I know Casey did well, but we expect him to. Campbell has been a wildcard of late, and he looked really good. Minimal coverage on him and how he did.
He was locked in and pitching well. It looks like he is on his way back.
Thoughts on his performance?
Hard to go deep into all the performances in two games. But, Kacey took a perfect game into the last inning. Cronin got two saves. Shaddy had home runs in both games. Now, I do believe Isaiah’s performance was covered, too.
In listening to the interview with Isaiah, he said, “I was able to locate on both sides of the plate. My curve was working. I had pretty much everything working.”
One thing to note, Campbell’s velocity is still not what it was in the fall when he was throwing 96 to 97. He was around 88-90 with his fast ball, and with a rare pitch at 93. He’s lost some of the velocity. He’ll have to pitch a few more times to build up arm strength again.
What it looked like to me is that he knows he does not have the strike out fast ball right now. So he pitched to contact. And kept his pitches down and used both corners and stayed away from the middle of the plate, something Blaine Knight didn’t do Thursday night. Basically, he pitched like a veteran does, mixing things and hitting spots. That’s a good sign.
In fact, Phil Elson asked him if he was pitching to contact, and he said he was. If the velocity returns, the strikeouts might go up.
I’ll need to see a bit more from Isaiah Campbell to put the stamp of approval that he’s back.
What I’ll say is that he had a nice outing. More of that is needed.
Thanks, Clay! Love the insight.
I guess I was getting a bit greedy about coverage 
Appreciate all you guys do for us.
totally agree about Campbell he’s not back to full strength yet but if he can snap that curve off for strikes he can be effective I think as it gets warmer he will be able to dial it back up.we get him back to where he was at Kentucky and we can fear nobody!!
The performance against Kentucky was off the charts. That would be sweet. The bats will come back.
I’m not concerned about his velocity. If he can keep up the kind of control that he had this weekend, he (and the Hogs) will be fine.
One thing that Dave Van Horn said that was interesting, he said the mph displayed on the scoreboard has been a little down compared to what their Trackman and scouts are showing with their radar guns. He thinks its 2 mph off. At the start of last year, he said it was hot, maybe by 3-5 mph. I wish they would get it right.
I wondered about that because a scout last week told me that he had Cronin at 96-97. It was showing up at 94-95 on the scoreboard read out. So that 2 mph off thought may be accurate.
Campbell was hitting 93-94 on the UA radar gun that they set up behind home plate and matched by the Trackman. Knight has been hitting 95-97 on legit guns.
The scouts compare notes. They show each other their read outs just to make sure. If there are 12 guns there and they all say the same thing, you can bet that’s right. But it’s not unusual for the calibration to get off at times. One thing is for sure, the coaches know what’s right and what’s wrong. They know when that read out on the scoreboard is registering high or low. We do get perspective. You can tell if one pitcher is throwing harder than another. So at least you have a relative number to work off.