This team’s inability to get down a decent bunt is super frustrating

Trailing 6-4 in the B7, 1st two Owls K, followed by a single and 2 walks to load the bases, only to follow that with another K. Very frustrating.

Single, K, BB, BB load the bases again for the Owls in B8. Pitching change for Lamar.

Grand Slam for Bulman. Interestingly, Live Stats records the homerun but doesn't clear the bases. 2 left on.

Looks like it corrected it now and the score is 8-6 Owls.

(02-27-2022 12:48 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Team stats thru 6 games tell a dismal story. Rice shown 1st, then Opponents.

Offense
Batting Avg .211 .301
OPS .602 .904
Ks 55 46
BB 19 37
HPB 1 10
Runs 21 58

Pitching
ERA 8.66 2.41
WHIP 1.52 1.13

Fielding % .954 .970

Hard to say which has been worse, the offense or pitching/defense. I'd sadly call it a tie. Sorry for the formatting.

HBP tells it all. Watching the first inning Friday night I was thinking our Friday night pitcher in the glory years pitched a perfect game in the Majors....

Good win to close out the series. The team looked better this weekend. There still aren’t enough players yet compared to years past, but we are not as hapless as some have been saying either.

(02-27-2022 05:06 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Good win to close out the series. The team looked better this weekend. There still aren’t enough players yet compared to years past, but we are not as hapless as some have been saying either.

I'm not sure we looked better all weekend as we looked pretty darn awful in all aspects of the game on Friday. You knew the walks would eventually bite Burbank today. He walked one each and every inning, and 3 of the 6 runners that scored for Lamar today were walked. 9 walks in all. Not going to win many games doing that.

Don't understand why Cheito replaced Deskins with Linskey in the 9th as Brandon had gotten 4 consecutive outs and was pounding the strike zone. I understand he wants to develop Linskey as a co-closer, but he can be wild at times. And while he got the job done well today (1BB, 3 Ks), he goes deep in the count against everybody. Also, though his height does make it difficult for batters to pick up the pitch, unless he starts mixing in some breaking or off-speed pitches, especially when ahead in the count, teams are going to start sitting on that fastball (based on scouting reports). I think he threw all fastballs save for 2 - 3 pitches. That's living dangerously.

The loss of Garza is really going to hurt as he looks to be the best defensive catcher we've had in years; at least going back to Parrot.

A much, much needed win today. And I do like the lineup we've fielded the past couple games. For those counting, I think we're 1 for 4 (25%) in bunting efficiency so far this year. Inexcusable. Lamar was a perfect 3 - 3 on the weekend.

Finally, while some may sneer at losing to Lamar, they played really sound, fundamental baseball, and took advantage of almost every opportunity we game them. Yes, they had a whole bunch of cheap hits this weekend, but their plate discipline was exemplary, with very few poor ABs. They are a very solid offensive club. Their pitching didn't exactly impress me-- even their starters the first two games, their primary strength was throwing strikes. I didn't think either of them had much stuff....yet we had way too many awful ABs.

(02-27-2022 04:54 PM)RiceBull Wrote:  Grand Slam for Bulman. Interestingly, Live Stats records the homerun but doesn't clear the bases. 2 left on.

Looks like it corrected it now and the score is 8-6 Owls.

I had to go deal with family business at the pitching change in the B8. Good to come back to see an Owl, Bulman, come up with a big hit!

(02-27-2022 05:58 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  The loss of Garza is really going to hurt as he looks to be the best defensive catcher we've had in years; at least going back to Parrot.

What happened to Garza?

He hurt his hand in a collision at the plate (or more of a hard tag than a collision). Right away, it looked bad. But maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked?

(02-27-2022 08:21 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  He hurt his hand in a collision at the plate (or more of a hard tag than a collision). Right away, it looked bad. But maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked?

I think it was the wrist, and the way he was pained whenever the trainer touched the spot my guess is it's a break. Hope not. Actually, from my view from the 2nd row right behind home plate, runner beat the throw and slid hard into Garza glove hand, which was held tight as he awaited the throw. It's why the ball glanced off the glove and kicked back toward the screen. There was never a tag since the ball arrived just after the runner slid into Garza's glove hand.

(02-27-2022 05:58 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(02-27-2022 05:06 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Good win to close out the series. The team looked better this weekend. There still aren’t enough players yet compared to years past, but we are not as hapless as some have been saying either.

I'm not sure we looked better all weekend as we looked pretty darn awful in all aspects of the game on Friday. You knew the walks would eventually bite Burbank today. He walked one each and every inning, and 3 of the 6 runners that scored for Lamar today were walked. 9 walks in all. Not going to win many games doing that.

Don't understand why Cheito replaced Deskins with Linskey in the 9th as Brandon had gotten 4 consecutive outs and was pounding the strike zone. I understand he wants to develop Linskey as a co-closer, but he can be wild at times. And while he got the job done well today (1BB, 3 Ks), he goes deep in the count against everybody. Also, though his height does make it difficult for batters to pick up the pitch, unless he starts mixing in some breaking or off-speed pitches, especially when ahead in the count, teams are going to start sitting on that fastball (based on scouting reports). I think he threw all fastballs save for 2 - 3 pitches. That's living dangerously.

The loss of Garza is really going to hurt as he looks to be the best defensive catcher we've had in years; at least going back to Parrot.

A much, much needed win today. And I do like the lineup we've fielded the past couple games. For those counting, I think we're 1 for 4 (25%) in bunting efficiency so far this year. Inexcusable. Lamar was a perfect 3 - 3 on the weekend.

Finally, while some may sneer at losing to Lamar, they played really sound, fundamental baseball, and took advantage of almost every opportunity we game them. Yes, they had a whole bunch of cheap hits this weekend, but their plate discipline was exemplary, with very few poor ABs. They are a very solid offensive club. Their pitching didn't exactly impress me-- even their starters the first two games, their primary strength was throwing strikes. I didn't think either of them had much stuff....yet we had way too many awful ABs.

Would that FB, MBB and baseball could get this fundamental stuff right. Would do wonders for our program.

BTW, not sure if anyone noticed, and it doesn't excuse how horrible we played last weekend, but did anyone notice that a quality Alabama team (Top 35 in most preseason polls and 5-0 to start the season) scored all of one lone run against UT pitching this past weekend. No question the 'horns pitching staff is living up to it's preseason hype. It could be the best 5+ deep college pitching staffs since 2003. On the flip side, Alabama pitching held UT offense to just 9 runs over the 3 games; certainly MUCH better than we did.

(02-28-2022 05:12 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  BTW, not sure if anyone noticed, and it doesn't excuse how horrible we played last weekend, but did anyone notice that a quality Alabama team (Top 35 in most preseason polls and 5-0 to start the season) scored all of one lone run against UT pitching this past weekend. No question the 'horns pitching staff is living up to it's preseason hype. It could be the 5+ deep college pitching staffs since 2003. On the flip side, Alabama pitching held UT offense to just 9 runs over the 3 games; certainly MUCH better than we did.

Yes, I did notice.

I have a few observations from the weekend. They are:

• It was damn cold and wet on Friday and Saturday.
• The Lamar shortstop was on the Rice roster in 2018 as a freshman. He had to sit out 2019 with the transfer rule and has started every game since. Also, Ben Content is on the Lamar roster.
• It was good to see the Rice offense fight back after getting behind.
• Twice on Sunday, the HP umpire lost track of the count. In the 4th, he missed a ball on Woodcox, so Woodcox struck out on what was really a 4-2 count to end the inning with runners on 1st and 3rd. In the 8th, the Rice dugout had to correct him as he had an extra strike on Walsh.
• There were some timely hits on Saturday and Sunday, with Bulman, Garibay, and Smigelski leading the way.
  

The Bixby's strike again...

Quote:Jason Bristol
@JBristolKHOU

@RiceBaseball announces endowment of head baseball coaching position after a gift from Bob and Betty Bixby (Bob Bixby co-founded two software companies). Rice says José @cruz22 Jr. now has one of the few endowed head baseball coaching positions in Division I.

THANK YOU!

Just saw Kendall tweet that Bragga is off to a 7-0 start at Tenn Tech.

Something tells me we might be looking at a talent issue at the moment, and not necessarily a coaching issue. Gives me some hope that Cruz will turn this around quickly.

(03-02-2022 07:13 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Something tells me we might be looking at a talent issue at the moment, and not necessarily a coaching issue. Gives me some hope that Cruz will turn this around quickly.

Oh, I think we are definitely looking at a huge talent issue, particularly if compared to the glory years. And I do think Cruz can fix that, but it will take at least a couple of recruiting classes. Cruz definitely took over a barer cupboard that Wayne Graham did. One thing about Bragga is that his teams have never had a reputation for pitching well. Even the team that he took to the supers just bludgeoned people to death offensively and did not pitch particularly well. So one would expect the pitching cupboard, in particular, to be pretty bare.

One comment I have about the pitching lab. I am not that surprised by the early wildness. When you start re-making pitching actions, you run into the same thing that you run into when re-making a golf swing. Under pressure you tend to revert to the old, and then you get caught between the old and new, which is the worst of all worlds. You are unable to control anything, and you have no idea how to fix it. If the pitchers can fight through that tendency and finally execute the new motions consistently, this can turn out pretty well. But the transition is a *itch (feel free to use the consonant of your choice).

4 errors has Rice down 5-0 in the fifth. We’ve also left lots of runners on base.

Two base running errors, as well. This team does have a coach, right? I was told we hired one.