All Things Gopher Baseball

Got a lot of guys an AB tonight, 4 homeruns I think, Liffrig was really solid on the mound and DeLuga finished it off. Neither pitcher allowed a walk, no errors, and a couple nice defensive plays. Now to find a way to play that way with some consistency.
 

Liffrig tonight and Holetz tomorrow. Really hoping the boys can bounce back and right the ship. I won't be able to make it out to the games until this weekend.

I must say I don't care about the Tommies at all but of all the sports I'm glad that they are D1 in baseball. Gives the youths in our state more options to play at beyond high school. So good luck Tommies....except when you play the Gophers.
Gives the Gophers another D1 team for midweek games which was severely lacking in the area. Would be nice if Augustana eventually actually goes D1 as well to add another midweek team and Augie is actually a perennial good D2 program.
 

Gives the Gophers another D1 team for midweek games which was severely lacking in the area. Would be nice if Augustana eventually actually goes D1 as well to add another midweek team and Augie is actually a perennial good D2 program.

Can Minnesota St. go D1? Also solid D2 program yearly.
 


Bad loss tonight 7-5. Holetz was awful giving up a 5 spot in the 1st, all over the place hitting like 3 guys and then giving up a 3 run bomb as well. Gophers just never got the key hit to make it all the way back from that deficit.
 





Played pretty well but a 5-4 loss tonight to a good West Virginia team. Couple defensive miscues and not being able to execute situationally a couple times are small things but the small things decide games against good teams. The big missed opportunity was bases loaded 1 out and Jack Kelly popped up to 1st base with a 2-1 count. Absolute killer to not get any runs in that situation.
 



Gophers beat Kansas 8-1. JP Massey with another really solid outing getting the win. Jack Kelly with a nice day at the plate with a double and homerun. Lot of hard hit balls tonight off the Gopher bats.
 

Starting pitching has been pretty good 3 of the last 4 games. Hope it continues. Better relief pitching last night and Ireland gets another win. Nice if we can win 2 of 3 this weekend.
 

Nice to see Massey with 2 good starts in a row. Young Seth Clausen is coming on also. Win today would be huge.
 

Starting pitching has been pretty good 3 of the last 4 games. Hope it continues. Better relief pitching last night and Ireland gets another win. Nice if we can win 2 of 3 this weekend.
Or add on a few more runs when you had the opportunities like the bases loaded and 1 out situation they failed to score on Friday. Error to start the 2 run 7th I think it was to tie it for WVU as well.
 




Pretty solid pitching again but offense really couldn't do anything. Klassen, Maldonado, Liffrig, and Semb did a solid job holding a pretty potent offense to just 3 runs. Think they only had the 1 hit from Chase Stanke on the solo homer in the 7th. With the way the Gophers played for most of the 27 innings this weekend they probably deserved a better result than 1-2 but nonetheless there were definitely some positives to build on.
 

I feel a lot better after this weekend than I did last weekend. The goal for this season should be the Big Ten tournament. If they keep pitching like this weekend that should be doable.
 

Yep, pitching was much better overall. Good trend.
 

Pretty weak effort at the plate tonight. Very few hard hit balls and just a lot of bad easy ABs against a pitcher who had really struggled in his first two outings. Schoeberl again gets hurt by a little bit of control issue walking back to back guys with 2 outs to load the bases and then a ball right down the 3rd base line gives NDSU the early 3-0 lead and the Gophers play from behind all night. Pretty decent job by the bullpen arms in the final 7.1 innings. NDSU had one guy drive in all 5 with the bases clearing double and 2 solo homers.
 
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Pretty weak effort at the plate tonight. Very few hard hit balls and just a lot of bad easy ABs against a pitcher who had really struggled in his first two outings. Schoeberl again gets hurt but a little bit of control issue walking back to back guys with 2 outs to load the bases and then a ball right down the 3rd base line gives NDSU the early 3-0 lead and the Gophers play from behind all night. Pretty decent job by the bullpen arms in the final 7.1 innings. NDSU had one guy drive in all 5 with the bases clearing double and 2 solo homers.

Well that’s not impressive.
 

One bad inning does this team in again. Gophers built a 5-0 lead over the first 5 innings. Air Force gets 1 in the 6th and then a 5 run 7th where it felt like the coaching staff was late to pull the relief pitcher and that isn't the first time that has happened this season. Additionally 4 of those 5 runs came with 2 outs and 2 of the key hits with 2 strike counts. Air Force added a couple insurance runs in the 8th and it was needed as the Gophers struck for 2 in the bottom of the inning but were unable to generate anything in the 9th. Bottom line you have to start finishing games and getting the results. Just playing better doesn't matter if you still find a way to lose the game. 8 games before you open B1G play and all against similar struggling teams you have to start to build some momentum and get some wins with the goal of getting close to .500 before conference play.
 


Back to the nightmare again today. Have to be questioning McDevitt methods and coaching decisions pretty soon, given the last 1 1/2 years.
 


Right now you have to question pretty much everything within the entire program. Just absolutely embarrassing and unacceptable.
Really was thinking they were starting to turn a corner with the way they played last weekend as despite the couple losses they were playing well but then you have a terrible offensive game against NDSU with a lot of throw away at bats, another collapse last night, and an absolute abysmal showing today.
 

Seriously what the holy hell is going on with the direction of gopher baseball. Gonna have to really 2nd guess the header of this program.
 

I really thought the pitching would at least be improved this year, but the team ERA is 7.33 right now and the results are looking a lot like last year.
 

Back to the nightmare again today. Have to be questioning McDevitt methods and coaching decisions pretty soon, given the last 1 1/2 years.
I understand that with fans frustration always leads to the people collecting the paychecks - meaning the coaches. And it should… because the proverbial buck stops there.

But I am going to make a controversial take on our team this one time (paragraph)… maybe our players just have to be a helluva lot better. They are Gopher baseball players for crissakes, heirs to a proud tradition, and they are playing terribly.

Now back to the less controversial statement… something has to change relating to pitching coaches. Obviously, in baseball if a team’s pitching stinks that team can’t win; simple as that.
 

Agree players have to play better but is that not recruiting good enough players or is it development. I have a hard time believing 14 has forgot how to teach, which leads me to believe our recruiting has fallen back. Pitching coach is a whole other issue.
 

Agree players have to play better but is that not recruiting good enough players or is it development. I have a hard time believing 14 has forgot how to teach, which leads me to believe our recruiting has fallen back. Pitching coach is a whole other issue.
I follow recruiting pretty closely and honestly we are recruiting at a better level than we have previously. These last few classes are some of the most talented I can remember.
 





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