• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Wake Baseball

CharlotteDeac1 said:
Bottom 9 2 outs up by one with a runner on third. Walking that guy intentionally put the winning run on base. An extra force out at second was mitigated by him stealing second on the first pitch of the at bat (catcher didn't attempt to throw him out at 2nd because of runner on 3rd). That puts two guys in scoring position, up 1 with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth. Boneheaded coaching decision. I've never seen anything like that in all the years I've played or watched baseball.
Click to expand...

Not smart baseball.
 
Greer was 4-20 in the ACC his last year, so not exactly comparable. The year before that he was 8-15.

His record was strange. He was here about 12 years and never sniffed an NCAA tournament and his ceiling was about .500 in the ACC, then we hired Moranda and went through a great run, then Moranda left and we fell back down pretty quickly to the point where we were terrible his last year.

We certainly haven't done much since he left but I really doubt he would have either.
 
Last edited:
DeacWatcher said:
Getting rid of Greer reminds me of flushing Dino. Anybody with any success has to go.
Click to expand...

This again? You realize that George Greer hasn't coached WF, or any other baseball program, in 12 years?

BTW, the wheels had come off the baseball program over Greer's last two years in the ACC (8-15 in 2003 and 4-20 in 2004). Also, Greer is now 71 years old. What's next? Trying to exhume Pea Head Walker to run the football program?

Oh yeah, keeping Dino would've solved all the problems with the WF basketball program too. :tard:
 
Somehow, I would think that 3 ACC Championships would buy Greer a little more time than 2 losing years. After all, he was the one who was smart enough to hire Moranda in the first place, as Moranda already had 1 ACC Championship at Virginia. Can anyone think of anything similarly smart that Wellman, Rembiliak or Walter has ever done? And no one is asking, or expecting Greer to come back to the Deacs now, 11 years and 1 NCAA appearance later.
 
Both Greer and Dino are obviously KILLING IT at their next gigs.
 
Greer has spent most of his time since leaving WFU working for the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals which are, you know, organizations at the highest level of baseball.
 
Among Wellman's flaws as an AD (and the list is long) firing coaches too soon is not on that list. The moves made after the firing do head the list.
 
So did Wellman wait too long to get rid of Grobe, or did he fire Greer too quickly?

And falling to 4-20 is something you don't see top baseball programs do. That is a complete cratering.
 
Didn't it have to do with our inability to get juco's anymore? What was the timeline for that?
 
In that 1st N.D. game it appears Walter was looking at Kutsulis who was a sr. batting .340 and didn't want to risk him getting a clutch hit and tying the game. The next guy up (Vierling) was a fr. batting .290, so it looks like Walter was betting he was the better chance at getting the 3rd out than Kutsulis, therefore the force out really wasn't the motivation. If it was, Walter would have possibly been more focused on how N.D. would play it (i.e. steal 2nd knowing Breazeale was not a great thrower to 2nd and wouldn't risk a throw, anyway, because it would very likely bring the guy on 3rd home.

Walter certainly felt it was Freeman's fault (the errant throw to 1st that brought in 2 runs and won the game for N.D.) because he yanked him from the starting line-up for the next 2 games. Hard to see a throw to 1st from the SS position that was so bad and off that it went far enough to wave a guy home all the way from 2nd. I didn't see it but just read the reports and the Gametracker Summary.

The reason I gave this play so much attention is it ended up costing us the series. One routine throw by Freeman and the game is over and recorded as a Wake "W". Anyone who was there I'd like to hear what happened on that play....did he throw it off balance, over Sheets, to the far left of Sheets, ball didn't go in dugout, had the rain affected to grass thereby putting lots of water on the ball, etc?
 
Last edited:
The throw from short appeared to be 5-6 wide of first. It's still inexplicable (to me at least) that in a one run game and the tying run on third you decide to put the winning run on base. I mean when can that ever be the right play unless the guy up to the plate is batting .500 or something (Will Craig-esque).
 
And while Walter has made some questionable decisions, at the end of the day our players need to step up and make plays in the clutch.

That 6 run inning in game two had a fielding error by the CF that would have ended the game and almost cost us that game as well.

Somebody said that we could have gotten out of the Clemson big inning in that game we blew Sunday but made an error in the field.

We just don't play fundamentally sound baseball and it shows up in the clutch and costs us games.
 
ChrisL68 said:
And while Walter has made some questionable decisions, at the end of the day our players need to step up and make plays in the clutch.

That 6 run inning in game two had a fielding error by the CF that would have ended the game and almost cost us that game as well.

Somebody said that we could have gotten out of the Clemson big inning in that game we blew Sunday but made an error in the field.

We just don't play fundamentally sound baseball and it shows up in the clutch and costs us games.
Click to expand...

The final play from Friday is on the Notre Dame site's set of 'highlights' from the game here. It really doesn't give a great view of the throw, despite having a pair of different angles.

The game that got away against Clemson - the play that would have erased a huge Clemson inning wasn't an error, but a dropped foui popup that would have been an incredible play by Christian Bartholomew. The batter for Clemson, Chris Okey, was a right hander and the popup drifted toward the 3rd base dugout. Wake catcher Ben Breazeale didn't get a good view of it off the bat, and Bartholomew made a great run at it. He slid and got a glove on it, but couldn't hold on. Next pitch - grand slam home run instead of the 3rd out. Wake led 8-6 before the grand slam, and lost 13-8, but were just one out away from turning it over to Donnie Sellers for the potential 2-inning save.
 
People who know way more about college baseball than I do....should we be attempting to manufacture runs the way that our coaching staff insists on doing so?

I've always thought it was dumb as hell to sacrifice an out in pretty much any situation to get a runner to second, especially when we have what seems to be a fair amount of good hitters on the team.

Almost every time we get a runner on first with less than two outs we try to bunt him to second. Seems extremely counterproductive to me.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
People who know way more about college baseball than I do....should we be attempting to manufacture runs the way that our coaching staff insists on doing so?

I've always thought it was dumb as hell to sacrifice an out in pretty much any situation to get a runner to second, especially when we have what seems to be a fair amount of good hitters on the team.

Almost every time we get a runner on first with less than two outs we try to bunt him to second. Seems extremely counterproductive to me.
Click to expand...

Trying to manufacture runs in that way is usually something you'd see towards the end of a game. If the game's tied and you want a runner in scoring position then sacrificing an out isn't a huge deal. I don't get the beginning-to-middle game bunting though. In the MLB if you're facing someone like a Clayton Kershaw who you need to get a run across the plate anyway possible, yeah bunting is a good strategy. You usually won't face insanely good pitchers in college though so I disagree with bunting anywhere from 1-6 inning. Especially with how inconsistent our pitching is, sacrificing outs for a single run seems counterproductive.
 
Going back and forth with Davidson. Currently 6-6 in the 9th. Needless to say this needs to be a win.
 
Deacs get two in the top of 9 to take the lead and then take down Davidson 1-2-3 to win.
 
RivalsLes said:
The final play from Friday is on the Notre Dame site's set of 'highlights' from the game here. It really doesn't give a great view of the throw, despite having a pair of different angles.

The game that got away against Clemson - the play that would have erased a huge Clemson inning wasn't an error, but a dropped foui popup that would have been an incredible play by Christian Bartholomew. The batter for Clemson, Chris Okey, was a right hander and the popup drifted toward the 3rd base dugout. Wake catcher Ben Breazeale didn't get a good view of it off the bat, and Bartholomew made a great run at it. He slid and got a glove on it, but couldn't hold on. Next pitch - grand slam home run instead of the 3rd out. Wake led 8-6 before the grand slam, and lost 13-8, but were just one out away from turning it over to Donnie Sellers for the potential 2-inning save.
Click to expand...

Foul by Okey was just to the left of home plate, within the brick wall and foul net area. Breazeale should have been able to pick the ball up IMO since it was a high pop up. Bartholomew got his glove on it sliding down, but he was running so hard from the mound his momentum ran him into the wall, which resulted in him dropping the ball. Coming down, the ball couldn't have been more than a foot inside the playing field net. He had to be checked to see if he could continue pitching. We probably should have pulled him since the next pitch was a served up HR GS....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top