opening weekend positives

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

• Landon Sims: 7 IP, 1 R, 13 K, 0 BB
• Preston Johnson: 4 IP, 1 R, 9 K, .077 BA
• Cade Smith: 5.2 IP, 1 R, 1 H, 0 XBH, .056 BA
• Team: 14 K/9IP
• Kamren James: 4 for 10, RBI, BB, HBP, SF, SB, 0 E
• Brad Cumbest: 4 for 11, 2B, RBI, SB, 0 E
• Matt Corder: 3 for 7, HR, 2 RBI, BB, 0 E
• Hunter Hines: 3 for 10, 3 RBI, BB

What else?

Looking at UAPB and Northern Kentucky, we need our offensive numbers to significantly improve this week.

 

[PuebloDawg]

Tanner Leggett leads the team in home runs?

 

[wsjmsu75]

Tanner Leggett leads the team in home runs?

Tied with Corder at 1. Biggest hitting surprises to me were Corder and Hines. Both looked impressive.

 

[Talldawg21]

Clark struggling was worrisome, was really expediting him to be a power bat. Obviously it’s early but he looked lost out there this weekend. On bright side, I thought Hines looked pretty comfortable out there for a freshman. Siebert had two hard hits, would like to see him have some more at bats

 

[HomeBoyDawg]

Lane had a play in game 2 about as fine as any I've ever seen in the infield.

 

[Uncle Ruckus]

I said it before the series, and maybe today is an indication, but James is our best guy to lead off. Hope it sticks

 

[ArcherSPS]

I was skeptical about some folks posting an atrocious batting avg for Clark from practices, but given this weekend I’m a believer. Best thing Lemonis did was to sit him yesterday after he swung at a one hopper to the catcher.

 

[Xenomorph]

While not devastating, losing all 3 would have been a real jungle kick to the gonads. We came into Sunday needing to win and got it done. It was a good response to some early season adversity.

 

[Xenomorph]

^ Sees "opening weekend positives" and immediately posts a negative. This is how I know you're an MSU fan.

 

[trob115]

I like Corder in the lead off spot.

Corder CF
James 3b
Tanner C
Hancock 1B
Yeager 2B
Hines DH
Cumbest LF
Clark RF
Forsythe SS

I would like to see Siebert get more AB's. I think Hines fake it in the outfield in a pinch and that would give us an extra big bat in the lineup. It is way to early to give up on Kellum. Hopefully he will figure it out sooner than later. He is a 1st round talent.

 

[archdog]

No one can convince me Hancock shouldn't hit leadoff. He is literally the only player on our team that doesn't swing at ******** strike 3 (maybe also Leggett). He does hit for power and average. Dude is just a solid college hitter. I want him to come up to the plate more than anyone else on the team.
Looks like no one on our team has practiced hitting curve balls. Man, there were some terrible swings and even worse terrible takes right down the middle. I am not really sure what we were trying to do at the plate. Mule missed one by a foot yesterday. Don't even want to talk about Clark fanning at the ball. Looked like my slow daughter trying to play defense in soccer. Just randomly flailing at the ball.

 

[MSUDC11]

Yeah we’ll be fine. Just lost a series to a good team. The Sunday performance was encouraging. We may be up and down offensively and still have some bullpen questions to answer, but in general I didn’t see anything that’s a huge concern, in spite of the series loss.

 

[Arthur2478]

Corder CF
James 3b
Tanner C
Hancock 1B
Yeager 2B
Hines DH
Cumbest LF
Clark RF
Forsythe SS

I've heard Hines is a really good defensive 1st baseman. If he's going to be in the everyday lineup, then to me it would make more sense to have him play 1st and DH Hancock. You get the same lineup and a better defensive 1st baseman.

 

[vandaldawg]

Lane had a play in game 2 about as fine as any I've ever seen in the infield.

He sure did. That was Big League Gold Glove ****.

 

[thatsbaseball]

As a long time MSU baseball fan one of the things I've learned through the years is never ever take playing ANY team from Cali for granted. Many of them play on high school-like fields and have trouble drawing even meager crowds but they always seem to have enough talent to beat your *** on a given day. We'll be fine.

 

[aerodawg.sixpack]

No one can convince me Hancock shouldn't hit leadoff. He is literally the only player on our team that doesn't swing at ******** strike 3 (maybe also Leggett). He does hit for power and average. Dude is just a solid college hitter. I want him to come up to the plate more than anyone else on the team.

It’s more to do with utilizing his ability to move runners around outweighing just his OBP. Also it’s kind of splitting hairs between batting first and second as far as number of at bats go. I mean how many games end with the lead off guy getting out number 3 in the last inning. Tanner Allen had 8 less at bats than Rowdey Jordan last year and played in one less game.

It’s also not as black and white, if he does get on he needs guys to push him around as well. There’s not another Luke Hancock that feels almost guaranteed to do that even when he doesn’t reach base himself. Not to mention the additional threat of Kam James to steal second.

With that said, third is the absolute furthest slot he should be batting down the lineup. Not crapping on your opinion, just giving the counter point that makes it basically 6 in one hand and half a dozen in the other.

 

[WrapItDog]

What else?

Pitching staff had 42 strike outs in the 3 game series

 

[MSUDC11]

As a long time MSU baseball fan one of the things I've learned through the years is never ever take playing ANY team from Cali for granted. Many of them play on high school-like fields and have trouble drawing even meager crowds but they always seem to have enough talent to beat your *** on a given day. We'll be fine.

That LBSU team has been good for several years now, but maybe got screwed by COVID more than any other team not named NC State. They were having a breakout year in 2020 when everything shut down, then they didn’t get to practice for almost a calendar year due to restrictions in their local area. Started poorly because of it but finished last year red hot and just missed the tournament.

Don’t be shocked if you look up in June and they are hosting. At worst look for them to be a 2 or 3 seed that gives somebody fits.

 

[Shmuley]

My penis did not freeze

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

The hitting the past few years and this opening series gave me an unconventional thought. Maybe it is being done somewhere but I have never seen it or did it. For those hitters that seem to have issues with pitch recognition, they could stand in the batters box when pitchers are practicing. Give them a wiffle ball bat so no temptation to swing. Have them call out the pitch as early as possible. This would let them not worry about all the other things and work on their ability to concentrate on recognizing different pitches.

Hitters only generally get to do that in games and scrimmages and maybe you just don't get enough of that. In BP you aren't even hitting full distance pitches anymore. Why waste all those pitches thrown when pitchers practice. They can concentrate on the dot for a slider and spin for curves and fastballs. It would be an interesting experiment.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Totally agree but through the years we've played some much lower profiled Cali teams and they've all seem to give us a hard time. Hell of a lot of talent out there to draw from I guess.

 

[DAWG61]

Sims was obviously awesome as he's probably the best pitcher in the country but Cade Smith was almost as equally impressive. Sims, Smith, Johnson as a rotation is going to win most games even if our offense is dogshit.

 

[Seinfeld]

Good list. I know it’s easy to overlook Sims because he pretty much pitched like we all thought he would, but I don’t think it can be overstated as to how important it was to see a performance like that with our own eyes. In my mind, you could just about write this season off if Sims did anything other than become a lights out Friday night guy for us.

Another positive I saw was that while some guys are clearly struggling to find their groove, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of chess pieces for Lemonis to play.

I could list some disappointments, but I’d just be re-hashing what’s already been said. It’s early, and some guys really need to figure things out or else Lemonis will find somebody that will