Another outstanding 5 innings from Zach Esquivel. And this time, The OG pulled him before hitting his usual wall after around 70 pitches. Strong bounceback outing by Willie. And, for once, the offense never took the foot off the pedal. Also, amazing what can happen was another bat (Gray) catches fire. Good for Tristan-- HR and 4 doubles, and 7 hits total, in just the past 2 games.

On the positive side, I believe this is our 4th or 5th consecutive Saturday victory. On the negative side, we haven't won on Sunday since opening weekend in Austin, and have yet to win a weekend series or have a winning week. (We've had 2 consecutive 2-2 weeks heading into this week.) Can we FINALLY break the pattern and win on Sunday? Doing so will give us a very respectable 5-3 record the past two weeks against arguably the toughest stretch of schedule of the season with games against UH x 2, LaTech x 3 and USM x 3...and it should set us up for a strong final third of the season (which will be required to make the conference tourney in Biloxi). Go Owls!

Sarchet F7.

End 8
2-6-1
11-16-1

Leadoff single. Then a 2 run homer. Walt, you spoke too soon.

(04-15-2017 05:14 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Another outstanding 5 innings from Zach Esquivel. And this time, The OG pulled him before hitting his usual wall after around 70 pitches. Strong bounceback outing by Willie. And, for once, the offense never took the foot off the pedal. Also, amazing what can happen was another bat (Gray) catches fire. Good for Tristan-- HR and 4 doubles, and 7 hits total, in just the past 2 games.

On the positive side, I believe this is our 4th or 5th consecutive Saturday victory. On the negative side, we haven't won on Sunday since opening weekend in Austin, and have yet to win a weekend series or have a winning week. (We've had 2 consecutive 2-2 weeks heading into this week.) Can we FINALLY break the pattern and win on Sunday? Doing so will give us a very respectable 5-3 record the past two weeks against arguably the toughest stretch of schedule of the season with games against UH x 2, LaTech x 3 and USM x 3...and it should set us up for a strong final third of the season (which will be required to make the conference tourney in Biloxi). Go Owls!

I would have waited with this post until the game was over. 11-4 now.

6-3 for the first out.

Walk

F8 for out 2.

(04-15-2017 05:23 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  

(04-15-2017 05:14 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Another outstanding 5 innings from Zach Esquivel. And this time, The OG pulled him before hitting his usual wall after around 70 pitches. Strong bounceback outing by Willie. And, for once, the offense never took the foot off the pedal. Also, amazing what can happen was another bat (Gray) catches fire. Good for Tristan-- HR and 4 doubles, and 7 hits total, in just the past 2 games.

On the positive side, I believe this is our 4th or 5th consecutive Saturday victory. On the negative side, we haven't won on Sunday since opening weekend in Austin, and have yet to win a weekend series or have a winning week. (We've had 2 consecutive 2-2 weeks heading into this week.) Can we FINALLY break the pattern and win on Sunday? Doing so will give us a very respectable 5-3 record the past two weeks against arguably the toughest stretch of schedule of the season with games against UH x 2, LaTech x 3 and USM x 3...and it should set us up for a strong final third of the season (which will be required to make the conference tourney in Biloxi). Go Owls!

I would have waited with this post until the game was over. 11-4 now.

Again, Wayne leaving a pitcher in too long (especially since he also pitched last evening). I would have given the ball to Moss to start he 9th.

F6. Owls win!

Well it seems pretty obvious to me that if we are to have any chance of doing well in the conference tournament, we are going to need Amador in some facet or another. And even 7 pitchers might not be nearly enough.

Nice win. We're no longer in last place in the conference (of course that's just because we've played one less game than Western Kentucky). Baby steps.

A conference win would be a bigger step.

(04-15-2017 05:30 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Well it seems pretty obvious to me that if we are to have any chance of doing well in the conference tournament, we are going to need Amador in some facet or another. And even 7 pitchers might not be nearly enough.

Amador gave up 2 runs in 4 innings. I've seen worse.

(04-15-2017 05:30 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Well it seems pretty obvious to me that if we are to have any chance of doing well in the conference tournament, we are going to need Amador in some facet or another. And even 7 pitchers might not be nearly enough.

Hey, I'm actually a Willie Amador fan; one of the few on here. My point was that he had pitched 3 solid, shutout innings, but had thrown over 50 pitches (after throwing a bunch last night). I would have taken him out after a positive outing, and not forced him to try to finish the game on fumes.

One of our many problems this year has been an inability of our starting pitchers to go more than 5 innings before hitting the wall. Canterino did so for a couple games early in the year, but has hit the wall consistently at the 5 inning mark in each of his last 4 or 5 starts. Ditto Esquivel, who hasconsistently pitched lights out the first 4 innings before hitting a wall at somewhere between 65 - 75 pitches. With Dane, the wall has been after 3 innings, which is one reason I'd entertain moving him back to the bullpen.

First career save for Willy. Maybe he should wear #42 every day.

Don't you call this a regular jam
I'm gonna rock this land
I'm gonna take this itty-bitty world by storm
And I'm just gettin' warm
Just like Muhammed OWLY
They called him Cassius
Watch me bash this beat like a skull
That you know I've beef with
Why do you riff with me
The maniac psycho
And when I pull out my jammy get ready
Cause I might go Blaw!
How you like me now?
The ripper will not allow
You to get with Mr. Swift or Rift,
Listen to my gears shift
I'm blasting, I'm blasting
Kinda like shaft, so you can say I'm shafting
OLD English R filled my mind, and I came up with a funky rhyme
I'm gonna knock you out
Mama said knock you out
I'm gonna knock you out
Mama said knock you out
I'm gonna knock you out
Mama said knock you out
I'm gonna knock you out
Mama said knock you out

The frustrating thing is that this team HAS ability. You cannot tell me otherwise. A win tomorrow would be huge. Come on Owls!!!!!

I've done my part. Am scheduled to be out of the country May 18-28, so the Owls can win their toor-na-mount. I think this team is coming around. A lot of those one run losses are going to switcheroo. USM's running up the score on Friday night upset the baseball gods, I guarantee...

(04-15-2017 08:00 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  I've done my part. Am scheduled to be out of the country May 18-28, so the Owls can win their toor-na-mount. I think this team is coming around. A lot of those one run losses are going to switcheroo. USM's running up the score on Friday night upset the baseball gods, I guarantee...

Paul, USM has been running up the score on virtually everyone. They're currently 10th in the country in scoring, averaging 8.0 runs/game.

Simply amazing that our RPI is still as high as #75. That's due entirely to our schedule to date. However, we now start playing sub-100 RPI teams, so we're going to have to start winning regularly if we hope to move up.

(04-15-2017 06:51 PM)Owl1998 Wrote:  The frustrating thing is that this team HAS ability. You cannot tell me otherwise. A win tomorrow would be huge. Come on Owls!!!!!

Two games behind 8th place Marshall now. Need to start winning some series. We should have enough talent to at least make the conference tournament.

(04-15-2017 08:26 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-15-2017 08:00 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  I've done my part. Am scheduled to be out of the country May 18-28, so the Owls can win their toor-na-mount. I think this team is coming around. A lot of those one run losses are going to switcheroo. USM's running up the score on Friday night upset the baseball gods, I guarantee...

Paul, USM has been running up the score on virtually everyone. They're currently 10th in the country in scoring, averaging 8.0 runs/game.

Simply amazing that our RPI is still as high as #75. That's due entirely to our schedule to date. However, we now start playing sub-100 RPI teams, so we're going to have to start winning regularly if we hope to move up.

We are currently 13-24 (4-10). We have 19 regular season games left.

For our RPI to matter, we probably would have to go 17-2 down the stretch. At 30-26, if we went 3-2 or something in the tourney, we might have a shot at getting in at 33-28 or something.

But, we are NOT going to go 17-2 or better down the stretch IMO, even though our conference schedule gets a lot easier.

We need to focus on getting to ~14 conference wins, which should get us in the top 8. That means going 10-6 in our final 16 conference games. There's a fairly clear path to doing that. We need to go 5-1 @WKU and @UAB, 4-2 vs. UTSA and MT, and steal 1 @Charlotte. Of course, winning tomorrow would give us some more wiggle room.

(04-15-2017 08:37 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(04-15-2017 08:26 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-15-2017 08:00 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  I've done my part. Am scheduled to be out of the country May 18-28, so the Owls can win their toor-na-mount. I think this team is coming around. A lot of those one run losses are going to switcheroo. USM's running up the score on Friday night upset the baseball gods, I guarantee...

Paul, USM has been running up the score on virtually everyone. They're currently 10th in the country in scoring, averaging 8.0 runs/game.

Simply amazing that our RPI is still as high as #75. That's due entirely to our schedule to date. However, we now start playing sub-100 RPI teams, so we're going to have to start winning regularly if we hope to move up.

We are currently 13-24 (4-10). We have 19 regular season games left.

For our RPI to matter, we probably would have to go 17-2 down the stretch. At 30-26, if we went 3-2 or something in the tourney, we might have a shot at getting in at 33-28 or something.

But, we are NOT going to go 17-2 or better down the stretch IMO, even though our conference schedule gets a lot easier.

We need to focus on getting to ~14 conference wins, which should get us in the top 8. That means going 10-6 in our final 16 conference games. There's a fairly clear path to doing that. We need to go 5-1 @WKU and @UAB, 4-2 vs. UTSA and MT, and steal 1 @Charlotte. Of course, winning tomorrow would give us some more wiggle room.

Agreer 100%. No way our RPI can come down enough to get an at-large bid. And now that we've won the Silver Glove, mid-week games mean diddledeesquat as well (outside of building momentum and confidence). Our only path to the post-season is through the conference tournament. And as The OG said on his radio show on Monday, we need to win enough to get into the conference tournament, and from there it's 1995 all over again.