10:30 Nutter Classic softball game against Fordham

[flippinhogmana]

I dont know if Psych will be available to do the thread.  He has Flosoft to describe the video.
However, if he isnt (or even if he is and does), here is the link to live stats if you guys havent found the source for it at arkansasrazorbacks.com

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=212234

[flippinhogmana]

and maybe since it will now be the fifth game of the season the sports information people can get around to updating the softball stats to include a 2018 season?

But since they haven't, Buczek leads the team with 8 hits, Diaz and Bugarin follow with five, and several including Green have four hits
In Rbis and homers, Malkin leads with 5 rbis and 2 homers
In innings pitched is Haff with 13 (.000 ERA), and Storms with 10 (two earned runs in 10 innings, gives her just under a 2.00 era)

[flippinhogmana]

apparently a 10:30am starting time is a little early for them out there, no data coming from them yet!

the link clearly say 10:30 am CST, but you never know!  The SEC scoreboard also lists our game as being at 11:30 am, Eastern TZ, so apparently they got the same start time, but maybe they had a late night out there last night and amended the schedule?!!

and by virtue of being so far undefeated we are fourth in conference standings!  Some teams however have played up to nine games more than us.  Florida has even lost a game.  Auburn is on top at 13-0.

[psycHOGlogist]

It's 0-0, top 2. Just tuning in now. Haff is pitching. Arkansas is home team.

[psycHOGlogist]

Haff K's the batter for out 2 in top 2. I'll try to fill in the blanks as we go forward.

Haff is really tough on righty batters - her pitches are hard to catch up to and run in onto the hands of the batters.

And while I was typing that, she K's the batter on 3 straight pitches.

B2 coming up.

[psycHOGlogist]

B2 -

At the plate is Cooper.
She grounds out to the Right side.
Green is up. She blasts it over the LC wall - DINGER! HR for Green - 1-0 Hogs.
Manzo is up! Yeah, Aly! Happy to see her in the lineup.
She hits a nice Texas leaguer past the SS who struggles to come up with it, and she stretches it to 2b. Runner on 2, 1 out.
I think that was Diaz who grounded out to 3b on the first pitch. Runner on 2, 2 out.
Bugarin up - she ends the inning with a soft chopper to 3b.

1-0 Hogs after 2.

No idea who's coming up for Fordham without the stat feed, which is still dormant.

[flippinhogmana]

It's 0-0, top 2. Just tuning in now. Haff is pitching. Arkansas is home team.

haha!  glad you showed up brother!  guess there is no stat feed today.

[psycHOGlogist]

T3

Per SB twitter, Haff has four K's through the first 2 innings.
Now she has 5. Froze the hitter with a wicked change up. 1 down.
Next batter drops a liner between the 2b and Rf, runner on 1, 1 down.
Next batter pops out to Belans behind 3b. 2 down.
Gets the third out on another K with the change up. It's unfair lol.

Heading to B3.

[pigture perfect]

Keep it up guys.

[psycHOGlogist]

B3
I think the top of the order should be coming up since Bugarin got the last out.
It is - Buczek up.
She goes down 0-2 and then plops one right past the infield over SS for a single. Runner on 1, 0 out.
McEwen up. (And so is the stat feed, apparently!)
She makes great contact, but right to an infielder (couldn't see it) Line out. Runner on 1, 1 out.
Correction - Buczek was called out for slapping outside the batters box - no one on, 2 out.
Krzysko walks on four pitches. Runner on 1, 2 outs.
Belans rips a single to LF, advances to 2b on a throw home, but Krzysko stays at 3b. Runners on 2/3, 2 out.
Cooper hits a dribbler to the P, but she can't field it cleanly while running, and Cooper barely beats her to the bag, Krzysko scores, Belans holds at 3b. 2-0 Hogs.
Green swings at the first pitch, flies out to LC.

Hogs up 2-0 after 3.

Due up for Fordham - 2-3-4.

[flippinhogmana]

stat feed just came on!  Right on time - bottom of the third!

[flippinhogmana]

B3
I think the top of the order should be coming up since Bugarin got the last out.
It is - Buczek up.
She goes down 0-2 and then plops one right past the infield over SS for a single. Runner on 1, 0 out.
McEwen up. (And so is the stat feed, apparently!)
She makes great contact, but right to an infielder (couldn't see it) Line out. Runner on 1, 1 out.
Correction - Buczek was called out for slapping outside the batters box - no one on, 2 out.

thanks for the correction, wondered about that!

[flippinhogmana]

its good to see Belans really start to hit!

[psycHOGlogist]

T4
First batter goes down swinging, another victim of the change up.
Haff plunks the next batter with a change up. Runner on 1, 1 out.
Haff struggles a bit with control to the next batter, but gets her to whiff on a beautiful change, 2 out, runner on 1.
Goes full count to the next batter, but then blows one past her. Strikes out the side.

Due up for Hogs - Manzo, Diaz, Bugarin.

[psycHOGlogist]

B4 -
Manzo has a smooth swing - lines the first pitch right up the middle for a single. Runner on 1, 0 out.
Diaz makes solid contact but the LF makes a nice play for the out. Runner on 1, 1 out.
Bugarin first pitch swings a fly out to CF, two down.
Buczek beats out an infield chopper, runners on 1/2, 2 out.
McEwen rips one to RF, scoring Manzo, Buczek to 3b. 3-0 Hogs. Beautiful swing. Runners 2/3, 2 out. (McEwen moved up on error by RF)
Krzysko gets fooled by a change up and goes down swinging for the 3rd out.

3-0 Hogs.

Due up to face Haff: 6-7-8.

[psycHOGlogist]

T5
Haff plunks the first batter.
K's the second. 1 down, runner on 1.
Next batter hits a soft tapper to SS, no chance at the lead runner, Belans makes solid play to get the out at 1b. Runner on 2, 2 out.
Haff K's for the last out - froze her on a beautiful screwball over the outside corner (batter was a lefty).

Due up for the Hogs: Belans, Cooper, Green.

[flippinhogmana]

Haff dealing!  Ten Ks
So is Buczek, she now has ten hits on the young season, married life must agree with her!

[psycHOGlogist]

B5
Belans grounds out to 2b. Sort of an excuse me swing. 1 down.
Cooper - she swings a lot early. I think she needs to calm down a bit to avoid falling behind. Better patience here. Works a 3-1 count after going down 0-1. Full count. Fooled by a change up for the K.
Green grounds out, first pitch swinging, easy play for the SS. 3 down.

Haff to face the top of the order.

[flippinhogmana]

cooper struggling, just hasnt found her swing yet.

[psycHOGlogist]

T6 -
Batter K's on a rise, gets away from Green, but she calmly tracks it down and guns her out at first, 1 down.
Haff's control getting a little iffy, walks the next batter. Runner on 1, 1 down. She didn't bite at the change-ups out of the zone.
Next batter hits a veeeeerrrrrry long foul ball before singling through the right side. Runners on 1/2, 1 out.
Deifel out - Storms coming in for relief.
Such a different look from the circle.
Batter singles through the right side. Man, hard to say due to the bad camera work/angle, but that didn't look like a hard hit ball. Fordham gets one across, runners at 1/3, 1 out.
Gah. Runner hits an EASY grounder right at Belans, she fumbles it out of her glove. Bases loaded, 1 out. Man - that is just AWFUL!!!
Next batter hits a chopper over Buczek, Belans gets there, but has no play anywhere. 3-2 Hogs. Bases loaded, 1 out.
Storms K's the next batter on a nasty changeup, 2 down.
Hogs get out of it with an easy grounder to Belans, who makes the play at first.

3-2 Hogs heading to the B6. Due up: Manzo, Diaz, Bugarin.

[flippinhogmana]

coach sees the players, maybe Haff was tiring, but I would maybe have preferred that she give her one more batter to work out of it.

[psycHOGlogist]

B6

Manzo makes solid contact but flies out to LF. 1 down.
Diaz hits a FROZEN ROPE line drive HR to LF. Crushed it. 4-2 Hogs!!! WPS! Great looking swing, nice to see her hit one out!
Bugarin showing good sense of the zone, works a 3-1 count, leading to a short conference at the circle. Then she walks. Runner at 1, 1 out.
Buzcek gets down early in the count again, hits a come-backer to P, but Bugarin advances to 2b. Runner on 2, 2 out.
McEwen swings at the first pitch and pops out to SS behind 3rd for last out.

Hogs up 4-2 - like the insurance run!

Due up to face Storms: 9-1-2.

[flippinhogmana]

Way to go Ashley Diaz!

[psycHOGlogist]

T7

9 hitter gets down 0-2, then swings over a beautiful drop ball for the K. 1 down.
1 hitter gets down 0-2 as well, then also swings over a drop. Deja vu! 2 down.
2 hitter gets ahead 2-0 on a couple low drop balls. But Storms evens it at 2-2 after a foul and a called strike. Eventually, batter works a walk, Runner on 1, 2 out.
Storms ahead 1-2, gets squeezed on a very good looking pitch on the outside corner. Count goes full. Batter singles past Belans. Runners 1/2, 2 outs.
Next batter hits into FC, Hogs WIN! Batter hit a grounder to Belans, who flips to Buczek at 3b for the force out.

Not a pretty win, but a win! And it was a nice, calm play by Belans, too.

Undefeated at the Mary Nutter Collegiate - very nice!

[flippinhogmana]

kind of helps that their leadoff hitter struck out four times today.

[flippinhogmana]

Fordham wound up being a scrappy bunch, and I think we were looking to catch the flight home a little early.

[Sow’sEar]

5-0 is a great start.  Things to work on but great job going undefeated!

[flippinhogmana]

Buczek hitting .474
Diaz next at .375
Bugarin at .357
Belans now at .333
cooper however, only at .111
Hogs .296 as a team

Haff now has a 1.15 ERA
Storms 1.1

Thats off the SEC box score

[psycHOGlogist]

coach sees the players, maybe Haff was tiring, but I would maybe have preferred that she give her one more batter to work out of it.

Just saw this comment. I think the Fordham hitters were finally getting the timing on Haff's hard stuff, and her off-speed wasn't finding the zone. I would have pulled her, too. When Storms makes a mistake, you're most likely going to have a single. But if they barrel up on Haff's heat, you could see some long balls. Just my $.02.

[flippinhogmana]

Just saw this comment. I think the Fordham hitters were finally getting the timing on Haff's hard stuff, and her off-speed wasn't finding the zone. I would have pulled her, too. When Storms makes a mistake, you're most likely going to have a single. But if they barrel up on Haff's heat, you could see some long balls. Just my $.02.

It is true that a rise ball tends to get out easier if you barrel it up, but then a little better defense behind both of them could have lessened some frayed nerves of the fans.

[psycHOGlogist]

It is true that a rise ball tends to get out easier if you barrel it up, but then a little better defense behind both of them could have lessened some frayed nerves of the fans.

Oh, definitely.

The issues as I see them going forward:

1. The defense, especially the infield defense, and especially the infield defense up the middle. It was not very good this weekend, and it will not be good enough to be a top-half SEC team.

2. Haff and Storms look very good. But who besides them can handle SEC hitters? Next year we will get Jenna Bloom, a 2019 commit who is currently rated #31 in the country (and climbing) by FLO. But I was disappointed by Hedgcock's outing. All of her pitches were the same speed, and the R batters were not fooled by her movement. She is not going to be successful without some kind of off-speed pitch. Warrick is probably good for an inning or two of workman-like effort - she throws strikes, but she is not going to overpower anyone or spin anyone out of a good swing.

Having had my gripe, I will say that this team looks pretty solid for this early in the season. I like what I see from the two best pitchers, and the freshmen look pretty darn good so far. SEC pitching will be pretty comparable to what we saw from Utah, and we held our own there.

Next weekend is a slate of mostly teams we should handle, although they are not terrible. Marist was a good team in their conference last year, losing in the MAAC Championship game.

Manhattan, similarly, was a good MAAC team that Marist beat in the semi-finals of the MAAC tournament. Neither of these teams has played a single game so far this season, and Arkansas will be game 2 for both of them.

Delaware is a middle of the pack CAA team that got swept at the Auburn tournament this weekend (losing a close 2-1 game to GA State, getting run-ruled by Auburn, losing a 4-1 decision to Maryland, and then getting run-ruled by GA State) with pretty mediocre pitching.

Villanova was 3rd in the Big East last year. Don't know too much about them; looks like their best win last year was over a depleted South Florida team. They did sweep Big East runner-up DePaul during the regular season, and took 2/3 from Big East Champ St. John's during the regular season, but they lost to DePaul 4-0 in the conference tournament. Their best pitcher, who was Big East Pitcher of the Year, graduated after last season, though, so their pitching is a little up in the air.

McNeese St., however, is a quality team who regularly (but not consistently) beats SEC teams. They have two wins over Tulsa already this year (who was ranked to start the season). They won the Southland and made the NCAAT last year, where they lost games to ULL and LSU (and beat Fairfield). That last game next weekend is one to look at, barometer-wise. Of course, I don't think we are good enough (yet?) to look past the Marists, Manhattans, Delawares, and Villanovas of the world, either.

When I first saw the schedule, I thought this looked like an easy tournament. Looking a little more closely, I think it's a good one for us to play - all of the teams had winning records last year except Delaware, so that should be pretty good for our power ranking numbers. Looking forward to it!

[flippinhogmana]

In looking forward to the SEC, I took a look at the stats so far.  The stats have to be taken in measure in that some of the teams play legitimate teams up front to get ready, others play the little sisters of feeble knees.  But Auburn has already played 13 games (their number one pitcher already has 6 wins), quite a few hitters have already gotten over 30 ABs. 

By the conference I dont think it will matter all that much, but it might if we were to try Aly at second (for example).  If you are going to make a change like that you probably do need to try it when the coach did.  I dont think we move Belans (unless you DHed her, but I do want to have Malkin's bat in the lineup.

Cooper especially needs to pick it up, senior or not.  McEwen needs to hangin there and pick it up too.

As far as competition, I think this was a good tournament to play in, no walkovers among the five games.  But some of the other SEC teams like MSU and Florida played even tougher teams.

[pigture perfect]

Thanks for the updates.

[psycHOGlogist]

So, I'm going to slightly disagree with you here. I definitely wouldn't say that MSU has played tough teams. And certainly Auburn hasn't. But that's really just sort of what happens early on. Next weekend the second Mary Nutter tournament happens, which often includes some very high profile matchups, so that could be interesting. But so far in the conference:

Auburn's schedule has been full of cupcakes so far, but they usually schedule pretty easy, tbh -- just a few very good games tossed in for show. Their "best" win at this point is probably either Marshall or Wichita State, both of whom are decent teams. They almost lost to St. Francis, and they have pairs of wins over Tenn Tech, Furman, and a terrible Maryland team. Also wins over GA State and Delaware. They are good, they have two excellent pitchers and some big bats, but they have not wowed anyone yet.

Bama's best win is over McNeese St, whom they crushed. The Tide lost a good, close game to a strong Baylor team, and they have wins over MS Valley St, Penn State (very mediocre), Lamar, a decent-but-waning South Alabama team, and So. Miss.

UGA has looked very good, too. They lost to Oregon (no shame there), and have beaten Utah (their best win), SDSU, a BYU team that looks bad so far, a so-so Oregon St team, Winthrop, Samford (twice) and Evansville (twice).

Florida has very nice wins over Michigan (who is not as good as they used to be, but is still great), UL-Lafayette (same - they're a bit of a mess as a program) twice, IL State, GA State, UAB, South Florida (in decline), and North Florida. They lost the last game of their series with UL-Lafayette in extra innings.

MS State hasn't played anyone. They have two wins over MS Valley St. and single wins over Drake, Omaha, Mizzou St, UT Martin, Murray St., and South Alabama. They lost to Drake (I think they got no-hit).

Mizzou looks pretty vulnerable, as expected (also in program meltdown mode after firing their controversial coach 10 days before the season started). Their losses aren't awful: Oregon, OK State (twice), Oregon St., and Marshall. They have wins over UTEP, CSU-Northridge, South Florida (twice), UM-Lowell, and FAU (who doesn't have their ace pitcher anymore; she transferred to FSU).

Ole Miss is a bit of a mix, with wins over VA Tech (decent), FAMU, Lamar, Texas (decent), Rutgers, and most notably, Oregon! That was a shutout win in 9 innings. However, when Kaitlyn Lee doesn't pitch, they are beatable. They have losses to Lipscomb (by no-hit shutout) and Houston, who is improving but shouldn't beat SEC teams, imo.

SC hasn't played anyone good, and they have wins over ECU, Hofstra (twice), St. John's, Charlotte, Michigan St (bad B1G squad), So Illinois, Georgetown, and Mercer. They lost to Florida International. They have some big question marks in the circle, imo.

LSU is undefeated still, with wins over nobody all that special: UIC, UT-Arlington, So Miss, UMass, ULM, Central Arkansas, La Tech, Southern UT, and their best results: two wins over Oregon St. Eh ... their pitching is FANTASTIC, but they have not consistently put up a lot of runs, even against mediocre competition.

Kentucky had a disastrous opening weekend, dropping two of three to New Mexico State. They have the one win over NMSU to go with wins over N Dakota State (decent, but declining), SDSU, and Cal St Fullerton (twice). Not very impressive stuff there.

TN has struggled some in the circle, though their record is good, and they have probably played among the toughest schedules so far. They have one surprising loss to FAU to put up against wins over Boise St, a ranked AZ State team, W Michigan, San Jose St, UC Davis, Utah, OK St, UM-Lowell, USF, and Marshall.

TAMU is undefeated, too, with wins over Houston, Boston College (twice), Texas Tech, SF Austin, Butler, Iowa, and Tulsa (twice). Tulsa seems to be a little less than expected early on, fwiw, but that's not TAMU's fault.

Had we played our full schedule, we'd have games vs. Kennesaw St., Nicholls St (x2), and SE Louisiana to add to our slate - not too impressive, tbh. Our best win is clearly Utah, and they are really our only "good" competition so far, though our other opponents are not as weak as some of these folks have played. Overall, I just think it's too early to say who's looking great and who's not. Most everyone is consistent with preseason expectations, except maybe UGA, who seems to be doing better than I expected, and Kentucky, who seems a little worse. MS State, Mizzou, SC, and Arkansas were expected to be the bottom four. I don't think that view should shift based on anything that's happened so far. UGA and Kentucky were expected to be just above the bottom four, but to me it seems like UGA is better than that, and maybe UK should slide down into the lower group.

But really - it's still pretty early. Maybe there will be some more sorting after this coming weekend.  WPS!

[flippinhogmana]

the two I cited played tough enough teams to get beat.  The one loss Florida has was to a ranked team.  I thought I mentioned leading off that some of them played weak teams to lead off the season.

My comment was merely to indicate that their hitting averages might be inflated, as might their eras as a generality.  But either way, in a few more games its going to get a lot tougher for all of the SEC teams once they start playing pretty much just each other.  I was looking at the stats just to kind of rate our performance.  The first two games it seemed like the rookies were more ready (or perhaps just more eager) to play than the vets.  They pretty much carried us way too much.  But I think some of the vets at least picked it up the last two or three games.  I looked at who they played only enough to know that that some of the teams had absorbed some losses.

I agree it didnt look like Auburn had chosen the best of the best to play.  But as the soviets used to say, quantity has a quality all its own.  At least their players have had three times as many at bats as us.  Some coaches have the philosophy that confidence also has its own value, get em going and let the confidence of momentum carry you.  There is of course plus and minuses with that approach as well as a really tough schedule, especially with a team with a lot of young players.

And for all of us, thanks for spotting for us for these five games.  i appreciate it, and I know others do too.

[psycHOGlogist]

Good points, and you're very welcome!!