NBHorn7
Pimp Daddy
Starting Wednesday night we play five games in five days. So like it or not we are going to have to pitch more than the regular seven pitchers we have been using those being:
Thornhill
French
Jacquez
Curtis
Peters
Milner
Knebel
That means that Bellows and Discharry who have been on the traveling squad will have to be worked into the equation.
I would hope that one or the other would start this Wednesday against Pan American and the other would be first in as a reliever. Those arms mentioned above could use some rest especially Milner and Knebel. Without some help we might see another Youngman like dead arm at the end of the season, when it's needed the most.
With a four game series against Cal this weekend we will also need a fourth starter. By the way when was the last time we played a four game series against anybody? Makes me think of the old marathon spring break double headers we used to play for like 10 days straight back in the 80's when we would play 90+ games a season.
This means either holding someone like Curtis out of the mix in the bullpen to start against Cal or starting Bellows or Discharry. I would think we would need Milner's rubber like arm to stay in the pen. What happened to Josh Urban? He seemed like he had promise. He had a good outing early this year and just disappeared. He pitched last year and seemed to be ready to really contribute this season.
We need to win these games to solidify a chance of hosting a regional. Texas really needs one more solid pitcher to compete for the Conference crown and do some damage in post season play. It would help if Jacquez could give us a good five innings on the Sunday games in conference. He has great stuff, but just seems to lose command of his slider by the fourth inning. Then the walks come and hitters sit on his fastball and out he goes. Of course the bats need to hopefully stay somewhat consistant.
Though it's still early days in conference play it seems there is a bit of a pattern as to who is going challenge for the Big 12 title. Baylor is a bit of a surpise, they have three straight home series to start. They have OSU this weekend and it might tell us something more about Baylor. Their sweeps against Tech and Kansas aren't that impressive as both those teams don't seem to be upper division teams this year. Still a 6-0 start gives them a leg up with another series at home and I expect them to take at least 2/3 against OSU.
It seems the team to beat is Aggy, they have the best starting rotation in the league in Wacha, Stripling, and Pineda. They have a good hitting ball cub. The weaknesses is somewhat shaky fielding and the bullpen. If you can stay close and get in their pen you can beat them. In the one game KSU won they knocked out Wacha early taking a 7-0 lead. Of course KSU does not have a great staff either as we saw and promptly lost that lead and trailed late 11-9, but the Aggy pen lost that lead and finally the game 15-12. Stripling and Pineda pitched complete games for easy wins in the last two games.
So it shakes out like this to me at least in the conference.
Top Tier in no particular order:
Texas
Aggy
Baylor
Middle of the Pack
Missouri
Kansas State
OSU or OU
Lower Tier
Kansas
Tech
OSU or OU
It's a big week for Texas baseball against a decent Cal team and the midweek game, really need to go 4-1 to keep raising the overall record back to where it needs to be for hosting a regional. Win the conference and you can start talking about hosting a super, but that's kind of a stretch right now.
Can we accomplish these goals? Maybe, but this week will tell us alot about what post season play will be like as far as using our pitching with so many games in a short period of time. I hope somebody besides the "solid seven" will step up to the task on the mound. It will be hard to go very far this year as far as winning championships and advancing in post season play unless someone does.
Thornhill
French
Jacquez
Curtis
Peters
Milner
Knebel
That means that Bellows and Discharry who have been on the traveling squad will have to be worked into the equation.
I would hope that one or the other would start this Wednesday against Pan American and the other would be first in as a reliever. Those arms mentioned above could use some rest especially Milner and Knebel. Without some help we might see another Youngman like dead arm at the end of the season, when it's needed the most.
With a four game series against Cal this weekend we will also need a fourth starter. By the way when was the last time we played a four game series against anybody? Makes me think of the old marathon spring break double headers we used to play for like 10 days straight back in the 80's when we would play 90+ games a season.
This means either holding someone like Curtis out of the mix in the bullpen to start against Cal or starting Bellows or Discharry. I would think we would need Milner's rubber like arm to stay in the pen. What happened to Josh Urban? He seemed like he had promise. He had a good outing early this year and just disappeared. He pitched last year and seemed to be ready to really contribute this season.
We need to win these games to solidify a chance of hosting a regional. Texas really needs one more solid pitcher to compete for the Conference crown and do some damage in post season play. It would help if Jacquez could give us a good five innings on the Sunday games in conference. He has great stuff, but just seems to lose command of his slider by the fourth inning. Then the walks come and hitters sit on his fastball and out he goes. Of course the bats need to hopefully stay somewhat consistant.
Though it's still early days in conference play it seems there is a bit of a pattern as to who is going challenge for the Big 12 title. Baylor is a bit of a surpise, they have three straight home series to start. They have OSU this weekend and it might tell us something more about Baylor. Their sweeps against Tech and Kansas aren't that impressive as both those teams don't seem to be upper division teams this year. Still a 6-0 start gives them a leg up with another series at home and I expect them to take at least 2/3 against OSU.
It seems the team to beat is Aggy, they have the best starting rotation in the league in Wacha, Stripling, and Pineda. They have a good hitting ball cub. The weaknesses is somewhat shaky fielding and the bullpen. If you can stay close and get in their pen you can beat them. In the one game KSU won they knocked out Wacha early taking a 7-0 lead. Of course KSU does not have a great staff either as we saw and promptly lost that lead and trailed late 11-9, but the Aggy pen lost that lead and finally the game 15-12. Stripling and Pineda pitched complete games for easy wins in the last two games.
So it shakes out like this to me at least in the conference.
Top Tier in no particular order:
Texas
Aggy
Baylor
Middle of the Pack
Missouri
Kansas State
OSU or OU
Lower Tier
Kansas
Tech
OSU or OU
It's a big week for Texas baseball against a decent Cal team and the midweek game, really need to go 4-1 to keep raising the overall record back to where it needs to be for hosting a regional. Win the conference and you can start talking about hosting a super, but that's kind of a stretch right now.
Can we accomplish these goals? Maybe, but this week will tell us alot about what post season play will be like as far as using our pitching with so many games in a short period of time. I hope somebody besides the "solid seven" will step up to the task on the mound. It will be hard to go very far this year as far as winning championships and advancing in post season play unless someone does.
