OTF Premium Baseball Game Thread: No. 2 Texas vs. No. 5 Auburn (Sunday)

[Jerky]

Texas baseball responds and wins 2 in a row to win the series and just like that we are back in 1st place (tied with 7 others) in the SEC with a 4-2 record. 

Hook Em! OUsux!

[AZ Longhorn]

Just catching up. What's wild and exhilarating as a Horns fan is we just won a road SEC series against a team that will end up Top 10 on the year... and we're not even playing well!

Most of our hitters are in slumps or just treading water. We had our worst overall defensive weekend of the year. The bullpen and strike-throwing struggles are very real. And Dylan only went 4 innings. And with all that... we still won the series! The rest of the country must be shaking in their boots. 

[AZ Longhorn]

The pitching depth is definitely something to monitor. It's obviously already cost us two SEC sweeps, almost the series this Saturday, and a 6-0 start. (And having to move Cozart to the weekend means we'll drop a couple more midweek games than we would have otherwise, but that impact on a path to the championship is relatively minimal).

BUT even if the pitching depth doesn't become the best bullpen in the country, like some expected pre-season, I think there are real reasons to expect it to turn around:

• The main problem has been the free bases and the occasional hung spinner. Our guys have the stuff to get outs; the problem is command and control and the mental game. Max Weiner is the guy you want to have to work on that particular problem. 
• For virtually each piece, I think today is the worst they will be this season.
  • Obviously for the freshmen, they will continue to improve with practice and adjustments. (They are not being asked to start, so they will not hit the workload wall that freshmen starters sometimes do).
  • Leffew is already good, and will only get more impactful. As he works back from injury, his command will continue to dial in, and he will get stretched out to give us more innings per weekend (which leaves us less exposed with other guys). 
  • And then we have a trio of guys who got pre-season All-American votes — Burns, Higgins, and Grubbs — but are clearly underperforming. And I just don't believe that at least one or two of them won't recover to the mean. In other words, it probably can't keep being this bad! 
• It's not for nothing that the bullpen meltdowns happened while Winter has been on the shelf. Whatever sickness cost us two weekends, I hope he's ready to go for OU next week! 
• As others have pointed out, the coaching staff is still trying to figure out how to maximize what they have. That takes time to find when the initial roles don't work out. 

All of this is a perfect storm for dropping two games early in conference play. It's jarring to realize that your expected #1 strength is your actual #1 weakness, but there's time to figure it out and many reasons for expecting us to. 

[Burnt Orange Horn]

Any team can always play better.  There is no reason to sell them short because they are not winning by a margin any fan requires.

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