1) Is there any reason to have hope? Or does our regional streak end now?
2) If Corbin decides to hang it up after this season, who is number 1 on speed dial? Who would you expect to take over next year?
I know this question was asked before we beat Louisville, but the reason for hope is that Louisville game. If Devin Futrell can pitch like he did on Tuesday, Vastine and Diaz can play gold glove defense that continually had me saying, “Fuck yes,” and the offense can scrape together even a small handful of runs, we can be what I thought we would be at the beginning of the year—a top 15 type team that rides pitching and defense as far as they can in the postseason. If, on the other hand, we play this weekend against The Chuggers in the same listless, passive, pathetic way we did in Athens, go ahead and give up.
As for Corbs, I have no reason to believe he will hang it up, nor do I wish for him to ever do so. Fire Mike Baxter to bring life back into recruiting, scouting, and the offense? ABSOLUTELY. Corbs? Never leave. Never. Also, he looks to have the same or more energy than I do, and he’s got multiple decades on me.
Playing along with the thought experiment, though, Vanderbilt’s answer would be Scott Brown. It just would. What they should do, instead, though, is back up the Brinks Truck and get Erik Bakich of Clemson (previously HC of Maryland, then Michigan, and in the Mike Baxter role at Vanderbilt prior to that, when Corbs brought him from the Clemson coaching tree to join his first staff in 2003). He’s just really really really good at this whole coaching baseball thing, especially getting the most out of less-heralded players. A sneaky perfect fit might also be Caleb Cotham, who is currently the top pitching coach in all of baseball given what he has done with the Phillies.
College baseball is a rough sport, and we’ve taken for granted that we’re going to get into the post-season and win; however, something just doesn’t feel right, and it hasn’t felt right for the last few years. We got a national seed last year, but that team never felt like one of the top-8 teams in the nation (benefitted massively from the front-loaded cream-puff SEC slate). Most of us saw the Chuggers and Jorts take us to the woodshed in the second half of SEC-play. If not for a PH miracle from Troy against Arky to turn around that miserable series, we might have missed out on hosting completely.
I get that we’ve had injuries. Hell, we’ve had more injuries to our high-end pitchers than just about any staff in America (which begs some questions), and before this year, I was convinced that Baxter was the biggest issue; however, with the clown show we’ve put on defensively and on the mound this year, can you put your finger on what’s wrong with the program?
I do agree something doesn’t feel right. I would very much like Corbs to lessen his loyalty a bit and find a better hitting coach/recruiting coordinator than Astronaut Mike Baxter. That and I think we need to get back to scouting the Northeast for underrated players we can bring the most out of (JJ Bleday types, I mean), more thumpers (Pedro Alvarez is the Platonic ideal here), and unearthing more lesser recruited gems like Austin Martin, and finding more intense as hell leaders like Carson Fulmer and Dansby Swanson. More than anything, we need stars. This team has a lot of nice players, but the only ones that can even potentially become stars are the freshmen—McElvain, Kozeal, and Holcomb.
If those stars also have the type of mad-dog intensity in them like Gray, Price, Fulmer, Swanson, et al, all the better.
Please let me hold out hope it has just been a tough academic year, and that now that finals are over that this UGA series was an aberration and not indicative of future results. Please and thank you.
The Louisville game is a ray of hope. It needs to lead into a good home series against The Chuggers, though, or it means nothing.
After Candice utterly destroys baseball, how long will it be until she goes after Men’s Tennis and Golf? Is it merely a coincidence that the VandyBoys’ decline has coincided with her ascendance?
“Destroys” may be too tough of a word here. “Destroys” would have meant firing Corbs and hiring, I don’t know, the Jerry Stackhouse of college baseball. Like, whomever ruined Rice Baseball. Or whomever ruined USC or Arizona State.
That said, other than women’s basketball, I do not think she has done a good job in her tenure. The Goldfather, she is not.
Most of us have been rightfully concerned with our hitting, but recently, our pitching has not been very good. What pitcher(s) if any do you feel can step it up and deliver us the chance at a few must needed victories in these last couple of weeks?
Futrell and McElvain. Getting both back to full health is the key to having enough depth to do anything for the next few weeks.
I spent $100 in tickets, fees, gas, and food for a family fun night last Friday in Athens.
Can Corbs send me a refund?
Should I in fact be paid to go to said game around noxious Dawg fans?
He could, certainly. As could ADCSL. Go ahead and reach out to them and see what happens.
We’re going to get lit up by THEM, aren’t we? A ten game losing streak to the chuggers sounds just terrible
Here’s where I draw the line. I refuse to live in a world where we look at a Vanderbilt home series against The Chuggers with the same level of dread as a Vanderbilt home feetball game against The Chuggers. Fuuuuuuck that. Tony Vitello is human garbage. This is not in Neyland’s Little League Park. We fight and we can take the series.
Has Clark Lea gone coaching talent vampire on his friend/mentor Tim Corbin?
Well, Corbs did invite him in…
…but no. Lea is currently feeding on the blood of Jerry Kill and the entire New Mexico State Football program. That should be enough to sustain him through the winter.
It would appear that the baseball gods are angry with y’all. How soon do you intend to revive the All World All Time Best Song competition? Clearly, it’s what Jobu wants.
Once our season ends, it returns. That is a promise.
You gonna watch women’s tennis with me next weekend?
No.
