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Wake Forest 2023 baseball season thread (Deacs end historic season with extra inning loss to LSU: Final record 54-12 and top 4 finish nationally)

The more I think about it, the more I think we win tonight. We've played some pretty good defense even with some mistakes, and I'm still not worried about our pitching generally speaking. Skenes is really fucking good, so he'll what, hold us to less than 2-3 runs? Ok, seems like we are 50-50 with that run total, and I'm skeptical he goes 9.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
if we want to talk some baseball:

the "just gotta swing!!" contingent is pretty uninformed, imo. that's just not how successful hitters approach their at bats.

i know hank aaron aways gets quoted, "Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution," but it's largely true. there is a reason that hitters perform so much better in hitters counts than pitchers counts

i think there are definitely some improvements to our approach we can make, and being more protective with 2 strikes and with men on base does make sense (although it's not like we didn't pick up several strikeouts swinging at balls out of the strike zone)

but in an 0-0 count, you are always gonna look for one pitch -- and if you are looking for a slider but get a FB right down the pipe, swinging is not gonna do you any good. same thing with swinging at pitcher's pitchers in advantageous counts. interestingly, a huge part of our success on the mound this year has been our ability to throw offspeed pitches in typical fastball counts.

i do think we've been guessing the wrong pitch pretty often, but walter did say in his press conference (and i agree) that it seems like LSUs pitchers either throw balls or really good pitchers pitches.

at the end of the day, despite cold bats, we still left 12 men on base yesterday, which is usually just a function of luck. small tweaks to our 2 strike approach probably makes sense, but otherwise i think our offense will still produce moving forward.
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I think it's disingenuous to simplify the argument to "just gotta swing" just because that's what people exclaim in the middle of a game thread, but once you do, sure, it's an easy straw man to defeat.

The argument is that we have to be more aggressive than we have been at the plate, which is essentially what you've just said as well.

Our strategy to this point has allowed some pretty mediocre pitchers to hold our offense to one less run than our comparatively much better starters and bullpen have given up in Omaha. And it appears to have also stripped a few of our good hitters of their confidence, though that's harder to quantify, but certainly noticable to quite a few people here in the thread. We can't take the same strategy into tonight, against a much better pitcher, and depend hope for luck to go our way.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
The more I think about it, the more I think we win tonight. We've played some pretty good defense even with some mistakes, and I'm still not worried about our pitching generally speaking. Skenes is really fucking good, so he'll what, hold us to less than 2-3 runs? Ok, seems like we are 50-50 with that run total, and I'm skeptical he goes 9.
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Despite my belief that we need to be more aggressive at the plate, I definitely think we win tonight. We are the better team, even if we haven't played to that potential. I think our staff is good enough to make adjustments and our team has enough confidence to not let yesterday get to them.

But I also thought that yesterday, and then we tightened back up after the 2 run inning that should have been more, and our staff made a massive mistake.
 
Entirely different stage and opponent(s) obviously, but I was curious how often we've given up 5 runs in a game this season and what the results were. In the 17 games we've given up 5 or more runs, we're 10-7 and have averaged 9(!) runs ourselves in those games, including the 7 losses. Prior to getting to Omaha we probably would have liked our chances last night in giving up 5 to LSU, and certainly our chances in giving up only 7 hits. No conclusions from any of that; just for grins and giggles.
 
I think so much of it is the massive stadium with the wind blowing in.

LSU pitchers all have talent, but many were HR prone. When you’re afraid of giving up a HR, you start to walk too many guys, which compounds the damage on deep flies.

With no threat of the HR, pitchers have just been throwing strikes, and it seems like our guys have yet to adjust/are in their own head as they realize they can’t hit it in the air to left/center and pitchers aren’t walking them. I expect we will be a little more free swinging/loose tonight, and I hope the results are good enough.
 
I know like nothing when it comes to baseball strategy at this level, but if Walter is going to tinker with the lineup does that mean he would possibly change the batting order as well? Feel like swapping Danny’s AB for Nick’s might not be a bad idea if he’s taking suggestions.

ETA: Nick is a stud…it’s more about giving LSU something to think about and possibly having more scoring opportunities since hitting it out of that park is going to be tough to do.
 
SkyDivingDeacon said:
I know like nothing when it comes to baseball strategy at this level, but if Walter is going to tinker with the lineup does that mean he would possibly change the batting order as well? Feel like swapping Danny’s AB for Nick’s might not be a bad idea if he’s taking suggestions.

ETA: Nick is a stud…it’s more about giving LSU something to think about and possibly having more scoring opportunities since hitting it out of that park is going to be tough to do.
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I think that’s exactly what is meant. I don’t expect any new starters. It will just be moving folks around.
 
SkyDivingDeacon said:
I know like nothing when it comes to baseball strategy at this level, but if Walter is going to tinker with the lineup does that mean he would possibly change the batting order as well? Feel like swapping Danny’s AB for Nick’s might not be a bad idea if he’s taking suggestions.

ETA: Nick is a stud…it’s more about giving LSU something to think about and possibly having more scoring opportunities since hitting it out of that park is going to be tough to do.
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lsu fatty found a way to hit a 3 run bomb that was the difference last night.

The time is now for bombs of our own!
 
If we want to do something big up top I would do this:

Hawke
Kurtz
Johnson
Wilken
Bennett
Costello
Corona
Lee
Houston

Hawke protects Kurtz, and then Bennett/Costello serve as a "leadoff" type duo in the middle with Corona protecting.
 
When asked for their approach to hitting both Ted Williams and Barry Bonds gave the same answer.

"Don't swing at balls." The unspoken implication was do swing at strikes.

It seems as if that is what a lot of y'all are saying. Just hope the ump is on the same page.
 
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