Info on Position Changes ...

[Barton Hills]

Texassports.com has some insight on the possible defensive changes moving forward ...

Yesterday Augie had Tucker at 2nd, Shepard and McCrory at 3rd, Torres playing in left field.

#1 - no mention of Hernandez being moved ...
#2 - Torres to the OF would even further cloud the rotation in left (Keyes/Moldenhauer/Clark) ...

No Torres at 2nd means two of these three (Keyes/Moldenhauer/Torres) must sit. Also means an offensive drop off if McCrory is placed at 3rd.

This weekend will be interesting.

Also reports yesterday was our THIRD practice since the opener, due to games/weather/NCAA mandatory days off. Torbush.

In closing, we are 17-6 ... '06 we were 16-7, last year we were 14-9 after 23 games.

The Link

 

[cehorn]

There was also a blurb in the Statesman that talked about Rupp playing third when Clark is able to catch to help keep his bat in the lineup.

 

[jayakris]

Actually 16-7 last year and 14-9 in 2006. In fact, had this year's team played the early schedule that last year's team played, I suspect that we would not be 17-6 ..

Anyway, the last two years turned out to be not so great. The problems we had, really did not disappear, even though we kept putting up some good wins and stayed more than decent in the rankings - till the point when it really matterd for Omaha. Pitching never really got fully over the hump, though a middle period showed that things stabilized to a good level - but that was mostly because of the experience of some veterans, and not necessarily because of overwhelming talent.

But that is how it works, isn't it? .. If there aren't exemplary talent and depth in the team, of the kind that is capable of reaching Omaha and doing something there, the deficiencies would show up in the end, when adversity hits in the form of a talented/deep opponent having a hot run (the anteaters in our case last year).

The point is - the last two year's teams eventually disappointed, and should not be a benchmark for anything.

The good thing is that we have done OK so far this year, and that has mostly been due to a lot of new faces. Some of the instability is to be expected in that case. If these kids get a bit more settled, this could become a year when the early season troubles should not be taken as an indicator of where they would be, by the end of the year (unlike last year for instance, where the early problems were indeed a bit of an indicator of what was eventually to come, as we painfully found out in the end).

R.J.

 

[kjgirl]

Thanks for the analysis Jayakris.
In your honest opinion, if we played UC Irvine right now, what would happen?

Thanks for the update BH

 

[jayakris]

UCI is tough. In a three-game series, we would probably struggle to win even one against UCI right now. Their pitching is so damn good.

R.J.

 

[TexasBaseball7]

weekend rotation has also changed.

kk to fridays
riley to saturdays
wood to sundays.

i think once riley gets a few more innings under his belt, we'll see him on fridays. even though we have handled dorn in 4 of his 5 outings vs. UT, i don't like the dorn/kk matchup. dorn's only good outing against us came two years ago in Austin giving up 0 runs in 7ip.