Addressing hitting weakness

[orangecat]

This has happneed before, but teams work through the problem with at least one technique I find very interesting.

That is having patience and tenacity at the plate.

The best example was a pretty decent hitting young shortstop that came to Texas a long-time ago, in the 1980s. Coby Kerlin didn't just accidentally set the NCAA record for walks in a season, he eanred it.

I think they chose Koby to run up the pitch count because he was short and he could run fairly well. Whatever the reason, he was gonna be on base twice a game.

Back to our loss yesterday, if we had a Koby kind of guy to run up the pitch count, we would have gotten to their closer one inning earlier, at least. I think that might have made a difference,

The great thing about Koby's story is he went to coach Gus a couple of years later, asked to get the green light on hitting, he did, and he did bat over .300 for a season.

I guess I'm just wishing our guys had just a little bit of Koby in them tenacity wise, fouling off pitches, working the count, we would have been more successful.

 

[hornpharmd]

I agree. A guy that can run up pitch counts and get on base consistently early would be huge. I knew this year at some point we would lose based on getting outhit. It just happened earlier than I expected. But it likely would have happened in CWS as well.

 

[GemStateJim]

I would celebrate a lineup of hitters who aren't already out before they step into the box, which seemed to be the mentality that many of our hitters on this year's team had against quality pitching.

 

[Oilfield]

What was interesting to me is that TCU seemed to have more Houston-area players than we do. Wonder why that is? In Gus' time a lot of our top players were from the Houston area. Not so much these days.

 

[warrior]

I think you have to give some credit to TCU's pitching for holding Moldy to zero hits and Rupp to one?

 

[salonghorn-70]

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[VirginiaLonghorn]

I can't understand why one of our players hasn't been taught to keep his back foot on the ground and his back shoulder up while swinging. Lots of nice popups, though ....

 

[slappinleather]

Its been a problem since Irvine kicked our *** at Round Rock.

 

[Alex_de_Large]

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[Santafe]

The reason we didn’t get to Omaha? Batting average (ranked 221 [0.289] out of 292 teams), hits (166th), scoring (160th), and runs (113th) in that order! Miami was the closest batting average to ours (188th, 0.298)). We had the lowest batting average of all the teams in the Super Regionals. TCU’s batting average was 10th (0.345).

 

[slugfest]

But how do this year's hitting stats compare to last year's? If we had been matched up with an ACC team, do you think we'd be going to Omaha? I do.

 

[slappinleather]

HIRE A HITTING INSTRUCTOR. We have the funds to do! Maybe Dustin M or Hothead 25. We really need to adress this to balance the program.

 

[rickysrun]

Have NIck Peoples give some lessons on how to be a pitcher's worst nightmare.

 

[KEYSERSOZE]

As long as we have a certain recruiting coordinator on staff the poor hitting will continue.

 

[slappinleather]

Tommy likes to wave that arm over in the coaches box why would he not recruit hitters and teach them defense?

 

[KEYSERSOZE]

Tommy and Deron G went on recruiting trips together if that tells you anything.

 

[2xHORN]

I note that 2011 recruiting seems a bit broader based than recently. Also, we have had what seemed to be sound hitting teams in the Harmon era. Just a talent issue?

HOOKEM

 

[Pericles]

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