This weekend's series against Houston 'ought to be the baseball team's first ledgit challenge of the season. Now, I really don't know much about Houston's team this year, but reguardless of what they have, they've got to be considered head-n-shoulders better than North Florida, Tenn. Tech, Centenary, Temple and ULM. Winning this series is big for being this early in the season....
I'm certainly happy with (and so far, pleasantly surprised at) the product Smoke has put on the field so far.
It is great that he scheduled all of these home games to start the season for such a young team. I like the way our young players are playing right now. The future is looking good for us as long as we can keep the young guys here for 3 or 4 years before going pro.
In the past few years, I think Houston has been towards the top of Conf USA with Tulane and TCU (when they were in the conf). But they seem to be down a bit this year. Although they have played a few good teams. Their record is 7-6. They have beat TX San Antonio, TX Tech, Stephen F Austin, NW State, and Monmouth (3 game series). They have lost to TX, TCU, AZ State, and Lamar. Their website with schedule is http://uhcougars.collegesports.com/sports/m-basebl/sched/hou-m-basebl-sched.html
I'm not sure playing a bunch of home cupcakes is the best way to prepare a young team for a tough conference. We went through this we our basketball program in the last few years and it didn't work out so well. Brady scheduled up this year and it is paying huge dividends for his young team. It's also a bad idea to not have any road games before SEC play starts. I'm excited to see how we perform this weekend against better competition.
Even the coach-bashers, apparently. With Miles and Brady winning big, I figured they would be all over Smoke in the spring. But nada.
completely disagree in baseball even though I hate attending these no-name-team games. This schedule was just what the doctor ordered even though I hate it. Houston comes in at a perfect time to see how we handle an excellent pitcher. Last year, our boys in Liuzza and Will had their confidence crushed early and pressed the rest of the way which of course worsens the situation. Now, they've had time to get a little timing down but especially time to get adjusted to the new style of play. We seem to be doing pretty well throughout the lineup as a whole. I think Brad Lincoln is pitching tonight but didn't check the paper. He has the best fastball in all of CUSA and has great control...probably hits the gun mid-90s. He's a 2way player who will also DH if I remember correctly. A bit undersized which would be the only thing to hurt his stock in next years draft. some compare him to Ben Sheets but ben throws hard every pitch. This guy has a really good curve but not as hard or as good as bens. anywho, we should see a lot of attempts at infield hits-bunts/drag bunts--whatever it takes especially if this guy gets into a rhythm. Will probably have to get to him early and hope to get his pitch count up. I figure we will lose this one and win saturday but Im not aware of their rotation yet. Dirks will likely press because thats just how he is and tries to do it all. Im more anxious to see if we can manufacture a few runs and show good plate discipline. Something we've always lacked but the change in bats magnifies it more. Over/Under on Bunt attempts: Ill set the line @ 5'.
But from a momentum standpoint it could be considered a good move. You know, young players tend to be nieve...You get a young team in the habbit of winning streaks, and they don't worry so much about, "crap! Here we go again...we're gonna lose now.". Just my opinion.
