Random Thoughts

[coolonetoo]

1. Nebraska is now 1-8 against the top tier of the conference. Brutal. Because of four straight losses to Ohio State and Iowa that woulda/coulda/shoulda gone the other way. Mostly zero clutch hits for about 40 straight innings.

2. Pitching and defense have been more than good enough. Offense has been awful. If I had to point to one factor, it's this: Too much bunting. I am fundamentally opposed to an offense featuring the sacrifice bunt for two reasons:

• Giving up an out to try and get one or two runs prevents big innings from happening. This is college baseball. The batters have aluminum sticks and the fielders aren't professionals. Swing away, Merrill, and good things will happen.
  
• It affects the mindset of the hitters. When you play small ball from inning one, everyone in the dugout knows the goal is to scratch out two or three runs and hope the arms can make it stand up. Game one today was a prime example. A two-run lead after three innings led to a collective exhale and silent bats.

3. Where do we go from here? I'm sure a win vs. Creighton Tuesday will happen as the Huskers have been nails midweek this season. Can they pull out of the tailspin and take at least two against Northwestern? They should but remember the last trip to Evanston?

4. Please save the "Thanks for the crappy hire, T.O.," comments.

 

[huskerbaseball13]

1. Nebraska is now 1-8 against the top tier of the conference. Brutal. Because of four straight losses to Ohio State and Iowa that woulda/coulda/shoulda gone the other way. Mostly zero clutch hits for about 40 straight innings.

This team has done a good job beating the teams they should beat and that's the only thing keeping them in the discussion of an at large. Outside of that, against solid teams....we have been very poor.

2. Pitching and defense have been more than good enough. Offense has been awful. If I had to point to one factor, it's this: Too much bunting. I am fundamentally opposed to an offense featuring the sacrifice bunt for two reasons:

• Giving up an out to try and get one or two runs prevents big innings from happening. This is college baseball. The batters have aluminum sticks and the fielders aren't professionals. Swing away, Merrill, and good things will happen.
  
• It affects the mindset of the hitters. When you play small ball from inning one, everyone in the dugout knows the goal is to scratch out two or three runs and hope the arms can make it stand up. Game one today was a prime example. A two-run lead after three innings led to a collective exhale and silent bats.

Might as well get use to bunting and Erstad's ultra conservative philosophy. I don't think it's going anywhere. Nor am I convinced he knows what he's doing on the recruiting trail. For the guy that preaches putting pressure on defenses non stop he sure didn't recruit to that line of thinking.
3. Where do we go from here? I'm sure a win vs. Creighton Tuesday will happen as the Huskers have been nails midweek this season. Can they pull out of the tailspin and take at least two against Northwestern? They should but remember the last trip to Evanston?

I wouldn't be so sure about a win vs Creighton, they will not want to be swept by us and it will be interesting to see if King gets the start. Plus, no telling what this offense will do. I have the feeling King may be in consideration for the #3 spot in the rotation going forward with Burkamper struggling. If King doesn't go Tuesday our chances of winning certainly decrease.

4. Please save the "Thanks for the crappy hire, T.O.," comments.

I don't think anyone would call Erstad a crappy hire at this point.....but the jury is certainly still out. He hasn't done diddly squat as of yet.

I'll add....sorry just noticed the new message board it's hard to see I responded within your quote.

5. Where is the development within the offense? Have guys like Darby and Lubach made strides thru their career? If so, the numbers are not really showing it. Blake Headley? Has he maxed out his potential? Not seeing it. Even our best hitter Boldt....he's solid at .335 but only has 10 extra base hits to show for it this year. His power has yet to develop. The lack of development leads me to believe the offensive struggles aren't going to get better over night nor do I trust Erstad at this point to fully develop guys like Miller, Schreiber, Dilday, and Alvarado.

 

[Nate004]

1. Nebraska is now 1-8 against the top tier of the conference. Brutal. Because of four straight losses to Ohio State and Iowa that woulda/coulda/shoulda gone the other way. Mostly zero clutch hits for about 40 straight innings.

2. Pitching and defense have been more than good enough. Offense has been awful. If I had to point to one factor, it's this: Too much bunting. I am fundamentally opposed to an offense featuring the sacrifice bunt for two reasons:

• 
  
• Giving up an out to try and get one or two runs prevents big innings from happening. This is college baseball. The batters have aluminum sticks and the fielders aren't professionals. Swing away, Merrill, and good things will happen.
  
• It affects the mindset of the hitters. When you play small ball from inning one, everyone in the dugout knows the goal is to scratch out two or three runs and hope the arms can make it stand up. Game one today was a prime example. A two-run lead after three innings led to a collective exhale and silent bats.

3. Where do we go from here? I'm sure a win vs. Creighton Tuesday will happen as the Huskers have been nails midweek this season. Can they pull out of the tailspin and take at least two against Northwestern? They should but remember the last trip to Evanston?

4. Please save the "Thanks for the crappy hire, T.O.," comments.

I'll further add to this. The sac bunt has it's time and place in a game. Namely, 7th inning on. Erstad LOVES to sac bunt early in games. Like 1st/2nd inning kind of early. I don't get this at all. I mean, you have no feel for how a game is going to play out in the early innings of a game. If the opposing team comes out an puts up an early 5 spot, then what? You gave up 1 of your 27 outs, and your down 5-1 at best. Whereas, by the 7th, you generally know if the game has developed into a pitchers duel. If it has, then great, sac bunt away, push across a run and let the bullpen do its thing. Basically, Darrin has got to trust his hitters, especially early in games. And on top of that, he needs to find someone who can develop his hitters, because as of yet, I'm not seeing it out of anyone.

 

[blackshirt98]

I'll repeat it again here, but it's really not shocking we aren't a power gap-to-gap team, let alone a HR potential team. You can't drive the ball when your swing plane is flat or negative, while the pitch is also coming on a negative plane. It's just science...trying to swing with a flat or negative plane, unless you have perfect timing (with about a 3'' MOE"), is impossible. If you allow your swing plane to be positive, which requires a slightly "up" swing, you're matching the plane the baseball comes in on, and you're now allowing your MOE to be in the 14-16'' range.

It truly wouldn't matter if we never bunted...the odds for the offense to produce a large number of runs on a consistent basis, just isn't there. The reason for that IS NOT talent...

 

[bigredrl]

I like small ball, but only from about 6th or 7th inning on when you already have a lead. Outside of that, not much of a fan myself.

Niether hated or loved the hire. When pushed at the time for an opinion, my thoughts were it was risky. Pretty confident we could have gotten some experienced college coaches or top line assistants. That would have been the conventional or safe route. Getting somebody who had never recruited or coached, but was passionate about Nebraska.......well, only another year to two will determine that outcome.

If we continue to be this almost good enough, middle of the road team my only hope is that DE figures out a way walk away on his terms. I would hate for things to get messay but if I'm the AD, I have to look at this crticially next year or the year after and wonder if he's the right guy if things stay somewhat status quo.

Maybe we overachieved in the DVH era......but I dont think you can say that given the length of time it happened over. Seasons not over yet......but I expect more and DE doesn't get a pass just because he's an alum and its not football (meaning only a small faction really care).

 

[coolonetoo]

I understand sacrificing early in the game but I don't agree with it. The idea is to grab a lead which in theory changes how the game is played. My opinion, though, is that it doesn't change it enough to warrant intentionally making outs. What does change the game is when a team puts up a crooked number and gives the pitcher a several run lead to work with. It's no coincidence that during the 15-1 home stand, the bats were hot at the starts of games. Remember how often it was 3-0 after two innings?

 

[HuskerJag]

This is no great insight but we don't run well an we have no power. We are a station to station team. We need 3 hits to score a run (in general) and we have too many low average guys in the line up...we get to 3 outs long before we get to 3 outs.

Unless we have multiple guys get hot, we're going to have to find a way to make 3 or 4 runs hold up. And that is a tough way to win baseball games.

 

[blackshirt98]

I don't remember the specifics, but there's a ton of analysis out there that a huge % of games are won by one team scoring more runs in 1 inning than the opponent scores in the game. Makes trying to nickel and dime by playing for 1 run an inning seem like more of a waste than it is to begin with.

 

[NebrasketballGuy]

I don't remember the specifics, but there's a ton of analysis out there that a huge % of games are won by one team scoring more runs in 1 inning than the opponent scores in the game. Makes trying to nickel and dime by playing for 1 run an inning seem like more of a waste than it is to begin with.

I just did the research on this personally after reading your post. It was pretty easy. I used 9-inning MLB games in the 2014 season. I found that in 54% of these games, the winning team scored more runs in one inning than the loser did in 9 innings. In addition, in 76% of these games, the winning team scored at least as many runs in one inning as the loser did in 9 innings.

One big difference: there are a heck of a lot more HRs in the MLB than what this Nebraska team is capable of.

 

[k9_r]

This is no great insight but we don't run well an we have no power. We are a station to station team. We need 3 hits to score a run (in general) and we have too many low average guys in the line up...we get to 3 outs long before we get to 3 outs.

Unless we have multiple guys get hot, we're going to have to find a way to make 3 or 4 runs hold up. And that is a tough way to win baseball games.

We are 1.9 hits per run. Our opponents are 2.6 hits per run.

 

[HuskerSoCal]

Great stat - I wonder what thay metric is for Conference games. Early in the season Headley was a triples machine, clearing bases. Our pitchers also have done a good job of stranding runners...

 

[HuskerJag]

We are 1.9 hits per run. Our opponents are 2.6 hits per run.

I hear what you are saying but what are those numbers on weekends or conference play? I am out of the country this week and not able to easily check the numbers in conference play. Maybe I am wrong but the team I saw at Maryland had no hope on offense. And that team continues to show up on the weekend.

 

[k9_r]

I hear what you are saying but what are those numbers on weekends or conference play? I am out of the country this week and not able to easily check the numbers in conference play. Maybe I am wrong but the team I saw at Maryland had no hope on offense. And that team continues to show up on the weekend.

Don't know about the conference numbers. Do know that we've played five of the best B1G teams. Teams with excellent pitching. Now we get to play two of the dogs (FINALLY!). Hope we crush them.