AZ Longhorn

@Jeff Howe in all the SEC standings graphics I've seen this week (like this one) we're listed before aggy. But don't they have the tiebreaker over us, given the head-to-head series win? (If the SEC tournament started today, we would be the #3 seed, not the #2 seed as this graphic implies.) If so, then these visuals are... misleading if not downright wrong.

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks

Schloss talked a lot about lefty freshman Jack McKernan in the fall and preseason. So much that I expected he'd contribute this year. But nary a pitch thrown and I haven't heard anything on him

Yeah the bullpen has been thin and painful at times. But can't disagree harder about "complete redo." Our freshman pitching class of Cozart, Crossland, Winter, and even Walls is second to absolutely no one; and that's after Volantis in Jim and Max's first year last year. We're a top 5 pitching staff right now, with the best freshman pitching class in the nation, so that's only going to become more of a strength as the Pierce holdovers turn over and we don't have to throw portal darts at hit-or-miss guys like Burns and Higgins. Complete redo is... an overreaction.

Thanks for the response. Interesting. I didn't know SOS (and therefore RPI) was not standardized.

Ignorant question, but shouldn't RPI be the same regardless of the publication? Like, I think it's a rote formula. Just like someone's OPS should be the same regardless of who's calculating it. But I'd be more interested if I'm wrong!

@Jeff Howe do you know the mechanics of these decisions? How much, if any, input do we have into whether this game gets played? And then, if the game doesn't happen today, does it get rescheduled for later in the season or just fully cancelled? Because I'm thinking through whether I want us to play today. On the one hand, we have a massive advantage on paper: Volantis + fresh Cozart + bullets left in Crossland, Leffew, Burns if we want them ... vs. Weston Moss and max 2 innings from freshcorn. BUT that advantage on paper might not matter right now and it might be more strategic to just cut bait at 2 losses and move on.

YUUUGE to knock sdao out of the game only getting 12 outs. Puts us in prime position for a series win (regardless of today specifically). Good luck finding 69 more outs from that pitching staff...

The name of the game is containment. You're not gonna blank this aggies lineup. Keep it to solo homeruns and cheapies (like last inning), try and get through 5+ innings, and keep the team in it. The longer the game is close, the more the advantage shifts our way (in this single game, an in terms of winning the overall weekend)

Elite execution from a true freshman in the hostile-est of environments! LFG pack man!!

Let's goooo!! A lot of pitches, but a 0 on the board!

Baseball is a funny game. Just gotta laugh and shake your head! We absolutely still have a chance in this game. We can score in bunches, we can come back, and SC is opening with their closer for an expected bullpen game (and their bullpen is... not great). In addition, it will be important for the overall series for Ruger to find his command and give us some length today. Our trusted bullpen is very thin, and two of the three pitched two days ago. He's only at 32ish pitches, so if he improves his execution, he can absolutely give us great length still.

Oof. I think A Rod makes that play and ends the inning at only 1 run. edit: instead they're at 5 (and counting)

SC has a good plan coming in against Ruger. Guessing pitches, but it's paying off so far. Time for the pitch caller to adjust.

Winter still out 🥲 What's the word? Still a sickness? It's been over a month ...

Keep in mind the change this year: the committee will rank teams 1-32, and that ranking will fully determine the 1 & 2 regional seeds. So, if we (as the #2 national seed) have TCU as our #2 regional seed, it won't be due to any geographic considerations, but solely because the committee ranked TCU as the #31 national seed. This is a great change for the top teams (like us). FWIW, I'm shocked that D1.com thinks TCU is the 31st best team in the country right now. We'll see how the second half of the season plays out, but as of now, I would LOVE that TCU 2-seed for us.

I haven't heard anything. I understood the logic of opening with Grubbs, but would have expected Flores over Walls and Walker. Hopefully we have a couple runrule-type games in Columbia and he can get a good inning or two under his belt.

And covered a lot of PenderGRASS to get there!

Using 2/3 trusted bullpen arms tonight shows you how much Schloss wants this one, even with an SEC series starting in two days.

Loving this for Bing! (And for the team!)

Mendoza created his own run! Atta boy. Love the compete level, even in the slump.

Edit: what Jeff said. (Wish I could delete to save the noise.)

Big answer from Robbins. We go quietly there and the bad vibe starts to congeal. There’s a chance that HR wakes us up a bit (including Aiden himself lol)

He hasn’t been great. But we should have been out of this inning at 1-0.

Circling back with info I learned elsewhere, in case y'll haven't heard. This "minor hand procedure" was indeed minor: simply removing the single metal staple that had been inserted in the surgery earlier this spring. It was done in 20 minutes yesterday. The rate-limiting step for a return to swinging is just how soon the incision location heals up. It seems there's a possibility that this meaningfully improves his comfort swinging. As he exerted a lot of force in a swing, the staple had to flex around those mobile mid-hand bones, causing pain. And then there's the secondary effect of inflammation from that mechanical irritation, plus perhaps some inflammation from the body rejecting the material of the staple. The main thing is that this talented youngster figures this out long-term, for what could be a very long and special baseball career. It's been a full year-long injury already, all from a HBP against Missouri, for pete's sake! But I was encouraged even in the short term, for his contributing to a title run this season, with the simplicity of the procedure and return timeline... and the possibility that the pain might have been as simple as side effects from the staple, which is now gone!