Alumni Game

[Chop]

Starter Howard threw well, surrendering 1 run in 3 innings. That's a 3.00 ERA. However, it took him 61 pitches to get there, so at that rate, he could only go 4-5 innings. That may have to do. Right now, he's our weekday starter. He might get a look at weekend duty if one or our starters falters. Another developing youngster looking for weekday duty is Grubbs.

Fontenot looks very good.

Boehm looks good--the coaches and commentators weren't just blowing smoke when they told us how good his stuff was.

Shaw looks like the pre-injury Shaw.

DuPlantier -- use him, he's actually good, the numbers don't lie--BUT LIMIT HIM TO 1-2 INNINGS and pull him if he starts to dig himself into a hole.

 

[FWHORN]

 

[Chop]

Not sure why Fontenot didn't pan out at his previous stops. He looks like a winner on the mound.

 

[Chop]

Belyeu is 2-1 today. 2 singles.

Gotta get his bat in the lineup.

Belyeu could be this year's Powell at the plate.

 

[Chop]

So some said "put up or shut up" to this cocky smiling lad, who is said to definitely NOT suffer from any lack of self esteem.

He put up!

We're fortunate to have him on the mound. Look for great things from Gage Boehm. (pronounced "Bame")

Fastballs - 97-98 mph (and higher)
Wicked breaking stuff.

He has the materials to be one of our great stoppers or closers.

 

[aUTfan]

Sounds like Gage would make a damn good closer for us.

 

[Chop]

Sounds like Gage would make a damn good closer for us.

Yep.

Coach may start the season with Big Red / ol' reliable - Shaw - closing. Boehm will make a push for the closer spot. Then again, Boehm may be even more useful coming in when we're in trouble and shutting down the opponent's offense.

A case could also be made for Fontenot, but he looks like the sort you'd want to come in during the 6th or 7th inning of a tight game, and take us to the 9th (or all the way). Middle reliever, set-up man, etc.

 

[Chop]

An obvious key to this season is for Howard and Hurley to be solid enough to keep us in every game they pitch. If both of those guys are posting ERAs of 4.00 or below on the year, that's fine. LBJ and Gordon are not "normal" college level pitchers. You can't expect our starting pitchers to post ERAs below 3.00 (LBJ will).

With this batting lineup, if both of those guys are posting ERAs of 4.50 or below on the year, that might get us there.

I'm all for getting the youngsters and lesser-used pitchers LOTS OF PLAYING TIME in the early part of the season. What we don't want is for someone other than one of our BEST 4 starting pitchers taking up one of those 4 starting pitcher spots. And the 4 you pencil in at the start of the year, may not be your best 4 by the time conference play rolls around. You've got to give lots of pitchers lots of innings to figure that out.

 

[Chop]

Belyeu could be this year's Powell at the plate.

Dude may hit 0.335 - 0.350.

 

[aUTfan]

Yeah, i like the thought of Shaw and Fontenont being set up men. Getting us to Gage to close it out with zero runs scored. Also have Whitehead as a known entity.

We haven't seen Harrison yet. Would like to see Hamilton, Tumis, Selvig and Santos to see if they can help us out, gonna need some of these guys to step up, won't be able to make it without them.

 

[aUTfan]

Dude may hit 0.335 - 0.350.

We'll see, if he and Flores hit near or above .300 we will be the best offensive team in the country. (coupled with Cummings, Schuessler, and Gasparino hitting about where I think they will)

 

[aUTfan]

That Mercer injury hurt.

 

[Chop]

Yeah, i like the thought of Shaw and Fontenont being set up men. Getting us to Gage to close it out with zero runs scored. Also have Whitehead as a known entity.

We haven't seen Harrison yet. Would like to see Hamilton, Tumis, Selvig and Santos to see if they can help us out, gonna need some of these guys to step up, won't be able to make it without them.

Santos?

I think Harrison is back. You just never know if he'll reach his pre-injury form though.

Selvig probably has the highest floor of the new pitchers, so we may see him the most early on. Tumis has ultra-nasty breaking pitches that defy the laws of physics, so I'd like to see plenty of him in the early season. The only Q for Tumis is his control. Selvig doesn't seem to have a control issue--hence, we'll probably see Selvig a lot first. The Coaches seem to favor Hamilton, so we may be seeing a lot of him.

 

[aUTfan]

An obvious key to this season is for Howard and Hurley to be solid enough to keep us in every game they pitch. If both of those guys are posting ERAs of 4.00 or below on the year, that's fine. LBJ and Gordon are not "normal" college level pitchers. You can't expect our starting pitchers to post ERAs below 3.00 (LBJ will).

With this batting lineup, if both of those guys are posting ERAs of 4.50 or below on the year, that might get us there.

I'm all for getting the youngsters and lesser-used pitchers LOTS OF PLAYING TIME in the early part of the season. What we don't want is for someone other than one of our BEST 4 starting pitchers taking up one of those 4 starting pitcher spots. And the 4 you pencil in at the start of the year, may not be your best 4 by the time conference play rolls around. You've got to give lots of pitchers lots of innings to figure that out.

Hurley is definitely a key cog, we can't lose any more pitchers to injury and he needs to be reliable to start 5 innings each weekend where our offense will have to win the game with the bullpen.

 

[Chop]

That Mercer injury hurt.

Yep. He was our best closer, and our best reliever period.

 

[aUTfan]

Santos is listed as a LHP. i only mention him cause he's listed as a pitcher and we need everyone we can to help.

 

[Chop]

Hurley is definitely a key cog, we can't lose any more pitchers to injury and he needs to be reliable to start 5 innings each weekend where our offense will have to win the game with the bullpen.

If Hurley (or even Witt) were to falter, Howard may step up to weekend starter.

 

[Chop]

Santos is listed as a LHP. i only mention him cause he's listed as a pitcher and we need everyone we can to help.

Is he injured?

 

[Chop]

we can't lose any more pitchers to injury

Is there something wrong with our training staff...?

 

[aUTfan]

If Hurley (or even Witt) were to falter, Howard may step up to weekend starter.

omg, please don't mention that. We won't make it to Omaha without those two. I thought we were deep but I'm not feeling as confident in our pitching depth at the moment. I like what we have just too many unknowns from the young guys for me to be confident.

 

[Chop]

omg, please don't mention that. We won't make it to Omaha without those two. I thought we were deep but I'm not feeling as confident in our pitching depth at the moment. I like what we have just too many unknowns from the young guys for me to be confident.

The pen looks better than the last 3 years. The lack of proven quality starting pitching depth is concerning...

 

[aUTfan]

Is he injured?

Is there something wrong with our training staff...?

Santos? I have no idea, I don't think we've even seen him on the mound yet and maybe why you are asking that.

as far as our training staff, good question with so many elbow injuries each year, we can't seem to go through one freaking year without one taking out a starter.

 

[RS]

I was at the game yesterday and thought Boehm looked good, but most of his pitches were in the high 80s. I am not sure what he was throwing. I may have missed some top speed, but it seemed like Fonenot threw harder.

I still think Flores has some work to do in the infield and he really needs to get his batting average up from last year or it will be a Mitchell Daly scenario again. I think everything Flores hit yesterday was a high fly.

Hurley did not look that good. Howard looked prettty good, but as mentioned above he threw a lot of pitches.

Belyeu had two really good hits and Porter hit one off the wall. Powell had one really good swing (HR). Gasparino didn't show much but did hit one really hard. Schuessler swings the bat a lot better than Galvan, at least so far, and may be better defensively. O'Dowd looked pretty good and has filled out quite a bit since he arrived. Thomas can really run and is a plus in either the outfield or at first base. Nik Sanders looks really stout and hit a foul HR that looked like a Melendez shot. It is hard to tell about Cummings since he only came in at the end, but I have now seen him hit an HR yesterday and in the Fall game where he had all of RBIs and hit a homerun. Cam looked like he did last year.

Duplantier was discussed above. I don't think he was really on and he also hit 2 or 3 batters.

I heard that Witt picked up a bit more speed on his FB this last week and it will be interesting to see how Pierce sets up the main rotation. Neither Witt nor LBJ pitched yesterday.

 

[Chop]

I think we’ll get to see some of our Freshmen pitchers in the lead up games to LSU. For LSU, it’s gotta be LBJ and for as long as he’s throwing well.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Did my boy Ace get any work yesterday? Looked like a pretty good crowd. I wanted to go but none of my regular gang could make it.

 

[RS]

Did my boy Ace get any work yesterday? Looked like a pretty good crowd. I wanted to go but none of my regular gang could make it.

Ace was out there in the warmups, but did not get in the game.

 

[Chop]

 

[Chop]

Head baseball coach David Pierce analyzes pitchers ahead of 2024 season

 

[RS]

Head baseball coach David Pierce analyzes pitchers ahead of 2024 season

I saw that but don't think he really said much. He also didn't mention LBJ (probably no need to) or Witt's progress. He has discussed them recently. He also didn't mention how Duplantier seemed to tank after 2 innings. I would also like to hear how Luke Harrison is doing. I saw somewhere that he finally pitched to his first batters recently following his TJ surgery early last year. I had high hopes for Harrision.