. . . does anyone else feel like the status quo was maintained? As if no progress was made? I'm not just talking about this season; I'm talking about with the baseball program in general. I suppose it could be argued that we played FSU tough, but the fact is that they took a big lead on us in Game 1 that we couldn't overcome and then had a huge 7-run inning in Game 2 that erased the lead we had over them. If we're serious about getting to Omaha, then we should've played much better and won at least 2 of these 3 road games. Can we expect to win a national title if we can't even win one out of three road games inside our own state boundaries? I realize that we've beaten UF and FSU in baseball before in past seasons, and I haven't forgotten that we beat UF in Orlando this season. However, we need to start beating these two programs with more regularity if we expect people to take us seriously as national title contenders. I hope I'm wrong, but at this moment, I feel like we're heading for another "Regional Round and done" kind of season.
After losing 3 baseball games played in Gainesville and Tallahassee . . .
- Thread starter KnightMatt8
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Base ball is a game where the best teams win 66% of their games and the worse win 33%. The worse teams have streaks where they beat the best more often than most, and the best lose games they shouldn't. You judge by the over all, not by one or 2 games. It isn't football.
I don't think things are that dire. Occasionally, even your best pitcher is going to get hammered. These were mid-week games where you don't normally throw any of your top 3 pitchers. If we had started Rodgers on Wednesday, I really think he would have kept FSU in check for at least four innings, allowing us to build a larger lead. Then Hukari could have come on in his normal relief role.
Regardless of what happened the last two weeks, I still think this year is our best chance to win a regional since the year we had to play in South Carolina even though we were the #1 seed for that regional. The key to that is staying in the winners bracket to keep our lack of pitching depth from becoming an issue. I also like our chances in a Super Regional because you don't need as much pitching depth due to it being a best of three series.
Regardless of what happened the last two weeks, I still think this year is our best chance to win a regional since the year we had to play in South Carolina even though we were the #1 seed for that regional. The key to that is staying in the winners bracket to keep our lack of pitching depth from becoming an issue. I also like our chances in a Super Regional because you don't need as much pitching depth due to it being a best of three series.
I think you're only talking about this season, though. I am talking about this season, but I'm also thinking back to our past history against UF and FSU in baseball. They have beaten us in the majority of the matchups. I think it would be a big step toward winning a national title if we turned that around. We missed an opportunity against UF and FSU these past two weeks, although I realize that doesn't mean that we can't get better and maybe still pull off a historic season.
UCF lost to a couple of Top 20 teams, early in the season. Calm down.
This post was edited on 3/15 10:35 AM by Good Knight Sweetheart
Midweek games (2 vs UF in home-home, 2 in Tally), its tough to judge how good your team really is as you are normally putting out and facing young pitchers normally not in the weekend starting line-ups.
That's why the weekend series vs Ole Miss meant so much more...as teams generally try to put put their best available pitchers to prepare them for weekend conf play.
That's why the weekend series vs Ole Miss meant so much more...as teams generally try to put put their best available pitchers to prepare them for weekend conf play.
You do realize that saying we should have won 2-of-3 of these games means we would have had to sweep UF or FSU, right? And the sweep against FSU would have had to take place in Tallahassee? And that's with only two opportunities? Pretty short runway.
Those are two good programs, national-level contenders year-in-year-out. To gauge our team and program's progress solely against them is unreasonable, especially at this point.
We all want to win every game in every sport, but realistically it's tough to go on the road against elite-level competition in any sport.
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Those are two good programs, national-level contenders year-in-year-out. To gauge our team and program's progress solely against them is unreasonable, especially at this point.
We all want to win every game in every sport, but realistically it's tough to go on the road against elite-level competition in any sport.
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So if, and it's a big IF, IF those are the only games we lose the rest of the season no one will take us seriously? UF and FSU must have a ridiculous season if everyone has to play them to be taken seriously--- oh hell it's just easier saying the sky is falling.
With a #6 ranking, I would have been happy with a split in Tallahassee. We screwed the pooch up there.
I agree to a point. In the end, we have to start winning more of those games. On the flip side, they were mid-week games. That tells me their depth is still better than ours.
Why would you expect anything different? Baseball is a little bit of a different animal, but UF & FSU still have superior facilities, still play in superior conferences, still play on TV far more than us, still have far more money to spend on their profgram, and they're still going to out recruit us every time. That's not to say we can't beat them occasionally, but comparing us to them is crazy.
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You guys can't treat baseball like football or bball. It's not a depth thing with baseball. It's too much of a personal game where any guy can out there and make a ton of errors or have a bad night on the mound. We still scored a ton of runs in both the games which is a good problem to have. We just had two nights of bad pitching. I wouldn't be worried.
I hear what you all are saying: midweek games, not our best pitchers starting those games, etc. I got that (although I will point out that Zach Rodgers did pitch part of the second FSU game, so the pitching argument doesn't entirely hold up). I still feel we should've taken two of three on the road from those two, but whatever. Just get past the Regionals and that'll make me slightly happier.
I agree. Baseball is a different animal. In football, we have 1 or 2 BCS schools on your schedule to prove you can hang. We lose and there goes that chance until next year (unless we get one for a bowl game). With baseball it's different. They play 50+ games a season and play top notch competition all season. Sure, we'd like to take at least one game from FSU but the difference there also was both games were in Tally. The split with UF was interesting because we split sites also. The sky is not falling.
Agree with what you said...but no, for UCF most seasons, most games are not against Top 40-50 teams (some are obviously).
For every 1-2 midweek games vs FSU or UF...UCF plays 3 game series vs teams who's fields are covered with snow like Siena, Fairfield, Columbia, etc...
Good news for UCF/AAC is that some teams that have been down for awhile (like Tulane) are headed back up...plus, AAC lost weak baseball programs like Rutgers and Temple while adding ECU and Tulane...so that should be a win-win in the end.
Cre will be the best pitcher to ever wear a UCF Uni...he's on track to be a ML starter in 5 years.
LOL Okay, it would make me very happy. It's never happened in school history, so it would be worthy of celebration. However, I wouldn't want to just stop at a Super Regional. Would you?
Because UCF actually lead in the 2nd game at UCF...and SHOULD have won (especially if you know who had started).
Maybe that's why.
Meanwhile, UCF blew a lead tonight and lost to Presbyterian.
Why shouldn't we? To be the best, you have to beat the best. It's a cliché, but it's true, is it not?
...and we lost another big game to Miami this week. At least we didn't get killed with our pitching. 1 win out of playing 5 games with Miami, UF, FSU this year.
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