I’m pretty sure everyone on here (including me) has made the observation that this team is flawed. Probably, we are all guilty of comparing them to the 50-win team from last year. But…
DVH (who has made 6 CWS) has won 20 or more SEC games in a season only twice in his previous 19 years here. We still have a chance to do it this year.
His best finish in a season (2018) was during a year we went 18-12 in the SEC. I’ll bet we beat that this year.
He also made Omaha with a team that only went 14-15 in the SEC.
I won’t deny that this year has been stressful, but maybe we aren’t “doomed”
One other perspective that we have to look at, is this west division is fairly well balanced. The west has alway been tough. Some of the teams didn’t play well to start the season or conference play, but have been playing much better and providing stiffer competition.
We expect our hogs to be great every year. This is not a great team this year, but a really good team. They have too much talent to be considered anything less. We measure this teams success by the expectations we had before the season started. No point in getting into all that, we just didn’t seem to play like the team we thought they would be.
Defense has been elite for most of the season. We’ve had some error issues lately but they still are one of the best in the country.
Pitching was a strength and really better than we thought considering that we lost one of our better starters before season started. Pitching along with defense was an area that kept us in a lot of games and enabled us to win a lot of games.
Hitting was our biggest disappointment. We haven’t been a great hitting team. We’ve had our moments, but for the most part we didn’t. This team is potent in the sense that they have power 1 thru 9 in this lineup.
It was timely and situational hitting that hurt this team. It has been that way pretty much all season. Hitting is probably where we failed to meet early hype or expectations.
In spite of all this we were, (are), still good enough to lead the West up until this lost series against Vandy.
The season isn’t over. We are still in a position where we can win the West Division.
We absolutely have to win the final reg. season series this weekend against Alabama and probably need to sweep them to win the West. We will also need help from Ole Miss in their series against A&M. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m pulling for them to win the series against A&M.
I don’t know what to expect out of this team now. I know what I hope they do. I do believe they are good enough and have enough talent to win the regionals and get to Omaha. Then who knows what can happen.
We are good enough to win it all. Question is, will we play like it.
Vanderbilt is the best baseball program in the country. The last game was disappointing for Arkansas, but losing two of three to that team is nothing to hang your head about. Vandy has pitched well all year and is getting hot at the plate, and the Razorbacks played well against them the first two games.
Except for Moore, this team has little emotion… almost too business like. We need someone like CO to get in some ears from a players perspective and raise hell on focus and performance. The talent is there, but the switch remains off in too many games.
That being said we have seen DVH struggle to put a workable lineup together all season long. It was a problem at the beginning of the season, kinda settled down in the middle and now is an issue at the end.
If anyone can explain that lineup Sunday you are better than me. Turner has been struggling big time and there he is batting fourth against a tough lefty with predictable results.
What I see as the team’s two biggest issues down the stretch are the facts that Smith and Wiggins in general struggle on the road and many of our best hitters have struggled, seeming not to be seeing the pitches very well. How that suddenly affects a group of hitters is hard to explain.
Except for some of the lineups he has sent out there DVH has made the most of what he has had to work with. He can’t help the lack of clutch hitting or a few untimely errors.
It will be looked back at as a good season. The coaches still seem to think we are outstanding. We will see if they are right.
A big key for us going forward as we got to get Noland back on track he has not been the same picture for three straight weeks giving up 4 plus runs every game. He looks tired to me I could be wrong. He is not getting his breaking ball down near like he was, look like he was falling off the mound really bad the other night his balance looked off. He is the tone setter,we have to get a great game out of him if we’re ever going to do anything this year.
Matt and I were talking this morning about this weekend. Arkansas won one game comfortably, as did Vandy. The other game was a coin flip, decided in extra innings. This was not a bad weekend, it was a close weekend that did not go the way of the Hogs.
I was thinking about the chance to win 20 games in the SEC. That is a good season. This is a solid team. It can pitch well and it is really good defensively. This team may have the best double-play combination in school history in Battles and Moore. Center field is good, too. Catching has been solid. If you want to compare the catching to Opitz, that’s fine. He may be the best to ever play that position at Arkansas. Turner out hits Opitz by the way, although he didn’t get too many good pitches to hit this past weekend.
Probably time to amend this original post. Maybe we put it all together for the postseason, but inconsistent teams over 50+ games tend to keep on being who they are.
Earlier in the season, I thought our core (Wallace, Moore, Battles, Slavens) looked like they were still shell-shocked from last year’s stunner. They still do. They appear to play every game wearing the weight of last season.
Who have been our breakout performers? Turner, Lanzilli, Taylor, and Tygart…guys weren’t involved at all (or barely) last year. We say “last year has nothing to do with this year”. Well, it sure looks like it does. We may not regain that “title contender” edge of 2018-2021 until this core moves on.
Not saying it because I don’t like them or think they have failed. Just what it looks like to me.
Starting pitching is where it always starts. This team had a Friday night starter for the first half of the season, but not the second half. Not sure if Connor wore down or what. I would almost suggest that he sit out this week at Hoover if it is fatigue. Whatever the reason, he hasn’t had his breaking pitch – his out pitch – for the second half of the season. He has a so-so fast ball. But it becomes pretty good if he is landing his curve ball. If not, then a hitter can sit on that fast ball. That sounds really simple, but it’s really the way the game works.
If you don’t have a Friday night starter who can give you six or seven innings, then everything else becomes more difficult. There are some pitchers that I thought were going to help this team that did not. Heston Tole and Gabe Starks come to mind first.
