Cal Bears Vs. Fighting Erstads

Gumbercules said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
Effort doesn't erase the L, but they showed good fight today. 11-8 Bears final.
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I went to the game today, they did show good fight, but it was clear from the first inning who the better team was. Every time Cal got a hit, it was a BLAST. Most of our hits were nubbers.

Maybe we need to be the scrappy team in order to win, but I think today's comeback was the best chance we had for getting a win this weekend. We could very easily get swept.
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that was a great game to go to. I was happy to see the starter get into the 6th inning to preserve bull pen for the series. some of the pitching was suspect but these guys battled. even with 2 errors they managed to keep Cal to just 5 runs. well done today. Congrats to Sango for his MONSTER SLAM dead into the wind and he SMOKED it! I think my only beef right now is Christiansen at short. He just doesnt have much zip on the ball. Yesterday there were a few times that routine grounders where hit his way and the runner beat it out. I think he needs to be at second and schieffert at 3rd with farmer at short.

 
95huskers said:
that was a great game to go to. I was happy to see the starter get into the 6th inning to preserve bull pen for the series. some of the pitching was suspect but these guys battled. even with 2 errors they managed to keep Cal to just 5 runs. well done today. Congrats to Sango for his MONSTER SLAM dead into the wind and he SMOKED it! I think my only beef right now is Christiansen at short. He just doesnt have much zip on the ball. Yesterday there were a few times that routine grounders where hit his way and the runner beat it out. I think he needs to be at second and schieffert at 3rd with farmer at short.
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Christensen played short last year. He projects as an OF at the next level and the coaches had him playing there until the injury to Pat Kelly earlier in the year. The fact that Chad was willing to come back in and help the team shows a lot to me.

 
i get that. the guy wants to play. im not discounting chad as a person, i just dont want to see him at short anymore. he had a pretty decent game today. but there were many close plays that should not have been.

 
Then I guess I'm confused on what you think they should do. Renda is the best middle infielder in the nation and his range seems better suited for SS.. But that's why I'm not coaching.

 
Renda probably doesn't have the arm to play short. I understand the concern about short. It's our weakest spot in the INF. Chad is adequate at SS. He has his limitations there but he is the steadiest guy we have at that spot right now. Eventually I think they will work Kelly back in there but I could be wrong. There's some growing pains to work through there. Depends upon how the bats go too.

 
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No matter what you do, we are going to have some really good guys on the bench. It's a good problem to have, but it's frustrating.

We have 8 spots to look at for our starting lineup (3 OF + 4 INF + 1 DH; i'm going to exclude C), and I listed 11 guys. Which means 3 of them can't start in any given game. Who should those 3 be? Here's how our players are doing so far (AVG/OBP/SLG)

Outfielders

Pritchard .447/.500/.474

Kiser .214/.421/.405

Sanguinetti .283/.345/.472

Darby .294/.375/.382

Infielders

Farmer .289/.341/.395

Peters .317/.383/.415

Stock .463/.488/.683

Kelly .429/.467/.571*

Other

Christensen .424/.477/.644

Scheffert .343/.378/.429

Kalkowski .273/.294/.425

*Limited sample size

So, who are some obvious chioces that need to be playing? Christensen, Stock, Pritchard. Right now, they have incredible lines.

Who is the next line of players that need to be in the game? Sheffert, Peters, Kiser, Sanguinetti. These guys are getting on base, which is they key to winning games. Look at a guy like Kiser, he may not have the best AVG but his OBP is very good. When he can start hitting the ball a little better he will definitely be in the "needs to play" category.

Where does that leave us? So far I have listed 3 OF, 2 INF, and 2 others. Sheffert and Christensen can both go back and forth between INF and OF, so it can become a bit of a puzzle. Who's the next guy we want in the game? And where do we put him? Here's a few ideas:

1B: Stock

2B: Peters

3B: Scheffert/Farmer

SS: Christensen

LF: Pritchard

CF: Sanguinetti

RF: Kiser

DH: Kalkowski/Farmer/Sheffert

With something like this, ONE of Kalkowski, Sheffert, Farmer would have to sit out. Or, we could switch things around a bit more and get:

1B: Stock

2B: Peters

3B: Scheffert

SS: Farmer

LF: Kiser

CF: Sanguinetti

RF: Christensen

DH: Pritchard

This leaves Kash out. Kash hasn't been hitting the ball too well this year, but he should be one of the better players on the team when he comes around. Hopefully Darin can see who has the hot hand and get them in the game, but right now to me it seems like we defintely need to see MORE Pritchard and Stock. If Kelly can continue to post those numbers, that just adds another element to the discussion.

Like I said, it's a good problem to have. Hopefully we can find a good mix between playing time for everyone and rewarding those who are hot. If only the pitching had this much depth!

 
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