W said:
that's the advantage of being the #1 seed.
Texas Southern was awful. The horns basically got a bye in the first game. And that helped their pitching considerably for the next 2 games.
also check minus for both the A&M and IU coaching staffs. They knew Clemens was the horns' hitting star...and they both let him beat them
This. We didn't get it done in SEC play, which nearly kept us out of the tournament, and gave Texas a huge advantage. I would agree that if we played our A game, and Texas played theirs, we'd come out on top, but the problem is we rarely played our A game. If you graded this team game by game, I don't think we'd average better than a C.
We are going to have some real talent next year. For me, what I want to see is the team eliminate the F games, minimize the C's, and reliably put out at least a B+ game. If we do that in the regular season, we will put ourselves in a position to succeed rather than having to beat the odds
We came into the year expecting Dox to be our ace, but coming out of Fall ball, he wasn't even in the rotation. At the end of the year, we saw performances from Dox which justified those expectations. If we'd gotten those performances all year, we would have been hosting a regional. If Childress wants to maintain his reputation as a pitching guru, then he needs to have Dox performing at that level right out of the gate next season. It's past time that we had a real Friday night ace. We need to see Lacy continue to progress (not getting him a chance to pitch in the regional was a big disappointment from the standpoint of seeing if he could duplicate his last start). We also need to see Conlon turn that potential that got him drafted high into some results. Pitching had better be a strength for this team next year.
As to the position players, whatever we are doing isn't working. There are some pieces to put together, but I don't have a lot of confidence that this staff will do it. Is Janca going from a Cape All Star to struggling with the Mendoza line all on George? Is Coleman batting .250 a coincidence? I think Shew's sophomore slump (that's probably a little harsh) is as much attributable to the lack of production from the rest of the lineup as it is to pitchers figuring him out. Basically, the results at the plate this year were abysmal. Even if our pitching plays up to expectations next year, a repeat performance offensively would leave us vulnerable to losing series that we ought to win.
