AZ Longhorn

Oof. I think A Rod makes that play and ends the inning at only 1 run. edit: instead they're at 5 (and counting)

SC has a good plan coming in against Ruger. Guessing pitches, but it's paying off so far. Time for the pitch caller to adjust.

Winter still out 🥲 What's the word? Still a sickness? It's been over a month ...

Keep in mind the change this year: the committee will rank teams 1-32, and that ranking will fully determine the 1 & 2 regional seeds. So, if we (as the #2 national seed) have TCU as our #2 regional seed, it won't be due to any geographic considerations, but solely because the committee ranked TCU as the #31 national seed. This is a great change for the top teams (like us). FWIW, I'm shocked that D1.com thinks TCU is the 31st best team in the country right now. We'll see how the second half of the season plays out, but as of now, I would LOVE that TCU 2-seed for us.

I haven't heard anything. I understood the logic of opening with Grubbs, but would have expected Flores over Walls and Walker. Hopefully we have a couple runrule-type games in Columbia and he can get a good inning or two under his belt.

And covered a lot of PenderGRASS to get there!

Using 2/3 trusted bullpen arms tonight shows you how much Schloss wants this one, even with an SEC series starting in two days.

Loving this for Bing! (And for the team!)

Mendoza created his own run! Atta boy. Love the compete level, even in the slump.

Edit: what Jeff said. (Wish I could delete to save the noise.)

Big answer from Robbins. We go quietly there and the bad vibe starts to congeal. There’s a chance that HR wakes us up a bit (including Aiden himself lol)

He hasn’t been great. But we should have been out of this inning at 1-0.

Circling back with info I learned elsewhere, in case y'll haven't heard. This "minor hand procedure" was indeed minor: simply removing the single metal staple that had been inserted in the surgery earlier this spring. It was done in 20 minutes yesterday. The rate-limiting step for a return to swinging is just how soon the incision location heals up. It seems there's a possibility that this meaningfully improves his comfort swinging. As he exerted a lot of force in a swing, the staple had to flex around those mobile mid-hand bones, causing pain. And then there's the secondary effect of inflammation from that mechanical irritation, plus perhaps some inflammation from the body rejecting the material of the staple. The main thing is that this talented youngster figures this out long-term, for what could be a very long and special baseball career. It's been a full year-long injury already, all from a HBP against Missouri, for pete's sake! But I was encouraged even in the short term, for his contributing to a title run this season, with the simplicity of the procedure and return timeline... and the possibility that the pain might have been as simple as side effects from the staple, which is now gone!

Sounds like Borba at 3B is a done deal for now. So at 1B, I expect an initial lefty/right platoon of Livingston/Courville respectively. But spots are up for grabs — not just at 1B, but also at the personnel-related positions of DH and the third OF spot! What an opportunity for Courville, Livingston, Larson, Duplantier, and Monsour. Excited to see who, if anyone, steps up and earns an everyday role and doesn't let go! (I also wish Ermis was in the 1B/DH mix, but I think that's just me wishcasting. I haven't seen any evidence he's in those battles.)

His on-base percentage is 2nd worst on the whole roster (only above 'Doza) as is his OPS. I'm a big fan of A Rod and how he improved his overall game — his jumps on defense and baserunning (especially!) have been so impressive — but clearly he needs to get healthy in order to contribute at the dish. Very relieved to hear they're at least gonna try something (again).

The pitching depth is definitely something to monitor. It's obviously already cost us two SEC sweeps, almost the series this Saturday, and a 6-0 start. (And having to move Cozart to the weekend means we'll drop a couple more midweek games than we would have otherwise, but that impact on a path to the championship is relatively minimal). BUT even if the pitching depth doesn't become the best bullpen in the country, like some expected pre-season, I think there are real reasons to expect it to turn around: The main problem has been the free bases and the occasional hung spinner. Our guys have the stuff to get outs; the problem is command and control and the mental game. Max Weiner is the guy you want to have to work on that particular problem. For virtually each piece, I think today is the worst they will be this season. Obviously for the freshmen, they will continue to improve with practice and adjustments. (They are not being asked to start, so they will not hit the workload wall that freshmen starters sometimes do). Leffew is already good, and will only get more impactful. As he works back from injury, his command will continue to dial in, and he will get stretched out to give us more innings per weekend (which leaves us less exposed with other guys). And then we have a trio of guys who got pre-season All-American votes — Burns, Higgins, and Grubbs — but are clearly underperforming. And I just don't believe that at least one or two of them won't recover to the mean. In other words, it probably can't keep being this bad! It's not for nothing that the bullpen meltdowns happened while Winter has been on the shelf. Whatever sickness cost us two weekends, I hope he's ready to go for OU next week! As others have pointed out, the coaching staff is still trying to figure out how to maximize what they have. That takes time to find when the initial roles don't work out. All of this is a perfect storm for dropping two games early in conference play. It's jarring to realize that your expected #1 strength is your actual #1 weakness, but there's time to figure it out and many reasons for expecting us to.

Just catching up. What's wild and exhilarating as a Horns fan is we just won a road SEC series against a team that will end up Top 10 on the year... and we're not even playing well! Most of our hitters are in slumps or just treading water. We had our worst overall defensive weekend of the year. The bullpen and strike-throwing struggles are very real. And Dylan only went 4 innings. And with all that... we still won the series! The rest of the country must be shaking in their boots.

Purdue is better and our bigs situation will be tough (needing a lot from Codie again, and Matas staying out of foul trouble against physicality). We have very obvious flaws, BUT you don't have to squint too hard to understand how this team could make a tournament run! For a not-great team, we are made in a lab for messing you up: We've got guys with NBA potential (Matas and Dailyn), old college guards who have seen it all and are clutch shot-makers (Pope and Mark), a 3-point specialist who you can't help off of (Heide), and a senior dirty work glue-guy off the bench (Weaver). An old, experienced team with a great coach, peaking at the right time. Let's enjoy this and see what happens!

What's the reporting on Winter? Second week out, and all I've heard is a low visibility mention that last week may have been an illness?

Not many safeties making 230M on a single contract, though, much less over a full career. Vastly different earning potential by position.

Tinney loves Tuesdays!

Any word on Winter's availability? Also, I hope this ship hasn't sailed now that we're through non-con, but I was hoping to see some Jack McKernan innings this year. Schloss kept praising him pre-season and I expected that to translate into opportunity. I say let's empty the bottom of the pen and see what we've got! If the offense can't score 10+ against mid-major mid-week arms in mid-March, then that's a mid performance 😉 and so be it!

Thanks Jeff. Also want to shout out Presley Courville!! Since Jonah's would-be OF spot has to be filled, that has moved Larson/Duplantier out of the DH role into the field... meaning we need guys to step up at DH as a consequence. Livingston has showed recent signs of life at DH, but ideally Jim could platoon him so he doesn't face a full game of left on left. Courville has one hell of a sweet RH swing, and Jim seems to love him. Really unfortunate that he hurt his shoulder, but the fact that he did so while working on learning the outfield shows you the staff wants to find a way for him to contribute this season. He can likely be more offensive than fellow right-handers Ermis or Monsour. And he is supposed to be back soon! So when we're facing a lefty starter, he might be that RH side of the DH platoon (with Livingston as the LHer).

I don't think the issue is the idea itself. All else being equal, the LED floor is awesome. But he knew in advance its actual execution would meaningfully jeopardize player safety and competition quality (ability to trust jumps and cuts, etc) and he knowingly chose the cool idea over player safety and competition quality. That's a fireable offense, IMO.

Maybe something to be said too for the style of gameplay difference vs. the men's game? For my own tastes at least, in the current evolution of the sports, the women's game style is more enjoyable to watch. But I don't know if this is a widely held view.