Coach Pierce is obviously doing a great job. He’s taken a team from last year that went 23-29 to a contender for a regional bid. And he’s done it having lost several of his best pitchers (Mapes, Leblanc, McKenzie, and France), one of his better hitters (Garner), and added essentially only one pitcher, Duester, to the group who contribute most to the team. Outstanding!
But our lack of pitching depth is starting to show. Coach clearly has started to lose confidence (deservedly so) in several members of our staff and six guys (Merrill, Gibbs, Massey, Duester, Yandel, and Gibault) have now thrown over 85% of our innings. That percentage is likely to go up. Of course, their combined ERA is 2.60 while our next three guys out of the pen (Rankin, Steele, and Gross) have a combined 4.91 ERA. So, It’s not hard to tell why we’re sticking with the “big six.” But it means we’re having to stay with guys when a better replacement might dictate a pitching change. And it means using one of our starters (Duester) in a closer role and using our “stopper’ (Gibault) for four innings to close out a game. That’s not usually what you’d like to see.
During the last few years, our top six pitchers based on innings thrown have accounted for between 68% and 76% of our innings. Of course, they didn’t pitch all that well, so maybe going to #7, #8, etc. made sense.
And, if using only a few pitchers was an insurmountable problem, I’d suggest looking at 2005, when the bats and balls were still lively and the Wave ruled the college baseball world until the last week of the College World Series. Seven pitchers threw 95% of our innings that year in 68 games and only ten pitchers saw the mound at all. Of course, those seven were named Bogusevic, Owings, Gomes, Crowel, Mohl, Latham, and Morgan. All but Crowel (due to injuries) were drafted, though Mohl chose to go into coaching rather than give pro baseball a shot.
So, if your starters, like in 2005, consistently go 7 innings and you have three more guys to close out the game, seven pitchers can do the trick. Right now, we don’t quite getting those seven innings out of the starters and we don’t have the solid #7 guy. We still have a good shot at getting a regional bid. Terrific coaching in my book.
Roll Wave!!!
But our lack of pitching depth is starting to show. Coach clearly has started to lose confidence (deservedly so) in several members of our staff and six guys (Merrill, Gibbs, Massey, Duester, Yandel, and Gibault) have now thrown over 85% of our innings. That percentage is likely to go up. Of course, their combined ERA is 2.60 while our next three guys out of the pen (Rankin, Steele, and Gross) have a combined 4.91 ERA. So, It’s not hard to tell why we’re sticking with the “big six.” But it means we’re having to stay with guys when a better replacement might dictate a pitching change. And it means using one of our starters (Duester) in a closer role and using our “stopper’ (Gibault) for four innings to close out a game. That’s not usually what you’d like to see.
During the last few years, our top six pitchers based on innings thrown have accounted for between 68% and 76% of our innings. Of course, they didn’t pitch all that well, so maybe going to #7, #8, etc. made sense.
And, if using only a few pitchers was an insurmountable problem, I’d suggest looking at 2005, when the bats and balls were still lively and the Wave ruled the college baseball world until the last week of the College World Series. Seven pitchers threw 95% of our innings that year in 68 games and only ten pitchers saw the mound at all. Of course, those seven were named Bogusevic, Owings, Gomes, Crowel, Mohl, Latham, and Morgan. All but Crowel (due to injuries) were drafted, though Mohl chose to go into coaching rather than give pro baseball a shot.
So, if your starters, like in 2005, consistently go 7 innings and you have three more guys to close out the game, seven pitchers can do the trick. Right now, we don’t quite getting those seven innings out of the starters and we don’t have the solid #7 guy. We still have a good shot at getting a regional bid. Terrific coaching in my book.
Roll Wave!!!