Governor's Cup versus Ole Miss

Last nights game was bad. No way to sugar coat it. The players have been putting forth great effort but last night they fell short. Particularly the hitting side. These guys must have the attitude to kill the ball. They must be super aggressive. Do not look for walks.

This season is just plain bad. I had hopes before the season of at least getting to a regional but now we won't. With 4 wins we will barely make the SEC tournament.

Our slide this season goes back two years. I will have a full write up at the end of the year. College baseball recruiting starts in the 8th or 9th grade and we missed it two years ago.

I along with many rabid Ms State baseball fans will expect great changes before next season. We expect better players, we expect a better non conference schedule RPI wise, we expect a lot better offensive ball club. This is akin to Coach Croom having a lackluster offense in football. We need and want doubles and homeruns. It's the only way to win and win big in today's college baseball landscape.

Please see my full write up at the end of this disastrous season.

Arkansas thoughts

Under the circumstances of being quite thin in the pitching ranks, I thought we did quite well this weekend. We could have won 2 of 3. With the Governor's Cup on Tuesday, we had to hold back Ross Mitchell and he needs to go long, really long into that game. We are just so thin at pitching right now.

Zac Houston was tremendous all weekend long. He should be the closer in 2016.

Injury report

The biggest news is the loss of RHP Jesse McCord for the rest if the year. He had surgery. I was hoping he would give us quality innings down the stretch.

Reliever Myles Gentry is doubtful for the year too. Arm trouble

3B Matthew Britton twisted his knee at Kentucky and should be back soon.

Those are the major injuries that John Cohen went over this week. Thin at pitching now. Really need starters to pitch long in games from here on out.

Texas A and M thoughts

Friday night: all we needed was a hit with the bases loaded in the 9th and I believe we would have won. That would have been huge, obviously.
Sunday: had two opportunities to blow the game open with two more bases loaded opportunities only to score 1 or 2.

I knew Sunday would be an offensive day. We didn't get it done with the bases juiced. Simple as that.

Tremendous hustle and effort on the part of our club the whole weekend. Our defensive highlights are for SportsCenter top 10, we had several not just one. This in it self, shows the players love the game and are giving it their all.

The Sunday starter role now is up in the air. I wouldn't be surprised to have Jesse McCord start on Tuesday and move Austin Sexton back to Sunday. Moonlight Tatum should be moved to closer/setup role the rest of the year, which is a very good thing.

The lack of HR's in a homerun park is disconcerting. The wind constantly blows out at TAMU and you can tell by their numbers it is quite easy to hit one.

I still believe this team has a run in them. They can still get hot and we can still make a regional.

This past week we got 3 more commits from highly ranked players for the coming years. Look for many recruits this weekend at SBW.

South Carolina thoughts

When we put everything together, we can beat anyone on our schedule. I thought before the season, we would play more games like the first 2 South Carolina games.

The combo of getting Gavin Collins back from injury and John Holland swinging a hot bat is very big. Lots of great ABs this weekend from everyone.

We just don't have bullpen depth like we've had the last couple of years.  Hence, it is imperative the starters go deep in games.

You can tell the hitters are seeing it good and have confidence. I expect no more big slumps the rest of the season.

The rotation should be Laster, Preston Brown and Sexton for TAMU. Although Sexton needs to throw versus Memphis, a must win.

We have 21 games left. I think we will win 10 more SEC games and let's say 2 of 3 non conf games. That will leave us 33 wins. So we must win 2 to have a shot at an at-large bid for a regional. We have the highest RPI out of the SEC, no one else is over 100. That may hurt our chances. Of course, winning more than I think will really help or winning the SECT.