June 6, 2019
LSU, SAINTS AND MUCH MORE
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Baseball coaches in professional baseball are called managers for a reason. A baseball coach does as much managing as they do coaching due to the nature of the sport. In short, managers do coach, but they have much less control over their what happens.
The most obvious reason is that basketball and football have free substitutions. Consequently, football coaches have goal line defenses, jumbo packages on offense for short yardage, and many other options while coaching a game. Basketball coaches often have a pressing group on the court when losing late in a game and a different group that takes care of the ball and makes free throws when winning a game down the stretch.
In baseball, on offense, you can bunt, steal, hit and run, or tell the batter to take a pitch, but that is about it. On defense, there are some bunt defenses, first and third situations, and pickoffs, but not much else other than choosing the pitch to throw.
Clearly, there are many more decisions for basketball and football coaches to make. Fortunately, many of those decisions happen so fast and frequently during the course of a game that they go unnoticed.
Baseball coaches aren’t so lucky. There are fewer decisions, and plenty of time for fans and media to notice those decisions. For example, if there are runners on second and third with two outs, the only thing to do is to hope the batter gets a timely hit. Further, everyone will know whether the batter or pitcher was successful in the situation. As in many cases, it is after the situation that the baseball coach has to manage his player and team.
Paul Mainieri gave us all a huge clue of a challenge he has faced managing his team this year when he chose Landon Marceaux to start the opener of the regional. Mainieri said, “It’s a sign to our team, my team, that we’re not taking this team lightly at all.” While many focused on whether starting Marceaux was the right decision, they overlooked this statement.
LSU’s baseball coach, who doesn’t have the option of taking players in and out of the game multiple times, told us that his team has had a tendency to take their opponent lightly. Further, he chose for LSU to play the night game, and the reason is clear. He knew his team needed the big game feel of the night game to have the right mentality for that game.
Maineri also knew that his team needed to win in three games. He knew Henry and Walker would only give him 5 innings, so he would need 8 innings out of the bullpen Saturday and Sunday. He knows LSU does not have a fourth starter. Fortunately, LSU is to the point of the year where they shouldn’t need a fourth starter to keep progressing.
In order to get to Omaha, LSU most likely needs to win the first two games this weekend. The manner in which a team wins a regional has nothing to do with how they perform in the Super Regional. Nevertheless, Florida State put on a offense show against one of the best pitching staffs in the country last weekend in Georgia. LSU pitchers will have to be at their best this weekend.
I like LSU’s offense. I like that in the marble game against Southern Miss on Saturday, the Golden Eagles could not find an easy out. Late in the game, USM intentionally walked Duplantis and Cabrera only to face Beloso who the opposing pitcher knows can hit a mistake a long way. After Beloso walked, Watson and Garza left the runners stranded, but Watson and Garza are quality hitters that had meaningful hits over the weekend.
My point is that the USM pitchers had to face Beloso, Watson, and Garza with runners in scoring position. Those three could be the 3,4,5 hitters in many lineups. They were the 5,6,7 hitters on Saturday night. The depth of the lineup can wear on a pitching staff.
Still, I think LSU’s best chance to advance is to win Saturday and Sunday. The reason is no matter how well Marceaux or Henry perform in their starting role, LSU will have to use their bullpen. While the bullpen has gotten the job done recently, they play with fire all the time.
Again, looking back at Saturday night, Hess made a good two strike pitch, but the batter went to a knee and hit a home run. Normally, in baseball, you just tip your cap to the batter and brush it off. But, Peterson had hit a batter, walked a batter, and hit a batter to load the bases so the home run was a grand slam that tied the game. Credit Hess for bouncing back right after and getting the job done the rest of the way, but giving up four runs on one hit is something that usually leads to a loss.
While Peterson, Hess, and Fontenot have been great from time to time, they also surrender free bases just as often to where one swing does serious damage. Certainly, Saturday and Sunday will be close games where those three will be needed. If that is the case, the Monday rubber game would be very scary to me. It is clear that Eric Walker is going to compete and get his team into the 5th inning. That is the when he starts to go through the opposing lineup for the third time, and that is when he gets hit.
As a result, Maineri and Dunn would be looking to get four innings worth of outs. I believe Beck, Hilliard, Veitmeier, and Hess for an inning could get the job done. I just don’t want to have to find out against a team that believes they are playing for a higher purpose and that is to get their coach back to Omaha in his last season.
Entering the weekend, I see this weekend as a toss up. Florida State is similar to LSU. Florida State has great talent that did not have the kind of regular season that many expected. The Noles were top ten in almost every poll to start the year. In the regional, they showed their talent and they will not be intimidated by playing at LSU.
LSU is getting close to the team we expected when the season began, but we expected a little more depth out of the pitching staff.
This weekend should be highly entertaining with many anxious moments between two talented teams.
HEY REF
Hey Ref 6 6 19
I’m going to try and explain the new football rules changes for 2019 that I started to do last week. I’m a bit confused with the change with what constitutes a legal scrimmage formation. The rule change as posted on the Federation web site says the change is covered under two sections in the rule book. The first place to look is rule 2-14-1 but that’s simply the chapter dealing with definitions. Another place to look is chapter 7-2-5a where it states “a legal scrimmage formation now requires at least five offensive players on their line of scrimmage with no more than four backs”. In using the “OLD” math that covers nine players.
I’ll play along right now because I’m sure to hear from those in-the-know that’ll learn me what to do with those “extra” two players. That is of course if we’re still gonna play with eleven on each side of the ball. One change that should’ve been made years ago is what can’t be done to the runner. In years past defensive players were allowed to trip the runner. I’ve always been one that felt there was too much of an opportunity for both the runner and tackler to suffer a major injury by making it legal to stick a leg or more into a runner in his attempt to bring him down. I haven’t checked the data recently but I do believe knee and leg injuries if not at the top of the list are very close to it. Back when I played it was legal to clip at the line of scrimmage and that’s how my right knee was dislocated. So, I’m a big fan when a rule change is made in the name of safety.
One big change that I’m happy to see is an expanded foul for a horse collar take down. You can find the complete wording at rule 9-4-3k. Not only will it continue to be a foul if you grab the back side of the shoulder pads and yank somebody down and backwards the new rule now includes grabbing the area of the jersey directly below the neck area where you’ll usually find the player’s name. It will also be an illegal personal foul, 15 yards. The one thing I really would’ve liked to be added to the rule is an automatic disqualification. But again, coaches don’t want us throwing kids out of a game so maybe we won’t add that to the penalty but I believe it should be a part of the penalty.
But for my dime the biggest change I’ve seen in many years is the addition to the use of replay. But there are some limitations and of course the big one is that for right now the Federation is allowing each state to come up with their own system which for right now will only be used for playoff games. So, replay is coming to your local Friday night post season games. Everybody stayed tuned because the HOW, WHEN and WHY is to be determined at a later date. And you can bet those schools with the resources (MONEY) will be happy to take on the extra expenses needed for replay to be a part of all their playoff games.
I’ll be the first to say this is not what high school sports should be about. There’s too much pressure put on kids today and this replay rule is one that should never have seen the light of day. Each and every year we see, hear and read about the continued escalation of assaults on game officials. It’s a big problem and getting bigger every year. I feel at the end of the day it’ll drive more and more officials like me to call it quits and walk away from something we love and take much pride in doing.
In January of this year Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh suggested adding an official “IN THE BOOTH” that would be able to overturn an on-field official’s call after reviewing CERTAIN CALLS! He went further saying “We got all this technology and the fans actually have a better view of the game from an officiating standpoint that the officials do. So these clear and obvious mistakes that are inevitably going to be made, it’s not just one play in a championship game, it happens every single week okay, because the job is so tough, it moves so fast and the angles aren’t great”.
Let me translate that whole idea of his, he’s saying the on field officials should be replaced by a crew of tech guys in the booth going over every step made by every player to find and administer a call but only when it matters! So, why not replace coaches with 19 year old nerds that keep their noses in X-Box games all year and can out guess on field coaches on every play called.
Think of the money the NFL will save by not having but one or two coaches per team to pay. The next step is getting rid of human players and replacing them with robots made in China! That would solve all the problems we have now with human players. Before you say I’ve lost it just think it wasn’t many years ago that we all dreamed of landing a man on the moon but we did.
I’ll be the first to admit we make mistakes in every game because I have made my share of them. But those of us that take pride in doing the best job we can learn from those mistakes. When I was told that I needed to work on getting better it floored me. Simply because I was the very person saying that I needed more snaps, more time on the field to LEARN. But the guy who made the assignments kept putting me in the press box to turn the clock on and off. I felt after more than 25 years doing this job I knew how to run a clock. That’s what separates us “old” guys from the newbees.
We were taught that you NEVER walk off a football field without learning at least one thing every game. If you didn’t learn something that night, it was time to retire. If officials continue being the scape goats and get blamed for everything that’s wrong with today’s game there won’t be any of us left. And maybe that’s where people like Harbaugh want to take the game. Be careful coach, when we’re gone coaches won’t be far behind!
Till next week…
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