Thanks to great pitching performances by Roper and Gillies, Tulane was able to salvage a 2-3 week that could have been much worse. As it was, with the two losses at home the RPI factoring left us at 1.4-3.3 (29.8% winning percentage) for the week. Of course winning two games against Purdue, who appears to have both good hitting and good pitching, is encouraging. The mid-week losses, less so.
Hitting. After hitting .309 as a team last week against Lamar and Fullerton, we continued to hit pretty well (.282) this week. We now have five players, Artigues (.350), Hoese (.339), Witherspoon (.313), Gozzo (.309) and Rowland (.302) hitting over .300. It’s still quite early (lesson than a third of the season complete) but it’s a good start. But injuries are starting to hurt. The loss of Kobi Owen for the season and the recent injuries to Jensen and Johnson are challenging our depth at catcher, first base, and the outfield. Acy Owen went 3 for 11 this week but is still hitting only .143. And Nieman is 0 for 4 on the season as the only other currently available catcher. Matthews started well but is now 0 for his last 14 and Coach Jewett was forced to move Artigues to 1st base in the last game against Purdue. In the outfield, Heinrich is now 4 for 18 (.222). And while Bedgood got a couple of key hits last week and Glancy two more this week, the two of them are a combined 4 for 25 (.160) on the season. We need to get Johnson and Jensen back or others need to step up soon.
As a team, we are still striking out too often (45 times in 41 inning this week, 9.88 /9 innings), but our approach seems to be a little better than past years. We’re only striking out 45.5% of the time once we get to two strikes, down from the 49%, 51%, and 54% in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. And when we put a two-strike pitch into play we’re hitting .340—really good considering players tend to “expand the strike zone” and frequently shorten their normal swing. Overall, we're hitting .186 with two strikes, the best in years. And we’re also continuing to improve on attacking the first strike, hitting .370 on that pitch, not as good as last year’s .413, but still solid. Our power numbers are down a bit, but our hitting seems to be coming along so far.
Pitching Other than Roper and Gillies, who have lowered their earned run averages to 4.12 and 3.38 respectively, our pitchers threw a total of 29 1/3 innings this week allowing 36 hits, 32 BBs and HBPs (9.82 “free passes” per 9 innings), and 26 earned runs (7.98 ERA). We also allowed six runs in one inning against SELA with 2 outs and no one on base. They were considered “unearned” because we should have been out of the inning but for Witherspoon’s dropping a pop fly to the lead-off batter. We had three pitchers come in and get no one out but because of something that happened before they took the mound, they were not charged with any earned runs. I understand the rule but the statistic is misleading.
Bates, Selesky, and Massey did not have good outings as starters and our “closer,” McAffer, did not pitch all week after his disastrous appearance against Fullerton. Is he hurt? White and Green pitched pretty well this week and Pellerin, despite continued control problems, had a good result against Purdue. Although he allowed five hits and four “free passes” in 3 2/3 innings, he only allowed 1 earned run. Trent Johnson didn’t impress in either of his brief appearances and, after seven excellent efforts, Bjorngjeld had back-to-back terrible games mid-week before closing out Friday night’s game nicely. I also really liked what I’ve seen from Issa this year in his only two appearance, but he’s apparently hurt now also. Campbell and Koppenhaver made brief appearances without allowing any runs but Cellucci continued to have trouble recording any outs when he takes the mound. A team ERA of 5.03 pretty much tells the story.
Fielding We’re fielding .982 as a team and generally making all of the right plays. Of our eleven errors, all but three have been made by pitchers and catchers on errant throws. Witherspoon’s drop on Saturday is the first error by our outfield though less-generous official scoring could have upped that number by 2 or 3. We’ve thrown out six of 19 attempted steals which isn’t bad and executed 13 double plays on grounders which is a little above average for this point of the season. We’ve allowed 7 passed balls which is a little above last year’s pace when we allowed 19 all year. But we’re fast approaching the ten we allowed all season in 2016. That said, we’re not 8-8 because of fielding, or hitting for that matter. But for some bright moments, our problem has been pitching. Clean that up and we could make some noise the rest of the season.
Roll Wave!!!
Hitting. After hitting .309 as a team last week against Lamar and Fullerton, we continued to hit pretty well (.282) this week. We now have five players, Artigues (.350), Hoese (.339), Witherspoon (.313), Gozzo (.309) and Rowland (.302) hitting over .300. It’s still quite early (lesson than a third of the season complete) but it’s a good start. But injuries are starting to hurt. The loss of Kobi Owen for the season and the recent injuries to Jensen and Johnson are challenging our depth at catcher, first base, and the outfield. Acy Owen went 3 for 11 this week but is still hitting only .143. And Nieman is 0 for 4 on the season as the only other currently available catcher. Matthews started well but is now 0 for his last 14 and Coach Jewett was forced to move Artigues to 1st base in the last game against Purdue. In the outfield, Heinrich is now 4 for 18 (.222). And while Bedgood got a couple of key hits last week and Glancy two more this week, the two of them are a combined 4 for 25 (.160) on the season. We need to get Johnson and Jensen back or others need to step up soon.
As a team, we are still striking out too often (45 times in 41 inning this week, 9.88 /9 innings), but our approach seems to be a little better than past years. We’re only striking out 45.5% of the time once we get to two strikes, down from the 49%, 51%, and 54% in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. And when we put a two-strike pitch into play we’re hitting .340—really good considering players tend to “expand the strike zone” and frequently shorten their normal swing. Overall, we're hitting .186 with two strikes, the best in years. And we’re also continuing to improve on attacking the first strike, hitting .370 on that pitch, not as good as last year’s .413, but still solid. Our power numbers are down a bit, but our hitting seems to be coming along so far.
Pitching Other than Roper and Gillies, who have lowered their earned run averages to 4.12 and 3.38 respectively, our pitchers threw a total of 29 1/3 innings this week allowing 36 hits, 32 BBs and HBPs (9.82 “free passes” per 9 innings), and 26 earned runs (7.98 ERA). We also allowed six runs in one inning against SELA with 2 outs and no one on base. They were considered “unearned” because we should have been out of the inning but for Witherspoon’s dropping a pop fly to the lead-off batter. We had three pitchers come in and get no one out but because of something that happened before they took the mound, they were not charged with any earned runs. I understand the rule but the statistic is misleading.
Bates, Selesky, and Massey did not have good outings as starters and our “closer,” McAffer, did not pitch all week after his disastrous appearance against Fullerton. Is he hurt? White and Green pitched pretty well this week and Pellerin, despite continued control problems, had a good result against Purdue. Although he allowed five hits and four “free passes” in 3 2/3 innings, he only allowed 1 earned run. Trent Johnson didn’t impress in either of his brief appearances and, after seven excellent efforts, Bjorngjeld had back-to-back terrible games mid-week before closing out Friday night’s game nicely. I also really liked what I’ve seen from Issa this year in his only two appearance, but he’s apparently hurt now also. Campbell and Koppenhaver made brief appearances without allowing any runs but Cellucci continued to have trouble recording any outs when he takes the mound. A team ERA of 5.03 pretty much tells the story.
Fielding We’re fielding .982 as a team and generally making all of the right plays. Of our eleven errors, all but three have been made by pitchers and catchers on errant throws. Witherspoon’s drop on Saturday is the first error by our outfield though less-generous official scoring could have upped that number by 2 or 3. We’ve thrown out six of 19 attempted steals which isn’t bad and executed 13 double plays on grounders which is a little above average for this point of the season. We’ve allowed 7 passed balls which is a little above last year’s pace when we allowed 19 all year. But we’re fast approaching the ten we allowed all season in 2016. That said, we’re not 8-8 because of fielding, or hitting for that matter. But for some bright moments, our problem has been pitching. Clean that up and we could make some noise the rest of the season.
Roll Wave!!!
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