**USC vs. Florida GAME #3 Thread**

[ReadR00ster]

Well. At least A Game of Thrones comes on tonight.

[eaglegolf018]

When your offense struggles to score runs like ours does, and you play good teams, there's always a chance that what happened today can always happen. Same type of losses could've happened against Tennessee twice, Ole Miss twice, and Clemson. Very lucky that this weekend was the 1st time it's happened. Some things need to change. Some guys besides Martin, Greiner, Bright, and Pankake need to step up because it's those 4 guys and nobody else right now. It better change or by the time regionals roll around we may be going on the road and might not make it past that weekend. It's tough to watch. Auburn's staff is tough too. At some point the excuse of "Well they've got a good staff" needs to stop.

[ReadR00ster]

Originally Posted by ktguen

This one will sting for a while.

It was going to be one of those games that we were going to feel really awesome or really sucky after it.

[eaglegolf018]

The reason I love Holbrook and hate Fredi Gonzalez is Chad knows when he's made a mistake managing and will have it fixed. Fredi makes the same dumb mistakes over and over and over

[cockyC]

Originally Posted by eaglegolf018

When your offense struggles to score runs like ours does, and you play good teams, there's always a chance that what happened today can always happen. Same type of losses could've happened against Tennessee twice, Ole Miss twice, and Clemson. Very lucky that this weekend was the 1st time it's happened. Some things need to change. Some guys besides Martin, Greiner, Bright, and Pankake need to step up because it's those 4 guys and nobody else right now. It better change or by the time regionals roll around we may be going on the road and might not make it past that weekend. It's tough to watch. Auburn's staff is tough too. At some point the excuse of "Well they've got a good staff" needs to stop.

Absolutely, struggling to get back to back hits or more is going to kill you we cant have 2-3 guys we depend on to score runs. Perfect example was the 8th, lead off homer and the core off our order gets nothing

[rosstheboss]

Originally Posted by eaglegolf018

The reason I love Holbrook and hate Fredi Gonzalez is Chad knows when he's made a mistake managing and will have it fixed. Fredi makes the same dumb mistakes over and over and over

well he says the right things but have we honestly seen improvement in the areas we know are problems and from players we know are struggling? I can't say that I have. It's still just 3 guys carrying the offense, 3 starters, and 2 guys in the pen. I don't know what happens behind closed doors obviously but I don't know if Holbrook has the famous ass-chewings, and accountability speeches Ray Tanner used to have to get his team fired up and back on track. I hope he does, and we will see, but at this point in the season we seem to be regressing

[cockyC]

Originally Posted by rosstheboss

well he says the right things but have we honestly seen improvement in the areas we know are problems and from players we know are struggling? I can't say that I have. It's still just 3 guys carrying the offense, 3 starters, and 2 guys in the pen. I don't know what happens behind closed doors obviously but I don't know if Holbrook has the famous ass-chewings, and accountability speeches Ray Tanner used to have to get his team fired up and back on track. I hope he does, and we will see, but at this point in the season we seem to be regressing

Either way right now we are a good team, not a great one. That may change in the next few weeks but who knows. All we know is there are about 20ish more games we need to win to get that national seed.

[usc1]

Gotta get our players healthy

[rosstheboss]

yep. 21 games left. 5 series and 6 midweek games. Gotta start by winning all the midweek games. That gets us to 34 wins. 2 out of 3 in the series gets us to 44 wins and a national seed. I really don't think we can lose another series.(our rpi is going to stay very high though which definitely helps in seeding)

[Wingman]

I've seen a lot of USC baseball over the past 30+ years. This weekend was the most unpleasant one that I can remember due primarily to the conduct of the UF coaches.

1) Innumerable visits to the mound to discuss the situation or to change pitchers (both catcher and coach).
2) Hitters stepping out of the box to get instructions over and over in one at bat.
3) Players going to the bullpen in between pitches with the ump's doing nothing about it.

It appeared to me that the coach wanted to micro-manage the each entire game which caused them to last WAY longer than they should have.

[ACPhilson]

We're a good team, but all those come from behind heroic wins late in ball games should have told everyone something.

[GamecockInHell]

Originally Posted by Wingman

I've seen a lot of USC baseball over the past 30+ years. This weekend was the most unpleasant one that I can remember due primarily to the conduct of the UF coaches.

1) Innumerable visits to the mound to discuss the situation or to change pitchers (both catcher and coach).
2) Hitters stepping out of the box to get instructions over and over in one at bat.
3) Players going to the bullpen in between pitches with the ump's doing nothing about it.

It appeared to me that the coach wanted to micro-manage the each entire game which caused them to last WAY longer than they should have.

I agree about O'Sullivan. But I think it was an intentional ploy to kill momentum every time we might have gotten any.

[usc1]

Originally Posted by GamecockInHell

I agree about O'Sullivan. But I think it was an intentional ploy to kill momentum every time we might have gotten any.

It absolutely was. His in-game antics are the worse. Not sure why anyone would want to play for him.

[Coulwoodwarlord]

I'll finish up this thread by saying this. O'Sullivan is exactly what we think he is. Having said that, I watched for maybe the first time ever, a coach absolutely manipulate (within the rules) most of the goings on in yesterday and today's games. Been a long time since I witnessed such a complete dictation of pitching changes, lineup changes, strategy and stalling tatics.
I said last night in the Game 2 thread that it "felt" like we got out coached. It didn't feel that way today, but was along that same vein to be sure....
I'll say this, I love Chads cool demeanor, but you could hear the gears grinding in O'Sullivans head this weekend............literally. Timely hitting has eluded us in both games and that my friends is a whole other thread waiting to happen.
Like it or not, we got schooled this weekend. Sometimes those lessons elude us because we overcome them with late inning heroics, but not this time. We are a better team than the Florida Gators, we just didn't show it this weekend, and that in and of itself has enough blame to go around.

[GamecockStud]

Originally Posted by Coulwoodwarlord

I'll finish up this thread by saying this. O'Sullivan is exactly what we think he is. Having said that, I watched for maybe the first time ever, a coach absolutely manipulate (within the rules) most of the goings on in yesterday and today's games. Been a long time since I witnessed such a complete dictation of pitching changes, lineup changes, strategy and stalling tatics.
I said last night in the Game 2 thread that it "felt" like we got out coached. It didn't feel that way today, but was along that same vein to be sure....
I'll say this, I love Chads cool demeanor, but you could hear the gears grinding in O'Sullivans head this weekend............literally. Timely hitting has eluded us in both games and that my friends is a whole other thread waiting to happen.
Like it or not, we got schooled this weekend. Sometimes those lessons elude us because we overcome them with late inning heroics, but not this time. We are a better team than the Florida Gators, we just didn't show it this weekend, and that in and of itself has enough blame to go around.

Well said. I've never seen a school take advantage of the rules so much. I was irritated before when other schools kept calling time right before Monty was about to pitch, but O'S did some things I didn't even know were legal

[Coulwoodwarlord]

Glad to hear Chad in his post game alluding to who might should be on the field as opposed to who is. This game requires adjustments, there can be no challenge to that. Go Cocks !

[robgusc76]

Originally Posted by Wingman

I've seen a lot of USC baseball over the past 30+ years. This weekend was the most unpleasant one that I can remember due primarily to the conduct of the UF coaches.

1) Innumerable visits to the mound to discuss the situation or to change pitchers (both catcher and coach).
2) Hitters stepping out of the box to get instructions over and over in one at bat.
3) Players going to the bullpen in between pitches with the ump's doing nothing about it.

It appeared to me that the coach wanted to micro-manage the each entire game which caused them to last WAY longer than they should have.

Thats the umpires fault, he should have kept pace of the game, instead he let Florida take their time. Those kids took 10 seconds to step into a batters box. It was ridiculous, def. not the cause of the loss, but its hard to get into a groove with that going on.

[RoosterBooster]

Originally Posted by Wingman

I've seen a lot of USC baseball over the past 30+ years. This weekend was the most unpleasant one that I can remember due primarily to the conduct of the UF coaches.

1) Innumerable visits to the mound to discuss the situation or to change pitchers (both catcher and coach).
2) Hitters stepping out of the box to get instructions over and over in one at bat.
3) Players going to the bullpen in between pitches with the ump's doing nothing about it.

It appeared to me that the coach wanted to micro-manage the each entire game which caused them to last WAY longer than they should have.

It's called the Jack Leggett School of Shenanigans. Corbin isn't quite as bad as those 2, but still does a good bit of it.

[RoosterBooster]

Originally Posted by Coulwoodwarlord

I'll finish up this thread by saying this. O'Sullivan is exactly what we think he is. Having said that, I watched for maybe the first time ever, a coach absolutely manipulate (within the rules) most of the goings on in yesterday and today's games. Been a long time since I witnessed such a complete dictation of pitching changes, lineup changes, strategy and stalling tatics.
I said last night in the Game 2 thread that it "felt" like we got out coached. It didn't feel that way today, but was along that same vein to be sure....
I'll say this, I love Chads cool demeanor, but you could hear the gears grinding in O'Sullivans head this weekend............literally. Timely hitting has eluded us in both games and that my friends is a whole other thread waiting to happen.
Like it or not, we got schooled this weekend. Sometimes those lessons elude us because we overcome them with late inning heroics, but not this time. We are a better team than the Florida Gators, we just didn't show it this weekend, and that in and of itself has enough blame to go around.

That bush league crap isn't coaching. We lost because our avg with risp sucked. If you want to pull for a coach that pulls that kind of junk, go by an Orange Hat with the name of a city in Nebraska on the back. Remember, O'Sullivan and his mentor are 0-6 against the Gamecocks there.

[Latti]

Still have half the sec schedule left. Hopefully our boys know it's nut cuttin time. Put up or shut up. We will see where we go from here.