The 2009 College Baseball Season

[Tigercat]

Alright Huck, it's on now!

[cartman]

Holy crap! No offense for 8 1/3 innings, then get two homers in the bottom of the 9th! The Horns have had a ton of great games this post season.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Alright Huck, it's on now!

God I hate saying this but go tigers

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

God I hate saying this but geaux tigers

Come on, fight back the gag and go all out tacky-cajun!

There is one thing that really scares me about Texas, Austin Wood. Watching him pitch he is exactly the kind of lefty that can really handcuff LSU. I would assume Augie will know LSU's tendencies and will start him one game. Still, if Coleman and Ranaudo have their usual stuff it will be hard to bet against LSU on the days they start.

[MJ4H]

I will never do the eaux thing. Never.

[cartman]

Wait, which team practices gorilla ball? Three solo shots (so far) in the 4th for Texas.

[Tigercat]

Texas has earned having a lead, better starting pitching and better job at hitting, but the ump behind the plate has really screwed LSU over. His strike zone between the two starters early was horribly inconsistent, and that "wild pitch" hit the Texas batter square in back.

[Tigercat]

Coleman just didn't have his good stuff in the CWS, think he pitched too much during the season. What a gutsy year for him, too bad he couldn't end on a better note.

[cartman]

I really hope these teams play three games. This is some entertaining baseball!

[Tigercat]

I don't know if I could take two more games like THIS. Workman has some serious gas, hope for my sake that one of our big bats here can get solid metal on one.

[cartman]

LSU gets the clutch hit in the 11th, and keeps the Horns from scoring the bottom of the inning to take Game 1, 7-6.

[Tigercat]

LSU had the weaker starting pitcher and the stronger bullpen tonight, while hitting quite a few less HRs than Texas. Never would have guessed any of that going into tonight, but that's baseball.

[cartman]

Texas bounces back nicely from the disappointing loss last night to beat LSU 5-1. Tomorrow night is the winner takes all game!

[Tigercat]

One of those games where you just tip your cap to the opposing pitcher, he mixed pitches very well, and when he missed bad out of the zone he would paint the ump's zone perfectly with the next pitch.

I like our chances with big Anthony pitching the final game, but nothing feels close to safe with Texas hitting with that kind of confidence right now.

[Tigercat]

Good start for LSU, 3-0 in the 2nd. Need Ranaudo to keep the ball low for 6 more innings to hold on to the lead.

But for the third straight game the umpires are giving Texas a much better low part of the strikezone than LSU. Hopefully, like the other two games, that won't affect the outcome.

[Tigercat]

LSU up 9-4 in the 8th and threatening to pull away more.

Regardless of what happens the rest of the way, I have much legit respect for Texas. In my 20 or so years of watching college baseball, this Texas team is the best fundamentally coached team I have ever seen. By a decent margin. Amazingly disciplined hitters and pitchers that have a real understanding of the game.

[cartman]

Congrats to LSU. Texas finally gave up the big inning to LSU, and were not able to get their own big inning early on when they had the bases loaded twice. What might have been if LSU didn't get that two out double in the 9th of Game 1.

[MJ4H]

congrats LSU.

[JonInMiddleGA]

LSU earned it and deserves it.

[Huckleberry]

Wow, completely different take here. Texas played terribly in the field the entire CWS. It was as night and day from the rest of the year as the home runs were. LSU definitely deserves the title because they outplayed Texas, but Texas didn't make LSU play their best in order to win due to their own subpar performance in the field.

Congratulations to LSU, for sure, though.

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Texas played terribly in the field the entire CWS. It was as night and day from the rest of the year as the home runs were. LSU definitely deserves the title because they outplayed Texas, but Texas didn't make LSU play their best in order to win due to their own subpar performance in the field.

What errors really cost Texas? I think the superhuman efforts at the plate far and away canceled out any bad fielding. How many good pitches did Texas foul off at the plate? Almost anytime a LSU pitcher made a bad pitch, and a few times they didn't, Texas jacked it.

Again, I have been watching CWS action since the late 80s, even when LSU wasn't there, and I have never seen a more disciplined group of hitters and pitchers.

If anyone/anything "gave away the series" it was the managerial decision to overplay the bullpen and make too many defensive subs in the first game. If Texas didn't play a good series against LSU, I have never seen a good team against a LSU championship team in Omaha.

[MJ4H]

I thought Texas played WAY better than I thought they would, and way better than I had seen them play in the NCAA Tournament up to this point.

[ShaneTheMaster]

Geaux Tigers!

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

What errors really cost Texas? I think the superhuman efforts at the plate far and away canceled out any bad fielding. How many good pitches did Texas foul off at the plate? Almost anytime a LSU pitcher made a bad pitch, and a few times they didn't, Texas jacked it.

Again, I have been watching CWS action since the late 80s, even when LSU wasn't there, and I have never seen a more disciplined group of hitters and pitchers.

If anyone/anything "gave away the series" it was the managerial decision to overplay the bullpen and make too many defensive subs in the first game. If Texas didn't play a good series against LSU, I have never seen a good team against a LSU championship team in Omaha.

Well, a passed ball and an error set up the 5-run inning last night to name two.

I'm not saying Texas played badly overall. But they didn't play close to their best within the defensive half of the game. Jungmann rescued terrible fielding the previous night, for example. It's just a little disappointing. I'm certainly not saying that Texas would have won if they had played to their standard in the field, it just was frustrating to watch.

And if you expected Texas to play worse than that then you simply didn't know how good Texas was, to be honest. Offensively, okay, I'll grant you that. But that was far from the standard Texas set defensively this year. Not just in the field, but pitching as well (other than Jungmann on Tuesday night). Lots of control issues that didn't exist previously, although these plagued LSU some as well. I don't think either team played their best overall, to be honest. There were some exciting games but I don't think they were that well-played by both teams. I think when Texas got swept by Fullerton in 2004 it was a much better example of both teams playing well. And Fullerton threw in some pitching performances of a lifetime to finish Texas off.

edit - By the way, this isn't meant to take anything away from LSU's championship. For example, Texas won a very sloppy championship game against South Carolina in 2002. Didn't bother me a bit then and doesn't now. A national title is a national title.