Baseball Drops the Opener

The Hoos dropped their season opener 5-3 to the Boston College Eagles today in a game that taught us a few things about the team already:

This kind of thing

Brandon Kline was a nonsurprising starter today but getting the call behind the plate was true freshman Nate Irving. This is the first time in a while that the Hoos have started a catcher that had not had meaningful experience behind the plate. While Irving is a talented stick at the plate, handling a college baseball rotation is something you really need to be eased into. Look at the transition from Franco Valdez to John Hicks. Hicks was a better catcher because he was allowed to have a year being the sunday catcher behind Franco. While that is not at all an indictment of Irving as a catcher it is something to note. Today Branden Kline gave up 4 runs, all but one unearned. An inning was allowed to continue because of a passed ball scored to Irving after a Kline strikeout. One batter later Spenser (what a douchy spelling) Payne blasted a 3 run homer. Kline was run after that. While I have no doubts in Irving's ability to handle the pitching staff, his mishandling behind the plate really hurt us today.

Welcome Back

A surprise starter for me at least was Stephen Bruno at 3rd hitting 3rd and Mike Papi in Right hitting 4th. Papi hitting fourth quite frankly stunned me, but it seemed to work out quite nicely today as he scored twice. It seems that Bruno is healthy and ready to go this season which is a great sign as he provides quite a bit of pop from the middle of the order. Other lineup surprises included Keith Werman getting the number 2 spot in the order (which I don't expect to last) and Reed Gragnani getting the nod in center, ahead of Mitchell Shifflett. It will be interesting to see how the lineup shakes out for the rest of the season but if I had to guess I would expect to see a shuffling for tomorrow's game. When it's all said and done ideally it will look like this:

1. Chris Taylor
2. Mike Papi
3. Stephen Bruno
4. Jared King
5. Reed Gragnani
6. Derek Fisher
7. Nate Irving
8. Colin Harrington
9. Keith Werman

This I feel will be a very formidable bunch. One last interesting thing to note was that at the end of the game Nick Howard pinch hit for Keith with 2 outs in the 9th. Obviously Keith is not known for his power but that is a pretty damning assessment of your hitting abilities if a true freshman bumps you out of the lineup in a big spot. While Keith is good at doing the little things it appears the coaching staff is still a little tenative with his overall offensive abilities.

The first pitcher out of the bullpen today was - you guessed it! - Kyle Crockett!! Confused? Me too. Especially because the kid looked damn good. 5 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, and 3 Ks. That to me says he is one of your better pitchers. That being said that has me pretty damn excited for what we must be rolling out on the mound in the rotation. Perhaps this is the season Scott Silverstein lives up to his bill. Should be interesting. But I would love to know what is going on with Crockett not being in the rotation, considering I thought he would be a lock.

The last thing that stood out to me was the absence of Mitchell Shifflett. Though he struggled in the Blue Orange World Series I thought he would get a shot to start out of the gate, though strong games from Gragnani, Papi, and Harrington say otherwise. I'm assuming he will see some time this weekend but maybe not. He has a ton of potential but if he can't get on base none of it gets realized.



Let's hope things get better tomorrow. Today wasn't bad, more frustrating than anything else. Hoos play tomorrow against Coastal Carolina.