This game was lost before anybody took the field

[PhredPhantom]

When Lemonis decided to start McLeod.

I’m not a coach. I’m not a chef, either, but I don’t have to eat a whole pie to know when it tastes like crap.

I almost would like to hear from Lemonis: 1) why he decided to start McLeod given his crappy performances in his last 5 or so starts, and 2) why did he leave him in after *everybody else in the stadium* (including McLeod) except Lemonis could see it after the first 2 batters. But if Lemonis were to talk about that (he won’t) it would just be coach-speak.

All that said, we still have a chance to win this thing assuming Lemonis doesn’t decide to give McLeod another chance - which would not be out of the realm of possibility. I know Lemonis is supposed to be a good coach but McLeod must have pictures of him in a compromising situation or something.***

 

[bulldognation]

Easy fella... we had some folks here wondering if Cerantola was somehow available to pitch.

 

[GloryDawg]

Sims was a starter that lost it. Moved him to a closer and becomes the best in the Nation. They might want to try that with Mac.

 

[Dawg1979]

Nope. He’s had a bad few outings. He’s a young man that is struggling. I love what he’s done for this team this year.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

I think it was gifted to Vandy by the idiocy of the NCAA's "rules." Letting them roll in as the fresh team on night one was horseshit.

You want to take down the evil empire, you better be ready to lose some of your starfighters. Lemonis pitched the B team tonight in hopes of winning the next two.

This series starts tomorrow when we either take on a short rested Rocker or a Jabroni.

 

[anon1787432961]

Trying to remember when a starting pitcher has had a week's rest coming into the finals.

Can't recall

 

[MSUDC11]

I just want to know who exactly we should have started if not MacLeod. He obviously was very bad and his last three starts will probably tarnish the legacy of what was truthfully a good starting pitcher for the majority of his career. But with Bednar and Harding not available, who on earth do you trust to start in the national championship against Jack Leiter? I really would like to know.

MacLeod was always starting one of these games, you just had to hope he could find it one more night and replicate some of his better performances. He had a quality start as recently as the Regional against VCU, so it wasn’t totally out of the question against a Vandy team that has not been great offensively. It just didn’t happen. But it’s not as if we had a ton of other options.

 

[Go Budaw]

Sims was a starter that lost it. Moved him to a closer and becomes the best in the Nation. They might want to try that with Mac.

MSU won’t be “trying” anything else with Macleod. He’s a Top 100 MLB prospect who likely pitched the last game of his Bulldog career tonight.

 

[MSUDC11]

Trying to remember when a starting pitcher has had a week's rest coming into the finals.

Can't recall

Actually happened in both 2018 (Blaine Knight of Arkansas) and 2019 (Tommy Henry of Michigan).

Ironically in both of those years, the team in question won Game 1 and then lost the next two games.

 

[paindonthurt_]

And anyone saying anything else is stupid

BUT we are gonna see a lot of stupid on this board.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

I hate singling out our players but Macleod was absolutely scared out of his mind tonight from the moment he stepped on the mound. You could see it in his eyes.

I’ve never seen a line before where one team scored 8 runs on just four hits while the other team played clean defense.

 

[Seinfeld]

The point in time that I feel like I’ll always go back to is not bringing Sims in during the 9th of the Friday Texas matchup. We didn’t have the lead, and there would’ve obviously been a chance that we still lose the game while burning Sims in the process.

However, to me that was a gamble that Lemonis had to take. By not using him, we lost the game, burned our only reliable starter, and now have Sims on one less day of rest. The goal at the time was simply to get to the championship series, I get it… but I feel like our chances to win this thing went from 50/50 to 25/75 the minute we put ourselves in a spot of having to use Bednar and Sims on Saturday. We should’ve tried to win it on Friday

 

[NWADawg]

I just want to know who exactly we should have started if not MacLeod. He obviously was very bad and his last three starts will probably tarnish the legacy of what was truthfully a good starting pitcher for the majority of his career. But with Bednar and Harding not available, who on earth do you trust to start in the national championship against Jack Leiter? I really would like to know.

MacLeod was always starting one of these games, you just had to hope he could find it one more night and replicate some of his better performances. He had a quality start as recently as the Regional against VCU, so it wasn’t totally out of the question against a Vandy team that has not been great offensively. It just didn’t happen. But it’s not as if we had a ton of other options.

I have no problem starting MacLeod. But, we should have had someone warm in the bullpen starting pitch 1. As soon as we saw he couldn't located the breaking ball, it should have been bullpen time. Mac's pitching seems like a binary switch with default off. If it's off, it stays off. If it's on, it's all the way on until it eventually switches all at once to default off. Once you see it's off, recognize it and find another switch.

 

[MSUDC11]

The point in time that I feel like I’ll always go back to is not bringing Sims in during the 9th of the Friday Texas matchup. We didn’t have the lead, and there would’ve obviously been a chance that we still lose the game while burning Sims in the process.

However, to me that was a gamble that Lemonis had to take. By not using him, we lost the game, burned our only reliable starter, and now have Sims on one less day of rest. The goal at the time was simply to get to the championship series, I get it… but I feel like our chances to win this thing went from 50/50 to 25/75 the minute we put ourselves in a spot of having to use Bednar and Sims on Saturday. We should’ve tried to win it on Friday

Having to burn Bednar on Saturday sucks now, but Sims should be just fine. He only threw 36 pitches on Saturday and now has had two days of rest. I would expect us to extend him if needed tonight.

 

[Go Budaw]

The point in time that I feel like I’ll always go back to is not bringing Sims in during the 9th of the Friday Texas matchup. We didn’t have the lead, and there would’ve obviously been a chance that we still lose the game while burning Sims in the process.

However, to me that was a gamble that Lemonis had to take. By not using him, we lost the game, burned our only reliable starter, and now have Sims on one less day of rest. The goal at the time was simply to get to the championship series, I get it… but I feel like our chances to win this thing went from 50/50 to 25/75 the minute we put ourselves in a spot of having to use Bednar and Sims on Saturday. We should’ve tried to win it on Friday

Bednar would have lost last night, too….as our usual offensive production in Omaha showed back up again. We also had no way to know that Vandy was going to waltz into the Finals without using Leiter when that decision was made. If it wasn’t raining, or if Vandy was officially already in the Finals, we might have made a different decision. But at the end of the day it seems to have worked out better to not waste our best pitcher in last night’s offensive effort.

 

[Oak23]

The point in time that I feel like I’ll always go back to is not bringing Sims in during the 9th of the Friday Texas matchup. We didn’t have the lead, and there would’ve obviously been a chance that we still lose the game while burning Sims in the process.

However, to me that was a gamble that Lemonis had to take. By not using him, we lost the game, burned our only reliable starter, and now have Sims on one less day of rest. The goal at the time was simply to get to the championship series, I get it… but I feel like our chances to win this thing went from 50/50 to 25/75 the minute we put ourselves in a spot of having to use Bednar and Sims on Saturday. We should’ve tried to win it on Friday

I wonder had the NCAA made an earlier decision on NC State, it would have made a difference in using Sims knowing that Vandy was automatically going to get another days rest. That NCAA decision has made an impact, affecting all games going forward. It immediately gave Vandy favor and set them up to win the championship. Baseball is unlike any sport where depth and rest matter in pitching more so than anything.

So any win for Vandy after that NCAA decision is in question as they have NOT earned it, I don’t care if they win the next game 20-0. They were gifted this series.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Don't have a big problem starting Mac. I do have a problem with not giving other guys a shot to start in his place end of season because he was horrible. Then, you leave him out there to die on the hill. That was as poor a job of coaching as you'll see.

 

[patdog]

Well, in hindsight, we could have gone with a bullpen game of Smith, Smith, Patrick, Hunt and Fristoe and we might have had a chance. And no, MacLeod really didn't have that great a game against VCU. He was struggling big time in that game. The VCU coach was right. They really did help him out a lot. He hasn't had a good start since the Bama series.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

If it's a confidence problem, warming up the replacement from pitch 1 would seemingly make it worse. Caveat: I know nothing about coaching baseball at any level.

 

[Dawgtruc]

Gene has shut his page down due to so many people bitchin' about last night's starting pitcher.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

Well, it was over due to that AND COVID, realistically, which set up the Macleod vs. Leiter matchup to begin with. And who knows how it works out best, because now we get a chance to go at them today and then tomorrow with Bednar vs Rocker, instead of Hootie vs. Rocker. There's a million scenarios, but at the end of the day we have to be able to beat them today or we do not deserve to win. If we win today and then lose tomorrow, we can talk about being cheated or whatever, but we still have to win today or we have nothing to complain about.

 

[Seinfeld]

And even more frustrating is that even ESPN pointed out before the game that you will know early whether Macleod has it or not, and it was clear to me from the get go that he didn’t.

As you said, he looked terrified, he hung his first slider to Bradfield that he luckily fouled off, and then ump didn’t give him strikes on two different occasions that Leiter no doubt would’ve gotten. As soon as I saw that blue wasn’t giving him those, it was time to pull him. Whatever the case, beating a fully rested Leiter was going to be a tall task no matter who we put on the mound, so who knows… maybe it was good to just get that mess out of the way last night. I just hate that a pitcher who has been so dominant for us in years past has regressed to this point. It’s sad really

 

[missouridawg]

Sims was a starter that lost it. Moved him to a closer and becomes the best in the Nation. They might want to try that with Mac.

Which games did Landon Sims ever start for us?

 

[ChinaDogSunflower]

I'm also not a coach. But if a dude has been on a bad streak, you don't give him a shot at redemption in the biggest game. Go with the hot hand. Follow the vibes

 

[ShrubDog]

I just want to know who exactly we should have started if not MacLeod. He obviously was very bad and his last three starts will probably tarnish the legacy of what was truthfully a good starting pitcher for the majority of his career. But with Bednar and Harding not available, who on earth do you trust to start in the national championship against Jack Leiter? I really would like to know.

MacLeod was always starting one of these games, you just had to hope he could find it one more night and replicate some of his better performances. He had a quality start as recently as the Regional against VCU, so it wasn’t totally out of the question against a Vandy team that has not been great offensively. It just didn’t happen. But it’s not as if we had a ton of other options.

We had several guys who could start giving us 2-3 innings and piece it together, and not give 5 free base passes. It would have been a good move starting Brandon Smith. All we needed was not to hit and walk people. It’s not hard folks. And it shouldn’t be hard to pull Mac after the first two guys got on base. Besides the location of the pitches, Mac looked off. Everyone has a bad stretch but Lemonis let his emotions dictate his decisions. Maybe this is the time he can turn it around shouldn’t be in his thought process at this point. I appreciate what Mac has done and hate it for him but he was put in a bad spot with history on repeat.

 

[maroonmania]

Nope. He’s had a bad few outings. He’s a young man that is struggling. I love what he’s done for this team this year.

He has never pitched on a team whose season went this long. He hasn't pitched a full season since HS which even there is much shorter. Everything seemed to fall apart for him around SEC tourney time. I'm thinking he has arm weariness, maybe not to where he has lost a bunch of velocity but its pretty obvious he can't locate anymore. He has no idea where his curve ball is going but even his fastball is not really hitting the spots where he wants it anymore.

 

[Go Budaw]

I'm also not a coach. But if a dude has been on a bad streak, you don't give him a shot at redemption in the biggest game. Go with the hot hand. Follow the vibes

Which “hot hand” would you have gone with? Will Bednar on 2 days rest, or Landon Sims? There are no other options.

 

[kired]

So start Brandon Smith like we did in the SECT vs. Florida?

Mac had an ERA between 2.50 - 3.50 all year. He wasn't a dominate starter for us, but he's been solid. Then he imploded over the last 5 games. He's given up more runs in 5 games than he did in 13 or 14 previous starts. No one could have seen that coming 5 weeks ago. If it happened 2 months ago, maybe you have time to figure out another plan. But our path to Omaha would've been completely different if Mac can't get out of the first inning and causes us to lose some close games in April / early May.

We're already on plan B by moving Harding to replace Fristoe after he saved our asses vs. Bama and Campbell (you could probably make the argument those two should have been switched earlier in the season). At this point replacing Mac with something else would be plan C and would likely be just as bad of a disaster.

We need Harding, Johnson, Bednar, and Sims to carry us over these last two games. I just don't think we can win the CWS championship by piecing it together with 10 different pitchers.

 

[MSUDC11]

We had several guys who could start giving us 2-3 innings and piece it together, and not give 5 free base passes. It would have been a good move starting Brandon Smith. All we needed was not to hit and walk people. It’s not hard folks. And it shouldn’t be hard to pull Mac after the first two guys got on base. Besides the location of the pitches, Mac looked off. Everyone has a bad stretch but Lemonis let his emotions dictate his decisions. Maybe this is the time he can turn it around shouldn’t be in his thought process at this point. I appreciate what Mac has done and hate it for him but he was put in a bad spot with history on repeat.

Who are these “several guys”? You going to throw a freshman like Smith or Fristoe who have been equally wild out there? I realize they were good last night but starting the game and coming in with a six run deficit are two entirely different things. Brandon Smith got hit like batting practice the last time he started a game.

Starting MacLeod was the most logical choice before the game. Perhaps a gamble given his recent outings, but anyone would’ve been a gamble and resulted in us starting someone with very little experience. At least MacLeod does have a track record of having several good starts under his belt so you hoped maybe he had one more in him.

This whole narrative of “Lemonis has a love affair with MacLeod” is dumb. Guys he’s one of 2-3 guys who has been able to give us anything as a starting pitcher this year. And the other guys weren’t available.

 

[Ranchdawg]

He was a first round pick at one time. He has pitched his way out of that. He would be better off staying for another season to get his draft position up.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

^^THIS^^^