Baseball has won 6 of 8, now sitting at 18-17

[CrimsonWazzu]

Took 2 of 3 from both UW and Cal, big series wins. Split the 2 games with Gonzaga, and just railed on NMSU 11-1 last night.

Such a nice turnaround from the absolutely brutal schedule stretch. I heard that 6 freshmen are starting on this team right now, and hopefully Don can figure out if he has any one guy who can settle into that 3rd starting spot or if he'll just play matchups. Pistorese is putting up ridiculous numbers, hopefully I can catch a couple of his starts before the end of the season to watch him throw.

They have a 4 game series with SJSU coming up this week, a team that is currently 9-26, and lost a game 2 weeks ago to Nevada 22-1 and has a number of other embarrassing blowouts on their schedule already. Needless to say, and not to take anyone lightly, this is a much needed cupcake series and hopefully we can get a sweep here to make up some ground on a couple of the other non-conf games that should have been wins.

And looking forward to the rest of Pac12 play, the schedule gets so much more manageable, and getting to .500 in conference play is totally in play if they continue to grind and improve. Pitching has carried this guys, the bats need to come around with more consistency. Utah, Stanford and Arizona have the worst pitching in the league and are still left on the schedule, though Arizona is #1 in offense.

Any chance of making the tournament at this point is a way out longshot, but definitely like the progress the young guys are making.

 

[Coug95man2]

The age of this team is truly the reason for the batting issues, IMHO. The defense has been decent, our pitching has been great. Batting… not so much. So many "frosh mistakes" though. But really, these guys were just in high school facing high school pitchers. Time at the plate with pitches coming at them at 85-95 mph is a huge deal and requires a little time for adjustment. You can only simulate game day so much, with so many different deliveries and such… The past couple weeks has been a pleasant surprise for such a young team. In the first game against the yuppy puppies, Coach commented that not only do they play 6 frosh, but at times MORE than that. We've had a few injuries!!! A very good team, considering it's age.

 

[CrimsonWazzu]

Next level adjustments/development for hitting are far more difficult than any other aspect of the game IMO. They're getting better, that much is certain.

Did a quick count, over this nice 8 game run, the team is hitting a combined .285 and is still drawing walks at a nice clip. Patient hitting = sign of development. There just isn't a lot of pop in the lineup, a really low rate of XBH's.

Just saw it posted that Pistorese won the Pitcher of the Week award.

 

[Coug95man2]

At the game last Thursday, looking at the stats, I believe there are 5 or so players hitting below .200. That kind of average hurts. But it also is indicative of the beginning of the season. I'm sure those averages are slowly climbing.