Jerry K

Last night was bad. Those nine hit batters was only one shy of the D1 NCAA record according to Rod Babers. I’ve been watching Longhorn baseball (that I can remember) for over 30 years and I don’t ever remember seeing as bad a pitching performance as I saw last night. And it’s not likely to get better. TCU is struggling but I’ll be shocked if they don’t sweep this weekend. Then OU is the following weekend and that looks like another sweep. The last 3 in the conference don’t make the Big 12 tournament in this years format. That is almost certainly their last hope of making the NCAA tournament at this point unless something drastic changes.

Is it true Jarod Thomas will be starting on the mound tonight?

Similar but different. Tulo has zero head coaching experience that I’m aware of. I agree it’d be risky and not a direction CDC would likely go.

As I watch Texas in a dog fight against a team that’s 5-11 in conference play I came back to look at this list again. I really like your first 3, tier one coaches. Obviously nothing is guaranteed but I think any of those would be an upgrade. Personally I’m not a fan of Tony V. My impression of him is he’s arrogant, mouthy and just not someone that would fit well at Texas. Maybe I’m wrong? This guy doesn’t fit the “mold” or typical criteria but part of me wonders what kind of HC Tulo would be at a place like Texas. Yeah it’d be rolling the dice big time but the guy knows baseball.

I’ve never seen that before. Well done. Held the runner from advancing to 3rd.

Thank you sir! 🤘

Blake changing the subject a little. Do you know what the new schedule looks like for today with Texas having to finish up the 9th inning from last night? How does that impact the originally scheduled start time? Thanks!

I hear what you’re saying. Again it’s a fair point. My point is Pierce is struggling at being a pitching coach. Last year LBJ was much better.

Fair point on his fastball. When his only other pitch (slider or cutter or whatever that pitch is he has is) isn’t working he’s easy to hit off of. His true slider isn’t that great. However last year he was tougher to hit off of which is why he had a lot of eyes on him coming into this year. Your point about BYU sitting on heaters speaks to what I’m getting at. The fact that Pierce kept calling those pitches is a head scratcher. Coach Pierce knows a lot about baseball but we are seeing he’s not hard to out coach in a game. I’ve been a supporter of him for a while even on this board mostly because I think 1/3 into the season is too early to say he needs to be replaced and I wanted to avoid the knee jerk reaction. But now we are half way through the season and little has changed or improved. I’m not saying he needs to go but he’s proven so far he can’t be the pitching coach and head coach at the same time. Maybe that will change. Sure hope so!

I respectfully disagree. LBJ has (or had) one of the best sliders/cutters in the game as a secondary pitch. When they played LSU earlier this season their head coach referred to LBJ as one of the best pitchers in the country. If it was just LBJ that is battling regression I would tend to agree but it’s not. David Shaw, Charlie Hurley and Cody Howard have all regressed from where they were last year in addition to LBJ. To me seems like there’s more to it.

Curious how do you know it’s LBJ’s fault?

Yes sir big win!!

@CoachBobbyFinstock you laughed at my comment. Why?

Guys the SEC is NEXT year. It is impossible to know what kind of team Texas baseball will have next year with the draft and portal. Texas might be fine in the SEC next year. And that goes for most other teams too. Guestimating how we will do in a new season and conference is nothing but just that. You certainly can’t seriously expect CDC to fire a coach because of what might happen down the road.

It hasn’t been smooth I’ll say that. Downward spiral? Too early to tell. A 15-10 start isn’t what we all wanted no doubt. But I don’t see how this justifies getting rid of a coach less than half way through the season. I think he deserves a chance to turn it around.

Thanks Blake. Man I hope T Witt can make it back this season. Doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen. A series win this weekend and they’re back in the drivers seat. I was so pumped for Boogie! Hope he keeps it rolling. Also Hurley seems to be doing better too. If he could come back as a solid weekend pen arm that would be a huge help. I think O’Dowd has lost his starting job at 2nd. Dee Kennedy saved 2 runs in that game last night snagging balls Jack wouldn’t even have tried to get.

It’s an interesting discussion. I’ll admit there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cohesion in the program and he doesn’t have a huge fan base backing. Pierce doesn’t seem like “the guy” mainly (in my opinion) because he doesn’t talk a good game. And he’s always having staff turnover. Some of it has been his undoing and some wasn’t. His decision making in staff can certainly be questioned. But in the 7 seasons as head coach at Texas he has 3 college World Series appearances, 2 other super regional or regional appearances and that includes one Covid year when the season was cancelled on a solid team. So basically he’s not been to the NCAA tournament one time since he’s been at Texas. Oh and either a share or outright conference championship 3 of those years. There is absolutely no guarantee you could move on to another coach and get that same level of success. The grass isn’t always greener.

To me they didn’t seem ready to play. It was almost like they felt they could sleep walk through this game and still win. Bats were obviously cold. They didn’t have a lead off baserunner until the 8th and that ended up scoring their only run of the game. My question is what happened to Witt? Looking like there’s been another set back. Quick turnaround now with the series at K State starting Thursday.

Man I am so happy for Boogie! Dude stepped up big time. Pierce may need to manage his count down the road. They’re going to need an arm like his down the stretch.

Yep that was good to see for sure. Fonenot, Boehm, and Duplantier are all showing good things. Hopefully Luke Harrison and Witt can start to put it together. If that happens this team could look completely different in a few weeks. And while I’m hoping maybe Pierce will save Tuesdays for Shaw to work on his game. Friday night isn’t the time to bring in a reliever that has 6 walks in 7 innings.

Yeah there’s a lot of issues like you said. Coach Pierce is struggling at least from my view with some key decisions. For example it’s obvious to most catcher is an issue. If Galvan has an injured hand that’s keeping him from catching why is he still batting? My wife, who is not a big sports fan but does like baseball even made the comment that the players aren’t being developed. I’m not ready to throw in the towel on the season yet. I think this team has the talent to get better. I agree it’s not going to be a 180 degree turnaround but at this point improvement is about all we can hope for .

Uh huh👍

I know they have to win game 1 first but a win over Barnes would be so sweet

I saw a team today that is clearly rough around the edges come together and grit out a win against a decent Washington team. Pitching wasn’t the issue today but defense was with 4 errors. Defense can be fixed a lot easier than pitching though. Good to see the arms doing better. Kuddos to Grubbs with a solid outing. Hate to think where this team would be without Peyton Powell! Dude is money.

10-8. 73 walks in 18 games. Not the start we wanted doubt.