The 2017 LSU Baseball Season

Yep this is why being a coach sucks especially for baseball.

Can't think of anything mainieri should have done differently but it's clearly the hindsight sport where everyone is saying how stupid he is.

He pulled walker after 100+ pitches yet you have people who say you shouldn't take Walker out for a reliever bc he's pitching so well. What?

If they don't pull him and he gets shelled in the eighth CPM is ruining the guys arm is an idiot and should be fired.

If Newman gets shelled he's CPMs an idiot for pitching a guy coming off back injury B2b days.

If he brings Bain in who blows the game and series its why would you take out your number one guy for Bain.

You have your best closer up against a. 189 hitter up 2 with two outs in the ninth. He simply served one up. Dude was sitting dead red and it got out of there in a hurry. A 95 mph fastball travels a long ways when squared up. Was simply a mistake pitch.

This game was a shot in the gut to mainieri and the team however. They deserved game three and the series then got earl weavered. Baseball is a cruel sport.

 

It's damned if you do and damned if you don't.

 

Excuses are like assholes. LSU is at the top of revenue and attendance and Les Mainieri is stumbling through another season. If he can't make a run this year he should be fired. Unfortunately I think he has a massive contract. Fortunately, I barely care about baseball; it just sucks that the big three sports have all been in the same boat for a while.

It's still possible to turn things around and he's shown the capacity to do that before. If he were to make a run and make some noise in Omaha I think a lot of the critics would shut up. I imagine the odds aren't good enough for me to bet money on Mainieri having success.

 

I didn't make one excuse in my post. You have to be able to see beyond the box score especially in baseball. As I said this sport lends itself to hindsight geniuses. But there's not one thing mainieri did wrong yet they lost.

 

It is baseball. Nothing can change 1 pitch other than mechanics. Everything was right about the play accept the delivery. It is what it is.

Gotta believe some credit is there. Before the game our rpi was 34. After the game we went up a slot to 33. So the sky hasn't fallen, but there is a loose lug nut or 2.

We travel to arky next week and right now they are one of rhe hottest teams in the SEC. if we can pull 2 on the road there, this will all have been a bad break. Lose 2 and the beginning of the end is near because we still gotta travel to Kentucky and souf click. 2 series that can easily break us down.

We ain't out of it yet, but we aint playin like we are in it either. We about to run out of snooze buttons.

 

I don't hate the fact that you are looking at things from a non-black/white perspective.

PS - I'm not a hindsight genius, I just know to date Mainieri hasn't put enough notches on the bed post.

 

No i definitely wasn't saying you were or pride even. It's just the nature of baseball even though it's a bottom line business.

That's why skip can never be matched. He was ahead of the opponents mentally and could transfer it to his players. Not to mention physically with the creatine and maybe some equestrian supplements. But almost every in game decision worked out in big games.
The stanford one with Blair barbier stands out. We had no business winning that one. Skip finished off his career with another one in his pocket however. His fifth and final.

CPM wished he had one tenth of the feeling of the game that Bertman had. His instincts and luck pretty much suck. And Bertmans can never be matched.

 

They suck. No swagger. They look like a bunch of shortstops.

 

It's easy to sit back in hindsight and second guess Mainieri's handling of the 9th inning pitching but is there a manager in baseball who would have pulled Gilbert in that situation? Not Tony LaRussa, not Joe Torre and not Skip Bertman himself. CPM has a good knowledge of the game of baseball and he knows the percentages as well as anybody. Sure, he has made lots of moves worthy of criticism but Saturday isn't one of them. Just a victim of the baseball gods.

Sure, the fans expect LSU to be the Alabama and New England Patriots of baseball but since Skip stepped down only 2 teams have won more that 1 CWS title. Skip not only assembled the best talent he could considering that the best high school players turn pro right out of HS and no Latin players even go to college, but he was a rare genius in the way he squeezed the very best out of each player. College baseball is a petty even playing field as far as the top teams go. Not like MLB where you can get the best talent that money can buy and still not win if you just spend recklessly but a well put together lineup can win despite screwup by the manager. Just look at how Joe Maddon almost threw away the World Series before the Cubs superior talent win out. Maddox had nothing to do with putting that team together. Credit Theo Epstein for that. Problem is that LSU doesn't have a Theo Epstein.

 

Otts an idiot.