I have taken a little bit too much time away from writing, but am back. For starters, I love baseball and played throughout college, but I’m not going to act like I know everything about Louisville baseball. Call me a casual, but I’m part of the group that will be fully engaged mostly due to the MLB lockout. For everyone else like me, we will learn more about the players together this year and I’ll lean heavily on those that follow closely like Matt McGavic and Matt Sefcovic. I’ll write my thoughts occasionally throughout they year and below I’ll discuss my takeaways throughout the first part of the season to date.

                This team shits on the ball. The opponents that they have faced may have not been up to par, but I look back to watching a lot of the Dartmouth series and how the ball was coming off the bat. There wasn’t a guy on that club that wasn’t tattooing the ball. Yes, those pitchers weren’t all that great and were similar to some guys that I faced at lower level of competition, but it’s a good sign for things to come when most of those outs were balls squared up. Matt Sefcovic even reported that multiple guys had hits balls well over 100 MPH. Most see this number and don’t react much due to MLB numbers, but a lot of those pitchers for Darmouth were only throwing fastballs in the mid to upper 80s, so a lot of power was created from multiple players during that weekend. Cameron Masterman hit fiver over 100 MPH even, which is insane. The takeaway being is that this lineup could come together and be strength for this team.  Having Metzinger, Masterman, and Rushing together in the middle of the lineup will be fun to watch this year.

                Normally, pitching is ready to go before hitting due to being able to better prepare compared to hitters, but that didn’t seem to be the case for this team. Louisville has had to win multiple games in where they have scored 5 or more runs, which is not acceptable. These pitchers look to have the stuff to compete. Numbers seem to back this because most are averaging well over a strikeout over an inning and the eye test to me confirms this. I notice a lot of pitchers going for an approach I term “strikeout or bust” and throwing their stuff as nasty as they can without the command needed. A lot of balls left well over the plate and more walks happening than should be allowed. I’m sure this will be corrected over time. A lot of this team is young from what I understand, so this will take time. I ultimately think they need to show more consistency on pitching to be successful this year.

                Overall, Louisville is a great program with tons of talent. Louisville gets top talent and these guys will be good even if they are young. I tend to think pitching needs to be patched up before getting to ACC play. I was a position player so I love breaking down hitters, but Louisville’s pitching staff is something I will try to get more familiar with. Three dollar beer night is tonight against Akron and I’ll be out there. Let’s get weird.

-degenerateCARD