Just tuned in. Holden pitched his way out of a jam by striking out the last 2 batters with runners on 2nd and 3rd. He's almost to 100 pitches through 4 giving up 3 hits and 5 walks. Diamond App's fortunate to only be down 2-0 heading to the 5th.

We have had runners on in every inning. Except maybe 1. If we could just get a timely hit....

Hard to win games without hits.

The Missouri pitcher -- Tanner Houck -- is one of the top pitchers in the SEC. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat.

Hope they have no more Houck's, hate to tip our hats for two more games without a fight.

I'm sure Houck has something to do with it but if you look at our averages we're tending to make a lot of guys look like great pitchers. I know it's still a relatively small sample size but it doesn't bode well.

Some of Houck's accolades:

Preseason All-American (Collegiate Baseball, PerfectGame.com)
ABCA All-Region (2016)
#8 College Prospect (Baseball America)
Unanimous Freshman All-American (2015)
All-SEC Freshman Team (2015)
USA Baseball International Performance of the Year (2015)
Golden Spikes Award Watch List (2015, 16)
#1 2017 Draft Prospect (Perfect Game)
#1 2017 Draft Prospect from USA Baseball Collegiate National Team (Baseball America)
Three-Time SEC Pitcher of the Week
Two-time USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Participant
Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week (March 26, 2016)

Hopefully he will not pitch again tomorrow or we're guaranteed another goose egg for sure (sarcasm). My point, I don't give a rat's butt how good he is, hitting wise we can do better. On a positive note, defense is good (a definite improvement over last season). Get the bats going and we should win at least one of the next two.

Darn.

We left em loaded top 9th. 4 zip final.

I like how this team is finding a way to be competitive late in games. Faced probably the best arm they'll face all season tonight and still got the tying run to the plate.

Would be nice to take at least one game in this series, I believe it can be done. Work on hitting a bit and it gets done, the skill and ability is there.

WataugaMan wrote:Would be nice to take at least one game in this series, I believe it can be done. Work on hitting a bit and it gets done, the skill and ability is there.

Do we know for sure that we have hitting talent? We had the same issue last year, but the guys are competing better and playing better in all other areas. I think we're going to need help to score against good teams all year. Luckily were playing well enough overall to compete with everyone we face.

My comment was misleading. The skill and ability I was referring to is definitely more on the defensive side (not that some cleaning up on the "bonehead error column" isn't needed). Thus far this young season we have had two games that ended with goose eggs in the scoring column. To be fair these two games were against better competition (ECU and Missouri). Going forward I believe things will get better on the offensive side. Time will tell.

Last year's team showed up tonight. Have completely imploded in the 3rd, two errors and a dropped foul ball. Trail 3-1.

hapapp wrote:Last year's team showed up tonight. Have completely imploded in the 3rd, two errors and a dropped foul ball. Trail 3-1.

As previously stated, "not that some cleaning up on the "bonehead error column" isn't needed"

Game is on sec network

Any chance we can get a target for the pitcher to throw to?? Might help keep the pitch count down.

epiphone_74 wrote:Any chance we can get a target for the pitcher to throw to?? Might help keep the pitch count down.

Not sure I understand what this even means? Are you saying that our starter threw more pitches because there was a different catcher than normal? If so, lol.

Or do you want the catcher to use one of those old school mitts with the orange outline so the pitcher can see it better?

at least show it and settle in location.. not jump at last second as pitcher is in motion.. would seem a distraction.