Tulsa

North Texas 2-4 UTSA

[pogo]

Sometimes you HAVE to wonder what in the actual **** are we thinking?

If you are talking about the all grey uni's I agree. That is not a good look at all. But hey I'm a man and have no fashion sense at all.

[1972Shocker]

If you are talking about the all grey uni's I agree. That is not a good look at all. But hey I'm a man and have no fashion sense at all.

Interesting you brought that up. The ECU ESPN+ announcer had the opposite take. He thought those were the sharpest uniforms the Shocks wore this weekend. It really boils down to personal taste.

I think they are okay but not my favorite. I kind of liked the uniforms they wore on Saturday which I think might be a new look this year:

[SubGod22]

I like the grays

[1972Shocker]

[1972Shocker]

On her radio show tonight HCKB said they are hoping to have Sami back for the Charlotte series which is 10 days away. No guarantee that will happen but we will see.

[flyingMoose]

I found the Sunday start by Lauren over Chloe a bit curious. Theory: There is a "thing" in Chloe's delivery that is being worked on, but the preference is to minimize the innings while that work is in progress. This coming weekend against UTSA is an even better opportunity to minimize the innings if that is the case. OTOH, you have to extend the innings to see if the fix to the "thing" is really effective. BWDIK. And maybe the weekend was just a chance to get Lauren some innings because all four are going to be needed.

Did HCKB make any comments in this area on her show?

[1972Shocker]

Did HCKB make any comments in this area on her show?

Not word for word but I think I have it pretty close:

HCKB said she thought Chloe looked a little more comfortable in her 2 innings against Kansas in the Tuesday game. In the weekend series the best thing that came out of the weekend was Lauren's outing. That is something they had been hoping to get back. She said they debated back and forth on Sunday morning about who to go with. Ultimately, it game down to the fact they HCKB believes they need Lauren and they need her to figure it out and the only way she is going to figure it out is to continue to get chances. Said they took their "bullpen boys" with them on the ECU trip and they're awesome and they reported that Lauren was looking really sharp and she and Coach O took that to heart. Worked out well. Although she did get into trouble a couple of times that she might not get out of against a better team.

The next big thing for the pitchers this weekend was Chloe coming in to close 2 games. She said it is their way to get her back and get her some confidence. She made it a little scary a couple of times but she got through it. She said if you can barrel Chloe up your are going to hit the ball hard and that happened once or twice. On Saturday with the Shocks up 6-5 in the 7th with runners on 1st and 2nd and 2-outs and she gets a huge strikeout with an awesome change on a full count. That's good stuff that will hopefully keep maturing within her and get her a little bit more excited and confident in what she's doing. Hopefully, this weekend they will get her a start and let her do her thing. She's, I think, been putting a lot of pressure on herself and she just has to realize that she is good but so are the athletes she is playing against and so she is going to learn to take a few lumps and continue to keep improving and figure out how to play at a high level all the time.

---

So sounds to me like HCKB thinks it is perhaps more of a confidence (and perhaps consistency) thing with Chloe and they went with Lauren because her bullpen work prior to Sunday was really good. She did not mention anything about mechanical issues with Chloe (although that doesn't mean their isn't something with her mechanics that needs refining or repeatability, it was just not mentioned).