I think its more about who is left and him being the better of the bunch. Still, the pen approach will put the offense into focus and there is gonna be a significant will to outdo the obvious. That and I wanna believe that if there is a blowout, that will relax Florida a bit, much like OSU relaxed their bats after their blowout.
I am trying to view it based also on what UF is doing. They are going with their #2 guy I believe. If you go with Poche on short rest and he gets in trouble early and we waste our bullpen trying to scrape a game 1 win then we reduce our chances greatly at winning game 2 and 3. I see this move as PM showing both Poche and Lange that they are the key to winning this series and giving the most possible innings to accomplish that. This hopefully also allows Hess to stay away from piching multiple innings and getting a chance to close out each game the rest of the way. From a fan side of it I understand wanting to get the next W with the best player possible but if we went that route and lost I would also see many fans complaining that PM tried to get too cute and change what has been working. I would love for it to be Lange, Poche, and Gilbert in a 3 game series but that loss to OSU and the format of this tournament doesn't allow for crossover. Got to get your rest in and claw your way to the final. Thank god TCU took one from UF or we would be in a far worse spot.
Seeing Reynolds as the choice over Peterson tells me that are trying to save him as a long relief guy in case Poche needs it in Game 2 vs UF's Wholestaff approach day.
Yall think Hess is crazy but it's just his role. Reynolds is legit insane. We might use 6 pitchers in this one 12 walks again.