texas baseball **Big12 Baseball Tournament Thread**

[joeywa]

B8

Gordon back out with 99 pitches; he has trainers out there during warmups; cramps

He gets two quick outs and works a 2-2 count on Sacco.  Leaves the game with cramps.

Harrison comes on to pitch.  He walks Sacco and gives up a single to Taylor, putting runners on the corners with 2 down

Stevens on to pitch.

He walks the first batter he faces to load the bases, but gets a KS to close it out with no damage

Horns up 5-2 thru 8 complete

[Baron]

1 minute ago, joeywa said:

B8

Gordon back out with 99 pitches; he has trainers out there during warmups; cramps

He gets two quick outs and works a 2-2 count on Sacco.  Leaves the game with cramps.

Harrison comes on to pitch.  He walks Sacco and gives up a single to Taylor, putting runners on the corners with 2 down

Stevens on to pitch.

He walks the first batter he faces to load the bases, but gets a KS to close it out with no damage

Horns up 5-2 thru 8 complete

This bullpen is not ready for primetime.

[joeywa]

T9

TCU back to the pen for Hill

He works a 1-2-3 frame

Horns up 5-2 headed B9

 

[joeywa]

5 minutes ago, Baron said:

This bullpen is not ready for primetime.

Hasn't been pretty much all year since Witt went down.

[joeywa]

B9

Stevens back out

Gets a 6-3 and a KL for two outs

Gives up a solo HR

KS ends the game

Horns win 5-3

[joeywa]

 

 

[Wayne]

57 minutes ago, Baron said:

This bullpen is not ready for primetime.

We’ve won the first two games of the conference tournament by a combined score of 9-3. We have used a total of four pitchers. Only one pitched poorly and he came in with a 2-2 count because of an injury. We should have plenty of arms for the Saturday game and we’ll probably need them but they’re rested. TCU or Okie light will be playing their 4th game in four days. Don’t do much of that during regular season. 

[Baron]

1 minute ago, Wayne said:

We’ve won the first two games of the conference tournament by a combined score of 9-3. We have used a total of four pitchers. Only one pitched poorly and he came in with a 2-2 count because of an injury. We should have plenty of arms for the Saturday game and we’ll probably need them but they’re rested. TCU or Okie light will be playing their 4th game in four days. Don’t do much of that during regular season. 

I don't care how you want to slice or dice this, the bullpen made things much more interesting tonight than they should have. 

Stevens was well on his way to making this a closer game than it should have been. TCU effed up by trotting out a pinch hitter who was cold and swung at an obvious ball for the last strike.

[Wayne]

2 minutes ago, Baron said:

I don't care how you want to slice or dice this, the bullpen made things much more interesting tonight than they should have. 

Stevens was well on his way to making this a closer game than it should have been. TCU effed up by trotting out a pinch hitter who was cold and swung at an obvious ball for the last strike.

That happens to every pitcher. Our starter made it interesting a couple of times. He threw at least 5 pitches that were not even near the plate. It’s baseball. 
 

[Baron]

2 minutes ago, Wayne said:

That happens to every pitcher. Our starter made it interesting a couple of times. He threw at least 5 pitches that were not even near the plate. It’s baseball. 
 

Agree, but he did go 7 innings deep with just over 100 pitches before an injury (which we should all worry about), the bullpen equaled his bad output in one and a third innings?

[Wayne]

3 minutes ago, Baron said:

Agree, but he did go 7 innings deep with just over 100 pitches before an injury (which we should all worry about), the bullpen equaled his bad output in one and a third innings?

Tristan pitched fine except for one pitch. His injury was a cramp. He should be fine. Needs to hydrate a bit better. 

[joeywa]

Some bullpen facts:

2 ER in 2 Tournament games, against two of the top 3 teams in the conference.

Outside of 3 games, Texas has led the conference in ERA

Texas is tied with 4 other teams in D1 at #24 in ERA with 4.07 through yesterday’s game vs Ok St. 

 

While the bullpen has shown holes and ups/downs, the net result has been serviceable, even though not optimal. 

[joeywa]

Also, this year is not your normal Texas Baseball team. This is the best offensive lineup in likely two decades, certainly a lineup with power from top to bottom. Defensively this team is also something pretty special. 
We are used to seeing Texas teams with fair power, solid defense, lots of speed and a shutdown pitching staff. This season is quite different. If Texas was winning 1-0 games all year, folks would be fussing about why the coaches don’t recruit big hitters. I firmly believe that Pierce & Co have recruited well, and the youth in the pen will be fine long-term (into next year.)  The struggles this season will make for success next season. And Texas is still looking pretty good for a hosting spot in the post season. Let’s enjoy it and see what they can do with the pieces in place. 

[Eastexhorn]

Great offence great defence great starting pitching ( 98%) of the time. Bull pen leaves a lot to be desired. W 

[BWilk55]

5 minutes ago, joeywa said:

Also, this year is not your normal Texas Baseball team. This is the best offensive lineup in likely two decades, certainly a lineup with power from top to bottom. Defensively this team is also something pretty special. 
We are used to seeing Texas teams with fair power, solid defense, lots of speed and a shutdown pitching staff. This season is quite different. If Texas was winning 1-0 games all year, folks would be fussing about why the coaches don’t recruit big hitters. I firmly believe that Pierce & Co have recruited well, and the youth in the pen will be fine long-term (into next year.)  The struggles this season will make for success next season. And Texas is still looking pretty good for a hosting spot in the post season. Let’s enjoy it and see what they can do with the pieces in place. 

More fun to whine, haha.

I think the difficult thing this year is the pre-season expectations compared to where we are now. The Witt injury of course was good reason for a readjustment of expectations but I still can't understand what happened to Stevens, Nixon, Duplantier this season. Nixon and Duplantier aren't even very useful arms at this point. Stevens has been servicable out of the pen but not lights out. With the high expectations of the pitching, had you told me we would be scoring 8 runs a game, I would assume we would be undefeated. 

I'll be rooting and enjoying for the rest of this season but really would like to gain some understanding about the pitching failures at some point.

[BWilk55]

RPI up to #9. Chance for several more quality wins this weekend. Finish 2-0 or 2-1 and I think we host, 1-2 and things get shaky. 

[joeywa]

BWilk, it’s an easy explanation. 
Normally with 3 established weekend starters, you’re looking for 8-10 frames from your pen in a weekend series. Lose a starter, (Witt) & your Tuesday guy (Gordon) slides in. No prob. 
You then hope for one of your pen guys to step in as your Tuesday guy. That didn’t happen. Now you’re using arms in midweek games more than you were before. 
Should any of your updated weekend starters struggle, (see Stevens where he didn’t make it out of the 2nd) you’re now asking for 14+ frames from your bullpen. 
On top of that, you had more than a couple of midweek games that were more than just a Tuesday. That’s adding more innings to eat up. 
Finally, your “closer” has had issues and a guy you expected to contribute after surgery last year hasn’t progressed as fast. You’re now leaning on your unproven youth. 
 

It has been an imperfect perfect storm this year. Yet take a look at the stats above. That’s incredibly impressive given the circumstances. 

[Eastexhorn]

Tuesday pitchers are unable to pitch on weekends?

[joeywa]

Yes. Please reread what I wrote. 
You are extending them when you have to use them too much in midweeks and when weekend starters falter. 

[BWilk55]

14 minutes ago, joeywa said:

BWilk, it’s an easy explanation. 
Normally with 3 established weekend starters, you’re looking for 8-10 frames from your pen in a weekend series. Lose a starter, (Witt) & your Tuesday guy (Gordon) slides in. No prob. 
You then hope for one of your pen guys to step in as your Tuesday guy. That didn’t happen. Now you’re using arms in midweek games more than you were before. 
Should any of your updated weekend starters struggle, (see Stevens where he didn’t make it out of the 2nd) you’re now asking for 14+ frames from your bullpen. 
On top of that, you had more than a couple of midweek games that were more than just a Tuesday. That’s adding more innings to eat up. 
Finally, your “closer” has had issues and a guy you expected to contribute after surgery last year hasn’t progressed as fast. You’re now leaning on your unproven youth. 
 

It has been an imperfect perfect storm this year. Yet take a look at the stats above. That’s incredibly impressive given the circumstances. 

I hear that and understand the domino effect that losing Witt had. Still very confused by Stevens and Nixon faltering so much. We basically lost Witt to injury and those two to ineffectiveness. 

[joeywa]

Stevens had a couple of rough starts, but he asked Pierce if he could provide help to the bullpen since that’s where he had spent a lot of time early in his career. The Nixon thing is a weird one. While some will point to the walkoff steal of home vs Tech, he was not himself prior to that. At least not what we saw last season. He appeared to lose confidence in his fastball. For a closer, you cannot be out there without all of your weapons. He got to the point for a while where he was almost solely off-speed stuff. I think he’s starting to find his FB control again, but if it were me, he’d be limited to middle relief for no more than one inning. Pierce & Allen have given him every opportunity to figure it out and it still is a crap shoot, at least from my vantage point. 

[Eastexhorn]

10 hours ago, joeywa said:

Yes. Please reread what I wrote. 
You are extending them when you have to use them too much in midweeks and when weekend starters falter. 

First thanks for the great job you do. Proably a labor of love.

I read your post thatswhy the comment.There is proablemswith the relifers, what who knows. Out of shape, mental. or others.

If a pitcher is in shape there is no reasonif he pitches 1 or2 innings on Tuesday he can not pitch again Sat. if his head is right.

Then what do I know only played some and coached a little.

[tejasrulz]

14 hours ago, Baron said:

That was not a balk.

 

14 hours ago, joeywa said:

I didn't think so either.

 

14 hours ago, Wayne said:

The ump was a tad bit touchy there. Blew two things on one call. Saarlos shouldn’t have been tossed 

All so true. Hated to get a run like that however I think Texas was going to score the man on 3rd anyway with Melendez at bat.

Very good win. So @joeywa, who do you predict will be the starter on Saturday? 

[tejasrulz]

11 hours ago, joeywa said:

The Nixon thing is a weird one. While some will point to the walkoff steal of home vs Tech, he was not himself prior to that. At least not what we saw last season. He appeared to lose confidence in his fastball.

NIxon's issues may not have started with that steal of home but that play was the final nail in the coffin. Hope his old self returns next year.

[BWilk55]

11 hours ago, joeywa said:

Stevens had a couple of rough starts, but he asked Pierce if he could provide help to the bullpen since that’s where he had spent a lot of time early in his career. The Nixon thing is a weird one. While some will point to the walkoff steal of home vs Tech, he was not himself prior to that. At least not what we saw last season. He appeared to lose confidence in his fastball. For a closer, you cannot be out there without all of your weapons. He got to the point for a while where he was almost solely off-speed stuff. I think he’s starting to find his FB control again, but if it were me, he’d be limited to middle relief for no more than one inning. Pierce & Allen have given him every opportunity to figure it out and it still is a crap shoot, at least from my vantage point. 

On Nixon, he did not make an appearance in either of the big 12 championship games. He's probably the 3rd or 4th choice out of the bullpen right now. Crazy to think he was looking to be a top reliever in the nation to start the season. 

They do seem content to throw Stevens for extended innings back to back games so at least we are getting some good value there. 

I like this team a lot, I'm hoping the pitching can do enough going forward to allow the offense to carry us deep in this post-season.