S2E17 - LIVE JMU Recap and Coastal Preview
CB and Gary go live as the Monarchs wrap up a weekend sweep of the Dukes. ODU hosts a very tough Coastal Carolina team Thursday-Saturday at War Memorial to wrap the regular season.
Transcript
Yeah.
Speaker:What is up CB?
Speaker:Nothing but we're doing it.
Speaker:We'll do it live.
Speaker:We'll do it live.
Speaker:Yes, we are live right now.
Speaker:Uh, if you're listening a few days later, the, of course, the audio and the video
Speaker:recording will be out and available.
Speaker:Uh, but we're headed to the top of the eighth right now in the O-D-U-J-M-U game.
Speaker:ODU is up four to two.
Speaker:We, uh, we can't show the game.
Speaker:We are not even really supposed to talk that much about it, but
Speaker:we'll be creative here today.
Speaker:Only two more innings to go, and we've already won the series anyway.
Speaker:How, how do I as a, uh, as, as the person here share this and make sure
Speaker:people that are currently out there know?
Speaker:Do I need to go to the Monica's page and does it show, let's see.
Speaker:Does it show that we're live?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Anyone subscribe to us on YouTube?
Speaker:We'll, on YouTube Get an alert and Instagram live as well.
Speaker:So we are, it should be fully covered today.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I will, I'll share the link on the YouTube on, uh, the Facebook for the olds.
Speaker:Uh, yes.
Speaker:Maybe
Speaker:the Twitter, maybe the Twitter for the olds,
Speaker:whoever it is.
Speaker:I finally have an Instagram now and I was having fun with metal songs and
Speaker:pictures of our pictures this week.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Got a little weed eater today for Blake, and he's been pretty good.
Speaker:What, five and a third I think.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Two arms.
Speaker:I think it was five and two thirds, I think.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In the box here he was.
Speaker:He's pretty solid here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I had the box up a second ago myself somewhere and my mini things.
Speaker:So you did five and no, five and a third.
Speaker:You're right.
Speaker:And Kellen got to, and then Nick Sulpizio who's on a little, little
Speaker:streak here all of a sudden,
Speaker:I mean, he's, uh, he's looking all right, we're finally getting some
Speaker:arms to bounce back at the right time, which I think is pretty key.
Speaker:Uh, it's, it's kind of feels like it's all kind of coming together.
Speaker:Like we're playing baseball all of a sudden,
Speaker:hey, in a good time of year to start doing it.
Speaker:And I, I see that our links are working because there are Okay.
Speaker:People popping in here.
Speaker:We love that.
Speaker:So welcome everyone that has just joined us.
Speaker:Uh, we are watching the game live.
Speaker:We can't show it.
Speaker:Uh, but ODU is up four to two in the top of the eighth, already has the series
Speaker:in the bag, but I. Really helpful for us if we can win this last one, it
Speaker:gets to 15 wins with one series to go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well this, this weekend's gone pretty well as far as the, um, the other teams
Speaker:helping, not, not just ou doing their job, but other teams like we needed,
Speaker:uh, Georgia Southern to win two outta three against Texas State, so that
Speaker:way they didn't get too far ahead.
Speaker:And that's exactly how that worked.
Speaker:And some of the other ones worked out.
Speaker:It's just, it's been going well this weekend for what we needed to have happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If I knew that I just needed to tweet about what ODU baseball needs to Right.
Speaker:I started doing this a long time ago, but yeah, we've been doing that
Speaker:the first week of the season.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I tweet yesterday, it was, who do you need to root for ODU, obviously South
Speaker:Alabama to win to Troy and Texas State.
Speaker:We, we hit the whole parlay there, the whole thing cashed.
Speaker:Uh, so today it's really just, we need to win.
Speaker:There are some things that could help us, but uh, like app State losing
Speaker:would, I think officially put them out from getting in the top five or six.
Speaker:But they've lost 11 in a row now.
Speaker:They are in a tailspin at the moment,
Speaker:which is, you know, they're a good team.
Speaker:We saw 'em, they, they, they played us well and yeah, it's, it's crazy
Speaker:what can happen with these streaks.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I see Aaron Zelensky is there in the comments watching.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Twitter or X, whatever we're calling it these days.
Speaker:Nice little walk for Tahraun.
Speaker:Tahraun Hammond, after not playing for a few weeks.
Speaker:He's played this week.
Speaker:He's done really well.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, he's been, uh, he's been awesome.
Speaker:I think it's 'cause we had him on the show.
Speaker:He's had a great weekend.
Speaker:Yes it is.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:I,
Speaker:I was worried this thing would become a curse for whatever player joined, but
Speaker:that seems to no have the opposite effect
Speaker:this year.
Speaker:I mean, now that you, now that you've named it, it will be,
Speaker:there's a nice bunt for Evan.
Speaker:Oh, that's gonna be a hit for Evan.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Nice bunt
Speaker:for Evan.
Speaker:You're clearly ahead of me by a few seconds on the broadcast.
Speaker:Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:I hope I'm not, if I'm ruining it for anyone, I'm just gonna
Speaker:ruin it in the nice things.
Speaker:I I'll ruin the nice things.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Uh, Evan probably going for a, just a sacrifice bunt and, and got it
Speaker:right past the, uh, pitcher and into that no man's land triangle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Here's a nice review of it.
Speaker:Uh, beautiful.
Speaker:The first baseman kind of made the right move that turned out to be the wrong move.
Speaker:Oh, oh, oh.
Speaker:No one covering Beautiful.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, Luke Waters is someone we're gonna have to talk about a lot.
Speaker:Woo.
Speaker:'cause he has awoken this weekend.
Speaker:He was, what, five for five yesterday.
Speaker:Let off today's game with the hit, had the game winner on Friday night, driving
Speaker:in two runs and the 12th will put us up.
Speaker:Uh, three hits in that game.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He is one for three today.
Speaker:I mean, he is, yeah.
Speaker:Lemme see.
Speaker:I had, I was getting together our, you know, 'cause we like
Speaker:to get our numbers for guys.
Speaker:I've already made the graphic with Luke as the hitter of the week.
Speaker:'cause I mean, come on.
Speaker:Um, coming into the game, he was eight for 13.
Speaker:So, let's see.
Speaker:So now he'd be, uh, nine for 16 on the week with a double
Speaker:two Homers, uh, five rbis.
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Five r you know, four rbis, uh, three walks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, hell, hell of a week for Luke and the Yeah, when Plus had been talking
Speaker:about him and of course his dad, Roger Waters, who played football at JMU
Speaker:department for a while, uh, they've been kind of seeking him out on camera.
Speaker:I feel like every opportunity they get, he was
Speaker:wearing the, uh, the Bud Bomber shirt yesterday.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, he's always been a big supporter of us.
Speaker:Always a nice guy.
Speaker:Appreciate he's bought me.
Speaker:They're,
Speaker:we've got another, um, Delmar High School kid.
Speaker:I think he's a 26 grad that, you know, Roger coaches obviously up there is
Speaker:coming to ODU, uh, in another year.
Speaker:So we're, we're not gonna stop the train of the, uh, the great, um,
Speaker:kids from the, uh, Eastern shore.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If we can get some more like Luke, that would be awesome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, but man, just o overall this weekend, I mean, we were
Speaker:up against it a little bit.
Speaker:I felt like on Friday, anytime you go to extras, I feel like the advantage
Speaker:is always to the home team because they hit last and our bullpen did a
Speaker:tremendous job throughout that game.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:To keep it tied, keep us in it, and then ultimately hold on for
Speaker:12 innings to get us through that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Big day for bullpen.
Speaker:Ethan Hubble just getting better and better as the season goes on.
Speaker:I mean, he came up big.
Speaker:He, he had some, you know, in the midst of three score the settings, he
Speaker:had some pitches that looked terrible.
Speaker:You know, he, he had one pitch, I think it's one of the
Speaker:best pitches I've ever seen.
Speaker:He, it was that kind of, I dunno if it's a curve ball slider that came
Speaker:in and the, the right handed batter looked like his knees were shaking.
Speaker:He thought it was gonna hit him in his back, and it loops in there and it's,
Speaker:I mean, really, like, probably the best pitch Ethan's ever thrown in his life.
Speaker:And then immediately after, he probably tried to do the
Speaker:same thing, kind of overcooks.
Speaker:It throws it too far and it's way far down the way.
Speaker:So he had some, it might have been effectively wild, he had some really
Speaker:good pitches and in the midst of some bad pitches, but three scoreless when
Speaker:you needed, and you saw his emotion at the end of the game, which, you
Speaker:know, is, that's not something I, I, I've seen outta Ethan all year.
Speaker:So it was awesome to see him hype in a big moment.
Speaker:Yeah, that whole
Speaker:fellas right there on the screen.
Speaker:Look at us.
Speaker:Yeah, I, I forgot that I can add the comments to the screen, so Sure.
Speaker:If, if you're watching us on any of the social media platforms, feel free to
Speaker:drop us a question, topic to chat about.
Speaker:We just kind of wanted to hang out, and the reason we're having
Speaker:to do this on a Sunday is solely because of my dumb work travel.
Speaker:Uh, I have to fly tomorrow.
Speaker:We normally be recording.
Speaker:We've got a, a midweek game for now on Tuesday.
Speaker:Uh, so no real chance to, to record this any other way, but we wanted
Speaker:to try it live, see what happened.
Speaker:Um, yeah, it's, I. Just hold on, hold on.
Speaker:Another, another two innings here.
Speaker:We'll be in good shape.
Speaker:Yeah, we're, we're in it.
Speaker:Well we got, uh, runners first and second no outs.
Speaker:We got Jorge who's had a, had a nice week up.
Speaker:Uh, you know, he is, Jorge has had a great season.
Speaker:I mean, he is, the strikeout total is high.
Speaker:I know that's been, you know, some of the people love to complain all the time.
Speaker:That's been a complaint.
Speaker:It was easy, easy, easy one to target.
Speaker:Uh, 'cause he is got, you know, almost probably 60 strikeouts, but he's, he's
Speaker:been a, um, he's been a very good place.
Speaker:He is pretty much seconded.
Speaker:Like every stat, you know, he's, he's just good and, and put him
Speaker:in center field has been huge.
Speaker:'cause he's, he's definitely our best fielder.
Speaker:He covers a ton of ground in center field and looking at him, you
Speaker:wouldn't think he's a super fast guy, but he can move in that outfield.
Speaker:He gets a good read, good jump, and um, definitely on the all mustache team.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We got a few of those that that was a No, I noticed Alex was, he
Speaker:had mentioned the other day when we talked to him, he, he had the, uh,
Speaker:the rally fingers kind of going.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:And they have like the perfect camera angle there.
Speaker:They were just zoomed in.
Speaker:You could see his whole face.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, he, he pitched well.
Speaker:Uh, we're just getting a lot of guys in the bullpen stepping up in the big wave
Speaker:business ball.
Speaker:Ah, dang it.
Speaker:Dang.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Doubled off.
Speaker:Uh, so little looping ball the shortstop caught and got right
Speaker:back to second base for now.
Speaker:We got so double play.
Speaker:So now run our first two outs.
Speaker:That's, that's my fault for saying that.
Speaker:Teron was getting a boost from being on the podcast last week.
Speaker:He immediately gets Well, you know,
Speaker:I don't, that's not even his fault.
Speaker:The guy I don't think he can much, you can do, I mean, you look where his ball
Speaker:hit hits and he's just out his lead.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right there.
Speaker:They showed the replay.
Speaker:There's nothing you can do that's Yeah.
Speaker:You gotta freeze on a line drive.
Speaker:Yeah, he
Speaker:did.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:He's out by four or five feet.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:nice guy.
Speaker:Keep it going.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I I was a little surprised to Kellen Davis come into the game today.
Speaker:'cause I know he's pitched a good already this weekend, but he,
Speaker:you know, give the one sack fly.
Speaker:They got the, the inherited runner in, but other than that,
Speaker:he was looking pretty good.
Speaker:His stuff has gotten so filthy.
Speaker:Like it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I encourage anyone, uh, imagine Kellen be around next year, go stand behind
Speaker:home plate while he's pitching and you figure out what that pitch is.
Speaker:'cause no one else seems to be able to.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and, and, and now we, I know we talked about it, Kellen's
Speaker:such a great example of a kid that just showed up and worked.
Speaker:I mean, he came in, he was, um, I, I don't think he had a scholarship.
Speaker:I think it was like the, the preferred walk-on.
Speaker:Um, and he, he red shirt.
Speaker:And I know that first year it was kinda like, is this kid
Speaker:ever gonna get the pitch for us?
Speaker:Is this, you know, is there any future for him here?
Speaker:And he just kept working and working and working into where, you know, now he's,
Speaker:uh, uh, the last two years, one of the most important pieces of the bullpen.
Speaker:And he's a huge, uh, bench guy.
Speaker:Like he's, he's always right there cheering and he's, he is leading the
Speaker:nonsense, uh, as I like to say, which is what you need as a, as a bench.
Speaker:Um, and he, he's great for it.
Speaker:So it's, yeah, Kellen's just like, I mean, that's just a, a
Speaker:success story of college baseball.
Speaker:It's what you wanna see those guys that come in and you work your way from really
Speaker:not getting a chance to being a dude.
Speaker:He also might be the most in shape person I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker:If he, if he's got a body percentage, like a body fat percentage is under one,
Speaker:it's, it's probably negative.
Speaker:He probably gives fat away.
Speaker:He is, yeah.
Speaker:He was one his first year when he wasn't playing.
Speaker:His, his role was to go down and get the foul balls and he would always
Speaker:run back down the line and just do like a standing jump over the, like
Speaker:three foot brick wall that, you know, I would have to like climb over slowly
Speaker:to make sure I didn't break something.
Speaker:Uh, well, Alec, we're not allowed to live stream the game.
Speaker:I wish we could.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So, uh, if anyone asks No, we're, we're definitely not doing that or play
Speaker:by play or anything of that nature.
Speaker:I don't want the mouse showing up at my house.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Don't get me legally.
Speaker:Uh, although I would, it would be, I guess technically the
Speaker:Avengers would be suing me.
Speaker:Isn't that how that would, what we would call that?
Speaker:I wouldn't mind that on my record.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:and Luke Skywalker,
Speaker:those one sued by the Avengers, Luke Skywalker.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Had that frat, they're showing the frat alley out there in the left
Speaker:field, and there's no frat today.
Speaker:And the frat boys must be, uh, they're all at church on Sunday?
Speaker:Probably, I guess.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a, there's a puffer sitting out there though, so at least
Speaker:we're getting to see some of that.
Speaker:They've had pretty good crowds, I think up there in Harrison.
Speaker:They got very nice.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I have not been up there.
Speaker:My, my parents went to a game, uh, when they were playing the VA in
Speaker:the Valley League, um, the Turks.
Speaker:And, uh, they sort, you know, it's a nice place and you could tell it looks nice.
Speaker:And I know the guys mentioned a few times that it, they built it up in 2010.
Speaker:So it's, it's a good, I mean, JMU has good stuff, man.
Speaker:You know, it's, it's, uh, I'm glad we're beating them.
Speaker:It's, you know, between, uh, I know, I think we've mentioned what
Speaker:we said, football and basketball haven't beaten them since we've
Speaker:gotten back in the Sunbelt.
Speaker:Nope, sure haven't.
Speaker:Nope, sure haven't.
Speaker:So, you know, it, it's this rivalry that's in the big money sports, not a rivalry,
Speaker:but clearly here it is, you know, I mean, at least, well, I know the other way.
Speaker:Maybe it's not because, uh, ODU baseball keeps whipping up on 'em and
Speaker:then the tennis seems to dominate 'em.
Speaker:So maybe it's, it's a rivalry in the overall sense because like what we
Speaker:say, they'd be both be 11, 11 in the, um, row rivalry after this, if we win.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's, uh, ODS 10 and Jamie u has 11 right now, so I guess
Speaker:it would technically be a tie.
Speaker:I have no idea if they're tiebreakers.
Speaker:Uh, and I'll say for clarity, I didn't care when we lost that thing.
Speaker:I won't care if we tie it.
Speaker:And I also won't care if we, like, I just, I can't get into the force there.
Speaker:There's already enough of rivalry there.
Speaker:We don't need like a Yeah.
Speaker:Fake, fake thing attached to it.
Speaker:It's the, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to say, I guess to say you won the
Speaker:raw rivalry, but, you know, it's, I, I think at the end of the day, again,
Speaker:if you're not winning in the big money sports, then it's like, okay, cool.
Speaker:I mean, JMU can always say, well, yeah, but you can't beat
Speaker:us in football or basketball.
Speaker:It's like, all right, that's fair.
Speaker:It's always the excuse that Virginia gives when tech dunks on 'em for football.
Speaker:They're like, well, we've got swimming national titles.
Speaker:It's like, yeah, you do, and that's awesome.
Speaker:You should be, should be proud of that.
Speaker:But
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker:you know, I, we, we gotta do, do a little bit better, in my
Speaker:opinion, on, on those games.
Speaker:Well that's, you know, that's how it goes.
Speaker:Uh, it's not easy.
Speaker:It is, it is fascinating.
Speaker:Like, why.
Speaker:JMU is so much better than us in the basketball and football there,
Speaker:there's no real good reason for it.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:' cause they, I mean, they've had coaching changes.
Speaker:They've reloaded Yeah.
Speaker:They've done all those things like, you know, last year for football,
Speaker:there was no excuse for us not to win that game, but we just didn't
Speaker:really show up in the second half.
Speaker:And I don't, I don't wanna relive that.
Speaker:Oof.
Speaker:No, I have enjoyed the, and you mentioned, uh, yesterday the announcers in these
Speaker:games have been really, really good.
Speaker:The guy's done a great job and, and mentioning the, all the connections
Speaker:between the ODU, uh, and JMU coaches, you know, the, uh, Marlon Eikenberry,
Speaker:uh, played for, for Finwood and then you coached with them and, you
Speaker:know, they have all the, all the, you know, Auburn coaching and, and
Speaker:then bringing in, uh, Jack Slater's dad, Tom and his VMI and Auburn
Speaker:coaching is, it's, it's always neat.
Speaker:Those kind of interweaved webs.
Speaker:I've learned more about VMI baseball in the last three days
Speaker:than I ever thought I would know.
Speaker:It's been cool to hear the connections.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I also didn't know that VMI leads the country in stolen bases.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Oh, they're, and that was, I, I think I told you they played up
Speaker:there at War Memorial and, uh, went to the game and when I left, they
Speaker:were playing, um, William Mary.
Speaker:I'm about to sneeze.
Speaker:Uh, when they were playing William and Mary, they were losing nine to one.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:I left in the middle of seventh.
Speaker:They ended up winning the game.
Speaker:12 to nine.
Speaker:VMI did on a walk off home run.
Speaker:And because I remember during the game I was like, you know,
Speaker:we're driving over there.
Speaker:I was bringing my parents and my mom's reading off all these stats
Speaker:that like, you know, they're, they're VM i's offense is like a top 10 in
Speaker:the country and all kinds of things.
Speaker:You know, they're pitching obviously is, has left them down.
Speaker:That's why they, they kind of have a sub 500 record.
Speaker:But I, during the game I'm thinking like, where is this?
Speaker:Like, you know, a few of the guys had hits, you know, but it's
Speaker:like, where is all this offense?
Speaker:And then, well, there it is.
Speaker:It showed up eventually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're, uh, they're, you know, and, and that was how it was when had, was there.
Speaker:I mean they've been, they're a very good offensive team.
Speaker:And, and if you've been to VMI, you know, the ballpark has got a, it's, it's got a
Speaker:short porch and it's, but that doesn't, that doesn't help you steal bases.
Speaker:No, it was just kind of wild.
Speaker:Just think, you know, you've gotta get enough guys on base to have the
Speaker:steel opportunities to begin with.
Speaker:So they must be, be pretty good on the offensive side.
Speaker:Yeah, their kid, uh, Grayson Fitzwater from uh, NS River.
Speaker:He's a junior.
Speaker:He said he already broke the school home run record.
Speaker:He plays with pilots in the summer and he's a really, I was talking to
Speaker:Hera, he said he was like the last guy he recruited right before he left.
Speaker:He said he never got that, have him there.
Speaker:I was like, that's a bummer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Pilots are gonna have some studs.
Speaker:'cause we know Scotty is gonna be over there this summer.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a couple other ODU guys that get over that way.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:well, Fitzwater will be back.
Speaker:They have a few of the guys they've had, um, we saw Henry Garcia with um, ULM.
Speaker:He'll be back with them again and got Chris Martinez, who's like,
Speaker:he's like 27 years old I think now from Dominican Republic.
Speaker:He had a weird, so he was, he was, um, oh, here's a little chopper.
Speaker:This is gonna be trouble.
Speaker:Oh, oh peasy.
Speaker:Did he get him?
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:That's one of the best plays all season.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:High chopper.
Speaker:That was so, yeah.
Speaker:Ooh.
Speaker:Back to LP pio, bare hands and Fires in one motion.
Speaker:It looks like had to go half
Speaker:step to go way to his right to get it, which is not easy if you
Speaker:think about he's right-handed.
Speaker:So he is, he, if anything, he's falling off toward the first base side, had to
Speaker:run back over to the third base side, bare hand it and then May, and the throw
Speaker:was high, but it was, it was dead on.
Speaker:I mean, what a play by sio.
Speaker:So that's, I mean, awesome.
Speaker:Is that too scoreless for him now in this game?
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Talk about a guy bouncing the back in a big way.
Speaker:I mean, he struggled early this season.
Speaker:Yeah, it, it did not look good for him.
Speaker:But the last, I think three outings for LP pio, he has looked like his old self.
Speaker:'cause he has filthy stuff he can locate.
Speaker:He's a great pitcher.
Speaker:Just sometimes you get the yips, I think.
Speaker:And yeah.
Speaker:Well he was, remember,
Speaker:remember first part of the year, fin was telling us he was gonna be his closer.
Speaker:And then, you know, he very quickly got to be, I remember one point a few weeks
Speaker:ago thinking like, I don't know if Nick's ever gonna throw another pitch for us.
Speaker:And I mean, and again, Nick's an awesome kid.
Speaker:I love the guy.
Speaker:It's not like I'm sitting here, you know?
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:You know, it's like, it's just the reality of how things were going and,
Speaker:and, but that's, it's been great to see.
Speaker:And this game he's throwing.
Speaker:Well, that's, that's awesome, man.
Speaker:And that would be, it'd be huge.
Speaker:Some of these guys that are all of a sudden, you know, going back and,
Speaker:and playing, like, we kind of were hoping they were gonna play all year.
Speaker:Uh, we're, we're really rolling in a good spot, uh, right now.
Speaker:And sio, if he comes back in for the ninth, would be in line for, I
Speaker:believe his first save of the year.
Speaker:So he would get a closer roll in one of the last games of the season.
Speaker:But I think that's, yeah, I mean, that's great.
Speaker:You get some of these arms, some confidence going into coastal, then
Speaker:obviously the Sunbelt tournament is, you're gonna need 'em.
Speaker:Those innings are endless in the Sunbelt tournament.
Speaker:And yeah, if you want to survive in advance, you've gotta have
Speaker:guys you wouldn't expect or that.
Speaker:You've underperformed for part of the year, step up in a big way and
Speaker:give you a couple of good innings.
Speaker:Uh, we're seeing that right here this weekend.
Speaker:Uh, especially going 12 on Friday.
Speaker:We burned through, I mean, that's three more innings on your bullpen right there.
Speaker:They end up doing six in that, six innings in that game.
Speaker:Uh, they, they did pretty well.
Speaker:Dylan did pretty well yesterday, I think.
Speaker:Well, you made to about the seventh when he, when he came out.
Speaker:He had
Speaker:seventh.
Speaker:He got through seventh
Speaker:and he had six scoreless before that seventh inning.
Speaker:He had a great, another great outing for Dylan Brown.
Speaker:Uh, but you know, bullpen had scramble a little bit, some changes
Speaker:as that game got tighter later.
Speaker:Uh, so love, love seeing these bullpen guys step up, but I'd be much happier
Speaker:with about five more runs here.
Speaker:Yeah, it'd be nice.
Speaker:I mean, Luke could start it off here.
Speaker:Keep that, uh, excellent weekend going.
Speaker:And he put two over the fence yesterday in almost the exact same spot, like
Speaker:just consistency in that swing.
Speaker:Yeah, he is been killing that ball to the, uh, the, the left side.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That left center gap has been his friend.
Speaker:Not in this situation, but
Speaker:Little Chopper there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Who we're seeing, we're seeing pictures of somebody with JMU football.
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:I'm not able to listen right now, so
Speaker:I can't hear it.
Speaker:I'm trying to do some math on 1989.
Speaker:I
Speaker:don't
Speaker:know.
Speaker:Is that, is no way.
Speaker:That's Roger, right?
Speaker:It's gotta be somebody else.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I thought he was like a linebacker.
Speaker:If, if anybody watching the live stream has the audio up and knows
Speaker:who they were showing there, number 15 for JMU on the 89 team.
Speaker:Shoot us a message here so we know Roger.
Speaker:Oh, I got live feedback.
Speaker:That was Roger Waters in those pictures.
Speaker:That
Speaker:was Roger.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:See there My boots support
Speaker:in the living room.
Speaker:Just let me know.
Speaker:I
Speaker:was gonna say it is the real star of the show.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I've got a funny situation because we dealt with a light problem
Speaker:Wednesday in Richmond at VCU.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:OD won the game.
Speaker:It was pretty comfortable, but the light tower in right field, there's
Speaker:four light towers in the outfield.
Speaker:That one was out.
Speaker:Uh, they couldn't figure out how to get it back on.
Speaker:They even turned all the outfield lights off and back on.
Speaker:It still didn't come up.
Speaker:And you could just kind of see both teams in the midweek that
Speaker:not that important to 'em anymore.
Speaker:They called it Game Over.
Speaker:Old Dominion wins.
Speaker:Well, on Monday out at Washington University, they were hosting an NIA
Speaker:Division two School, Warner Pacific.
Speaker:Uh, the game started during the day, uh, seventh inning and Warner
Speaker:Pacific is leading Washington five to four and Warner Pacific.
Speaker:So they're like 1133 this year.
Speaker:They're not very good even for I think a D two NAIA and uh, all of a sudden
Speaker:the lights wouldn't work at Husky Park.
Speaker:They, they couldn't get the lights on.
Speaker:They had to call it, and instead of.
Speaker:Being a completed game or, you know, anything like that.
Speaker:No contest was the official ruling on the game.
Speaker:No contest.
Speaker:So no loss for Washington to A-N-A-I-A Division two.
Speaker:It reminded me of Major League three back to the minors.
Speaker:When the minor league team comes up to play.
Speaker:I think it's the Twins and Metrodome.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:They turn the lights off on purpose and the manager calls and gets the
Speaker:lights turned off so they don't take the loss that it had those vibes to it.
Speaker:And that, uh, that happened
Speaker:on Monday.
Speaker:This will be the only, uh, major League three reference
Speaker:you'll ever hear in your life.
Speaker:It was, oh no, Walton Goggins is in that man.
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:Is Walton Kins in that?
Speaker:Yes, he's downtown.
Speaker:Dang.
Speaker:Is he?
Speaker:I gotta Oh, he is.
Speaker:He's the kid.
Speaker:Ah, man.
Speaker:I've been re I've been watching Vice Principals, which I'd
Speaker:never really watched before.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Uh, and he is, he's something else, man.
Speaker:Oh, he's awesome.
Speaker:I, I think I discovered him watching The Shield way back in the day.
Speaker:This is, yeah.
Speaker:Oh 4 0 5 on FX something.
Speaker:I
Speaker:saw something the other day.
Speaker:It said that, uh, Jude Law's been trying to make the, um, the receding hairline,
Speaker:you know, attractive for 20 years.
Speaker:Walton said Walton Goggins comes in with his big teeth and just makes it happen.
Speaker:I mean, he is, he is.
Speaker:Got it figured out.
Speaker:He hosted Saturday Night Live last night.
Speaker:He's in Righteous White boys.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Righteous gemstones.
Speaker:Uncle Baby Billy is one of the best characters you'll ever see in your life.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes, he is.
Speaker:He is one of the best.
Speaker:All right, well, we're headed to the bottom of the ninth here, still.
Speaker:Four, two is bottom.
Speaker:A fairly quick inning.
Speaker:Go.
Speaker:All right, I like it.
Speaker:So, in true Dominion baseball fashion, this is gonna be a
Speaker:sweaty, tight game because why not?
Speaker:Like we, we can't just have this com We had the comfy game,
Speaker:I guess Wednesday enrichment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I, I don't mind us winning.
Speaker:I, I like winning these games where we're ahead and have to maintain a lead.
Speaker:You know, that's important.
Speaker:'cause we weren't doing that the first part of the year.
Speaker:We were, we'd get ahead and we weren't maintaining leads.
Speaker:So if we can get wins that way, it says, it shows, we've made some,
Speaker:made some growth and made some, you know, realize like, okay, this is
Speaker:how you have to win a ball game.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I feel like it's just the more natural way that yeah, like, you know,
Speaker:you utilize your bullpen in the right way to hold the lead so you know what
Speaker:you've gotta do and not just depending on the offense to bail you out each time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And come from behind and win or whatever.
Speaker:And yeah.
Speaker:It's not, it's, it's much better to, like I said, it feels,
Speaker:it feels like a baseball win.
Speaker:Like, okay, we, we held lead, we kept it All right, peasy.
Speaker:Let's go kid.
Speaker:Pretty sure I see Craig Brown up there in the background of the broadcast right now.
Speaker:Love bet.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:We do have a final finally from Atlanta.
Speaker:Marshall beat Georgia State, 11 to 10 Marshall's kinda warmed up now.
Speaker:Think it's a 13th conference, win
Speaker:all.
Speaker:Well, honestly, don't get as many as we have.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:No, I think they're, I think they're in, if we win today, I
Speaker:don't know if they can catch us, but
Speaker:find out.
Speaker:I mean, even
Speaker:they do we, we got the tiebreaker, so yes.
Speaker:That is one nice thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You beat some of the teams you need to beat and.
Speaker:Uh, especially with Georgia Southern, uh, doing us a favor actually by
Speaker:beating Texas State yesterday in the third game of their series.
Speaker:That was helpful.
Speaker:Uh, app State up 11 to two on South Alabama in the ninth.
Speaker:So it looks like app state's very, very long.
Speaker:Losing streak is finally gonna come to an end.
Speaker:I cannot believe that going into today they had lost 11 straight games.
Speaker:Crazy.
Speaker:That's a lot of games to lose in a row.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they had, they had such a home field advantage through most of that
Speaker:early part of the season like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They were just not losing games at home.
Speaker:They obviously took two outta three against us.
Speaker:They were in Boone.
Speaker:Um, wild to see them.
Speaker:I tell you, talking to other teams, man, the Coastal's pretty darn good.
Speaker:I'm looking at some of their stats.
Speaker:I mean, and you saw, I dunno if you saw, they, they played a complete game on
Speaker:Friday against ULM then one in seven, I'm sorry, on Thursday, then one in seven
Speaker:on Friday, then won in five yesterday.
Speaker:They only had the, only had the pitch.
Speaker:What, uh, was that 31 innings?
Speaker:Uh, maybe their arms will be, uh, 21 innings.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Over rested maybe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uhhuh, I'm sure they're over rested.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I I would, I think you can make the argument they might have the best
Speaker:weekend starting rotation in the country.
Speaker:Their, their stats hitting in, in pitching are disgusting.
Speaker:Um, it's, it's pretty gross how good coastal is.
Speaker:Um, you know, they're definitely the kind of team that once you get past the
Speaker:tournament, you know, and it becomes like, Hey, let's root for everyone.
Speaker:Like we're gonna all be big coastal fans.
Speaker:'cause they, they have a shot of doing big things nationally this year.
Speaker:I mean, they're getting pretty high up there in the odds to
Speaker:win the College World Series.
Speaker:Um, I
Speaker:know I, I saw a team, I saw something yesterday.
Speaker:I had to pick them to go the, the, the Omaha.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean at, at this rate, unless we sweep 'em or something.
Speaker:Um, I imagine that they're gonna, yeah, I hope be a national seed.
Speaker:I hope so.
Speaker:I'd love to mess up their whole year.
Speaker:Make 'em feel bad.
Speaker:That'd be nice.
Speaker:Ruin it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Jamie's got a runner on no Outs and our good friend Jackson Tone at the plate.
Speaker:Jake, good old Jake.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Jake's having a tough year.
Speaker:Jake's uh, you know, Jake's a a great hitter.
Speaker:He just never really happened here at ODU U and, and unfortunately looks
Speaker:like it's not really happening that, uh, at JMU either he had like about
Speaker:a week where he was getting to play some games and yeah, here's a ground
Speaker:out into a, it was a double play.
Speaker:Yeah, so that's a, he's a, he's a great kid, great family.
Speaker:His, his, uh, he had a younger brother that was a senior last year, and
Speaker:he is got another younger brother.
Speaker:He's a junior at Western Branch, so he is still the, the, the tone family
Speaker:is still going at Western Branch, but, uh, it's just unfortunate he, he's,
Speaker:uh, too good of a ball player and the results just haven't been there.
Speaker:You know, maybe I'm just way off base, but I've watched all three of J MU's games.
Speaker:I've watched a few of their games this season.
Speaker:I know that they have improved as the season has gone on.
Speaker:But just watching 'em, you know, even though we're one out away from a
Speaker:sweep here, I don't feel like they're this bottom feeder Sunbelt team.
Speaker:I feel like they should have more wins than they do.
Speaker:That's every single Sunbelt series you play.
Speaker:It is like, these guys aren't bad.
Speaker:Why are they, why are they losing?
Speaker:I'm sure that's how every team has felt when they play ODU and they're seeing
Speaker:us being like 17 and 26 at one point.
Speaker:It's like, man, these guys aren't bad.
Speaker:What's happening?
Speaker:It's, yeah, I don't, it's conference play is just different, man.
Speaker:It doesn't matter what your record is.
Speaker:You show up and the teams look good and they play hard.
Speaker:It's wild to think we are ahead of where we were this time last year, after
Speaker:all we've been through this season.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, we're, we're not used to seeing that, um, that record be
Speaker:upside down like that, the 20 and 26, but that 14 and 12 and, and when
Speaker:we're out 15 and 12 is pretty great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you start thinking back like, all right, well the three
Speaker:against Auburn, we got one there.
Speaker:We got one at Southern Miss.
Speaker:And you think about the games we may have.
Speaker:Thrown away a little bit or had the chance to win.
Speaker:Oh, there's, there's
Speaker:might be 10 games you could find where it's like, man, if something,
Speaker:if we just did a couple things right, we, we'd win this game and we, all
Speaker:of a sudden, and then we'd have, you know, we, we'd probably be in the
Speaker:top 40 in RPI and be talking about getting the, uh, oh, here we go.
Speaker:Nice little ground out the third, and that's, it's your brooms first, first
Speaker:sweep of the season for ODU Baseball.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:The series we need to sweep more than any other
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Has happened.
Speaker:We got the stanky leg.
Speaker:Who's the new celebration they're doing?
Speaker:I don't know what that, you know, they just do stuff.
Speaker:They're just weirdos that just decide to do stuff.
Speaker:We need to get a stop watch on Kainen Jorge for how quickly he's got that shirt
Speaker:untucked because I mean, he, he hasn't hit infield dirt before that thing is out.
Speaker:No, every day.
Speaker:That was the game last Sunday where they had the replay.
Speaker:They were having to tell him to tuck it back in and he was so annoyed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, how about Nick Sulpizio, three scoreless innings to get the save and
Speaker:close out a four two win for Old Dominion?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How about that?
Speaker:A guy who's struggled all year.
Speaker:Let's see, I'm up, I'm pulling him up now to just to look at his recent games.
Speaker:'cause he, he also went a long time without pitching.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So that was another reason where it was like, is he ever gonna pitch again?
Speaker:'cause it's like he just hasn't gotten in a game.
Speaker:I mean, he was, uh, his, some of his biggest contributions
Speaker:were the, the bat boy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, the
Speaker:ball boy.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:So Marshall had two, scoreless had a scoreless heading at Virginia.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He pitched at Marshall.
Speaker:It was five two.
Speaker:So the 2nd of May.
Speaker:The last time he pitched before that was the 1st of April in Virginia.
Speaker:So he went a month without pitching.
Speaker:Oof.
Speaker:And now he is got actually three games in a row with, uh, six quarter innings.
Speaker:But they were also, one of those games was a month earlier.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:well,
Speaker:and bef and before that he had given up, uh, eight or runs and
Speaker:one inning between two games.
Speaker:So it's, uh, it's been a tough year for him, but I mean, man, if he all of a
Speaker:sudden, you know, maybe he just needed to rest, you know, you never know.
Speaker:Maybe, maybe he was a little bit injured and he just needed to rest and now it
Speaker:feels better and he is back on track.
Speaker:Maybe they went back and did some mechanical adjustments.
Speaker:You, you never know what's going on with these guys.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, it could have been a little pain in the shoulder, a little sprain,
Speaker:a little tweak, something could have been a lot of stuff, but mm-hmm.
Speaker:Uh, nothing seemed to be bothering him today.
Speaker:Uh, getting three innings on the back end to slam the door.
Speaker:We needed to sweep and we gotta sweep.
Speaker:We are gonna at worse finish, 500 in the sunbelt, which
Speaker:should put us in the top six.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which is exactly where you wanna be.
Speaker:And a few weeks ago, it didn't seem possible.
Speaker:It seemed unlikely.
Speaker:We, there was a solid chance we wouldn't end up in the top 10.
Speaker:And here we are like, no, pretty much gonna be in the top six.
Speaker:I mean, that's, that's crazy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We're gonna have to get swept and have some very, very funky things to create
Speaker:a tie for us to not be in the top six.
Speaker:Now, if we go and get one game from Coastal, we are in the top six period.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And uh, I was actually having a conversation with Beau Cowen
Speaker:yesterday about the seating and the playing times and all of that.
Speaker:Uh, and, and it's interesting, like it.
Speaker:Being the six seat, I'm pretty sure you played 9:00 AM on Wednesday,
Speaker:and then you would always have more rest for your next game.
Speaker:So if we do end up getting bumped down to six, it's not the worst thing.
Speaker:Also, when you consider how hot it's going to be in Alabama next in two weeks,
Speaker:um, playing, you know, before it hits 90 degrees is probably helpful for us.
Speaker:So yeah,
Speaker:you say that, but these guys do not like playing at nine in the morning.
Speaker:One of those No, I mean, I wouldn't either.
Speaker:Yeah, it sounds sounds okay in theory until you're like, tell them yeah, you
Speaker:gotta be there at nine in the morning.
Speaker:They're like, oh,
Speaker:the only, the only advantage we have is we play a central time team will at least
Speaker:be one hour closer to being a human being.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:Hm.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So ODU gets the four two win, completes the sweep about a picture perfect
Speaker:weekend as you can get for ODU in terms of the baseball standings.
Speaker:I mean, we got help and we helped ourselves.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, and that's, and again, we, as we just were saying, it's not
Speaker:what we've been doing all year.
Speaker:We have not been helping ourselves.
Speaker:We've been shooting ourselves in the foot most of the season.
Speaker:Um, and so to come out when you needed to have it happen and, and
Speaker:do the right stuff, it is huge.
Speaker:It, it really is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Really important.
Speaker:And just playing at the right time in baseball in general, I
Speaker:think everyone knows that you want to get hot later in the year.
Speaker:You don't wanna Yeah.
Speaker:You know, be like app state who, they're world beaters earlier and now they're,
Speaker:they're scratching and claw to just get out of the tough losing streak,
Speaker:uh, which is really, really tough.
Speaker:Yeah, I was saying the other day, and, and Coastal was actually a team
Speaker:I mentioned, you know, if you remember when they won the, the College World
Speaker:series, which was, I, that was what, 15 or 16, you know, that was, it
Speaker:wasn't that they were the best team.
Speaker:They really weren't, they were not the most talented at all.
Speaker:I mean, you look back, most of those guys, I think one or two of 'em played
Speaker:pro ball and didn't get very far.
Speaker:What it was is they were hot.
Speaker:They were, they were a good veteran team and they got hot at the right time.
Speaker:And that's, that's what it takes in the postseason, you know, not
Speaker:just the conference play, but then in the NCAA tournament is
Speaker:just being hot at the right time.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I'm pulling up some stats here 'cause Sure we do have an outside
Speaker:shot to get the four seat.
Speaker:It's not like, yeah, the odds aren't great.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:we do,
Speaker:but the odds get a little bit better.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We're 15 and 12 and did, what'd Louisiana do today?
Speaker:Do we know
Speaker:they are down nine to six right now in the top of the seventh.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Southern Middle.
Speaker:I mean, uh, going for their sweep of the Cajuns, which I'm sure they would love.
Speaker:There's been a lot of good back and forth on social media between we would both
Speaker:be 15 and 12 then, you know that then you're, you're talking about it, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You, you've got a shot now.
Speaker:Um, they are going to play Arkansas State in their final series, which is, uh,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:The opposite of what we're doing.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So I mean, we're, we would probably need to start the conversation with
Speaker:winning the series against Coastal, which, uh, I mean, that's, that's
Speaker:been tough for everybody this year.
Speaker:Um, but you know,
Speaker:if the, the only way, you know, that's one of those things where if you want to
Speaker:go into the tournament and do some stuff, you'd have to beat somebody like Coastal.
Speaker:So could you, could you imagine the, the level of confidence you would
Speaker:have walking into that tournament coming off a, a, a What, what?
Speaker:I mean, how many, how many series in a row have we won now?
Speaker:Where's our, where's our schedule?
Speaker:Let me look here.
Speaker:That's at least three, right?
Speaker:I believe so, yeah.
Speaker:Three in a row.
Speaker:We had a, yeah, I mean that's ULM, Marshall and now JMU,
Speaker:so we've won three in a row.
Speaker:And the one being the sweep is really the, the key difference here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We lost a series to occasions, so that's, I'm trying to think
Speaker:how many series we played.
Speaker:Nine series, how many we won, we won against George, so we
Speaker:won four of the last five.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Five and four of, we lost Troy.
Speaker:5, 4, 5 and four in series.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I mean, that's, mm-hmm.
Speaker:You know, you win at least as many as you Yeah.
Speaker:Finney's been kind of saying it all year.
Speaker:If you.
Speaker:End up 500, you'll be there.
Speaker:So, you know, we're I, I said a, a a month ago, it was like, are these
Speaker:guys even gonna get in the top 10 and have a chance to even play?
Speaker:So this is, we, we've, you know, they have you, you gotta hand it to the guys.
Speaker:They have come up and they have played exactly how you needed them to play.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:yeah, they've, every, everything put forward is like, all right, if
Speaker:we want a chance, we gotta do this.
Speaker:And then they go and do it, and it's like, all right, well,
Speaker:chance is a little bit better.
Speaker:And, and we've gone on from there.
Speaker:Uh, it looks like this loss for JMU is gonna eliminate them from contention
Speaker:to make the Sunbelt tournament.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:yeah, I think they, they were saying they needed to win like the last four in a row.
Speaker:Yeah, they threw everything they had at us.
Speaker:I mean, they, they went to their Sunday starter, who
Speaker:still started today on Friday.
Speaker:I think he threw 139 pitches this weekend and was very effective for 'em.
Speaker:Um, I mean, they, they emptied the tank.
Speaker:They did what they could.
Speaker:Uh, they've got one more series at Texas State than their season will be over.
Speaker:And that was the last athletic event at JMU for the academic calendar.
Speaker:So think it's weird that happens, that we get down to that.
Speaker:Uh, you wanna kind of go back through the week and talk about the games?
Speaker:I definitely wanna talk about, uh, getting going four Oh.
Speaker:Against rivals this week.
Speaker:Starting with Yeah, we did have a four
Speaker:Oh rivalry week.
Speaker:Dang.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:When you put it that way.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Gotta gotta take the rivalry win so we can get 'em this.
Speaker:Dang.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:Uh, diamond on Wednesday.
Speaker:Feels like it was like two weeks ago now,
Speaker:it feels like a hundred years ago.
Speaker:It does feel like a lot of life has happened between today and Wednesday
Speaker:and that game felt like in old school ODU game, like what
Speaker:you expect from ODU baseball.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Hitting home runs, pitching well.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I mean, you would talk about the bullpen doing well they, they didn't
Speaker:give up a run after the first inning.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Connor Schumann, uh, and he still, I still thought he pitched well.
Speaker:I forgot to get with the runs of the first inning, but he, I
Speaker:still thought he pitched well.
Speaker:Uh, he got one in two thirds, and then after that, Frankie Wright
Speaker:and a third Bailey came in.
Speaker:Alex, uh, hunt came in, uh, sup, who's another guy that's
Speaker:on a nice little stretch.
Speaker:And, and Marco, uh, didn't get a chance to do anything.
Speaker:He, he, he walked the guy and he actually was not looking great, but
Speaker:then the lights went out on him.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We had, uh, we did have the, ended up being, I guess technically
Speaker:six innings of, of pitching,
Speaker:and the only two runs that Schumann gave up, he threw a pitch in on the hands,
Speaker:it hit right above the batter's, hands on the handle, and just dribbled up
Speaker:through the middle, allowing runners from second and third to score with two outs.
Speaker:So it wasn't like he gave up a big gap shot or anything like that, just
Speaker:kind of, kind of got one through.
Speaker:Um, but we just played a complete game.
Speaker:Uh, I mean, the light going out was a funky thing.
Speaker:Uh, as I found out from Eric Bohannan.
Speaker:I. Uh, everything up to the point of where the game was
Speaker:suspended counts in the stat book.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It would've only changed.
Speaker:It would only reverted if we had taken the lead in the top half, which we
Speaker:didn't already comfortably had the lead, but that was, I think the first
Speaker:time that I have seen the game at the college level, especially division
Speaker:one called For the Lights Being Out.
Speaker:I,
Speaker:I saw, if you remember Jared Hancock that played for us for, for three,
Speaker:four years, I saw a high school game he played where they didn't have lights and
Speaker:the game went to like the 13th inning and they just had to stop playing,
Speaker:um, and then pick it up, pick it up the next day, and then the next day
Speaker:apparently played like five more innings.
Speaker:Uh, but, so that's about the only way I can think of.
Speaker:But yeah, I've not seen a college game that that had to stop.
Speaker:And, and I, I think.
Speaker:I think we, we pointed out if it was a conference game and on the weekend they
Speaker:might have kept playing or they might have figured it out, but because it was a
Speaker:midweek and it was like, all right, we're already losing whatever, just call it,
Speaker:at this point in the year, everyone is looking to cancel their midweeks.
Speaker:If somebody over waters their lawn next door to the stadium, they
Speaker:are gonna call that game and save their arms for the weekend or the
Speaker:tournament, whatever it may be.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:yeah, they've got, they got rain, uh, scheduled on, uh,
Speaker:Tuesday in, in, uh, in Richmond.
Speaker:So I, I wouldn't be surprised if we're, and Richmond, you know, they're
Speaker:trying to win their conference too.
Speaker:They're, they're pretty good this year, so my guess is neither one
Speaker:of the teams are gonna be too upset about that one not happening.
Speaker:Grant Gardner, that's what he's a he is a, a a, um, the Green Lantern.
Speaker:Isn't that one of the, the green lanterns is Grant Gardner.
Speaker:That's pretty cool.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:that, that, I don't know.
Speaker:I think Grant and I have been following each other on social
Speaker:media since I'm pretty sure we were both in school, which I don't wanna
Speaker:admit now how long ago that was.
Speaker:Uh, appreciate you tuning in Grant Sky Gardner.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:My
Speaker:bad.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:Grant.
Speaker:I just can't believe, uh, you know, you remember the name of
Speaker:the Green Lantern person, but
Speaker:you, you, you, you know me, you know better stuff.
Speaker:Uh, I mean,
Speaker:yeah, you throwing the breaker.
Speaker:Well, we were winning, so I didn't, I didn't need any reason to go
Speaker:try and, uh, and take that thing.
Speaker:Uh, it is interesting and kind of ominous with the new baseball
Speaker:stadium going in right next door.
Speaker:You see it as you walk through the parking lot on that, uh, third base side.
Speaker:You've got that going on.
Speaker:You've got lights that aren't working and I, I don't know, I heard a pop before the
Speaker:light went out, so I'm guessing tripped.
Speaker:Um, but I also didn't know if it was one of our guys getting a
Speaker:little too loose in the bullpen down there and they hit the pad.
Speaker:So I didn't really wanna broadcast that and get, then
Speaker:get dunked on for a while pitch.
Speaker:Um, yeah, it's the new stadium.
Speaker:There's gonna be nice, I, I don't know what V C's whole arrangement
Speaker:and setup and contract's gonna be.
Speaker:Um, I would assume that at some point they're gonna play in the new stadium, but
Speaker:I also know that the diamond itself will still be up there this time next year.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:But they've already got enough effort to just try to get that thing
Speaker:rolling with the field conditions.
Speaker:I mean, that's playing service is rough.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was neat going up there.
Speaker:'cause you know, I, I've been the diamond a ton of times.
Speaker:I used to go all the time, um, when, uh, when they were the Richmond Braves
Speaker:and so it's, it's always a lot of fun.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:What's faster is, uh, it's caans shirt untucked because my, my curtain sometimes
Speaker:will wait halfway through the thing You notice today I'm, I'm in the living room.
Speaker:I've, I've also, I've got, she's over here sleeping, but I got a brand new kitten
Speaker:yesterday, so I'm kind of in the room.
Speaker:I don't want her in the other room where all the, my, my
Speaker:good, my good stuff is, but.
Speaker:She's, she's on the couch here, so you'll notice I'm in a different room.
Speaker:Well see.
Speaker:Adding a cat is gonna change the bedding odds here.
Speaker:A little bit of your curtain falling because you've introduced
Speaker:something that can also tear down a
Speaker:curtain,
Speaker:so we might get the full, she's not allowed,
Speaker:she is not allowed in that room.
Speaker:You may actually see me out here in general because she, I mean, maybe
Speaker:it'll change, but she now, she, she meows like crazy if she can't see me.
Speaker:So, uh, I, I don't think we get through a podcast with the door closed and Yeah.
Speaker:Me, yeah, me, me
Speaker:from the other side of the door.
Speaker:You gonna
Speaker:see it on the transcript?
Speaker:Cat noises in
Speaker:background.
Speaker:Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, but no.
Speaker:Yeah, so the diamond, so, and, but as you pointed out, it was, it was a great, uh,
Speaker:you know, Kaan hit a homer, uh, and then, uh, Maverick caught right back up with him
Speaker:with another big, I mean, just a big bomb.
Speaker:Um, or there was the absolute way I missed, I can think maybe Maverick
Speaker:hit his first, but it, they were both just absolute bullets out of there.
Speaker:Um, and Taron Hammond got back in the lineup.
Speaker:He had a couple of hits.
Speaker:Uh, I. Kyle had a couple hits.
Speaker:I mean, it was Tanner Shadell had another nice hit.
Speaker:You know, he, again, his numbers are probably never gonna look good no matter
Speaker:what he does the rest of the year.
Speaker:But he's had what I think is a good year for a freshman.
Speaker:It, it's, you know, he hasn't been like, it's not like a Alex Boucher
Speaker:freshman season where it's like, oh man, this guy's a, a stud.
Speaker:But it's, it's what a typical freshman season is.
Speaker:You know, there's a lot of struggles followed by some success.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we're seeing a lot of those guys that are new to the team,
Speaker:that are maybe true freshmen not playing like true freshmen anymore.
Speaker:They're stepping up in a big way.
Speaker:They've got almost a full season under their belt.
Speaker:Uh, and especially with as much as we've been on the road, I think
Speaker:that kind of sharpens you up and matures you a little bit faster.
Speaker:Uh, 'cause you don't have nearly as much on-campus shenanigans as you would when
Speaker:you're playing at home all the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, and then Friday, that's probably the most intense ODU
Speaker:game in, in a little while, and we've had some intense ones, but.
Speaker:We go four, four, we're going to extra innings and like
Speaker:we can't get anything going.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:We we're not getting guys on base.
Speaker:JMU is putting ducks on the pond every inning.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But our bullpen shuts 'em down.
Speaker:We finally get two guys on Luke rips, one really off the base of the wall
Speaker:and left center scores, two runs.
Speaker:We win that.
Speaker:And I think that that may have taken some of the air out of the sales for JMU
Speaker:'cause they, they, they shot their best bullets on, on their pitching staff that
Speaker:night and we were able to get the win.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They don't, they don't have a lot of, of good bullets and they used them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When you got Max.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Who's, you know, uh, as we know Aiden's brother, uh,
Speaker:Aiden pitched for us last year.
Speaker:He is one of their best pitchers and he only got five innings.
Speaker:Um, Todd Maki's been a great reliever for him last few years.
Speaker:And then he said, bring out that Jackson Lo, who his stats were weird,
Speaker:as they were saying you, he, he doesn't give up a lot of hits, but he hits
Speaker:a lot of guys and he did that today.
Speaker:Hit a few guys.
Speaker:Uh, very odd that we give up almost no hits, but then you're,
Speaker:you're still hitting a lot of guys.
Speaker:Um, but yeah, they, they threw the kitchen sink at us and we threw the
Speaker:kitchen sink right back at them.
Speaker:And ours was a little bit bigger or more better marble on the sink.
Speaker:I don't know how, I don't know how this analogy keeps going.
Speaker:Better water flow, better disposal.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Either way.
Speaker:Uh, either way our guys locked it down.
Speaker:I mean, six scoreless from your bullpen on a Friday night game is key because
Speaker:it, it almost gets that point too.
Speaker:If you get, do go and lose that game, if you're ODU uh, y the momentum
Speaker:swing and what's available to you for Saturday is, is really difficult
Speaker:beyond Dylan, uh, who on Saturday I thought pitch exceptionally well.
Speaker:Just gave up some hits, but got outta jams real fast.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And his line ends up not looking that great.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's seven, seven innings, three runs.
Speaker:Uh, but that home run he gave up.
Speaker:It's like what?
Speaker:At that point it was whatever.
Speaker:I mean, we were, we were up.
Speaker:So big seven.
Speaker:It ended up being, yeah, it ended up being closer than, I mean, that
Speaker:being what, a nine to six game?
Speaker:But, you know, Dylan certainly had the best outing of the week and, and to
Speaker:go, to go back to Friday, Ben Moore actually ended up with a great outing.
Speaker:He had six innings, which was only the second time.
Speaker:He'd gone six all year.
Speaker:Uh, four runs, but only two earned.
Speaker:And he only had two walks for a guy who's been, you know, throwing
Speaker:way too many pitches all year, and he had 82 pitches through six.
Speaker:So he really probably could have gone more.
Speaker:But again, sometimes you, you, I'm sure you look at it and
Speaker:you say, Hey, you know what?
Speaker:He's had the success.
Speaker:Let's just kind of get him outta there.
Speaker:We, we don't wanna, you know, stress it out and go longer and have some something
Speaker:happen that we don't need to have happen.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Um, good pitch.
Speaker:And, and Blake pitched well today.
Speaker:I mean, what, what did he have?
Speaker:Five and two thirds and, uh, two runs.
Speaker:What did he have?
Speaker:Yeah, that second run was, yeah, two run.
Speaker:The second run.
Speaker:Kellen gave it up, but it was still his run.
Speaker:But yes, I mean, uh, again, uh, the strength of this team
Speaker:is probably the rotation.
Speaker:And the rotation showed up this weekend.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's nice to be able to rely on that 'cause it's been battle tested all year.
Speaker:I mean, we've essentially used the same three starters for Friday,
Speaker:Saturday, Sunday, all year long.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:Bullpen starting to come around like Ezio Alex Hunt.
Speaker:I, they don't, I didn't see a radar gun at VCU.
Speaker:We also didn't have a pitch clock 'cause it only would reset to two
Speaker:minutes instead of 20 seconds.
Speaker:We didn't
Speaker:have a lot of stuff at VCU.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They did have enough beer for us, which was a pleasant surprise if you've
Speaker:been up there the last few seasons.
Speaker:Uh, but I, I have to imagine based on sight and sound that
Speaker:Alex Hunt was throwing 95 plus.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:He's getting it up there.
Speaker:I mean that thing was popping in there.
Speaker:Batters were well off their timing.
Speaker:So even a guy like that who's proven to be a good bridge guy for
Speaker:us to come in and with people on base and get outs, that's huge.
Speaker:'cause we, he may end up with pitching three, four days in a row like he
Speaker:did, uh, a couple weekends ago.
Speaker:He,
Speaker:well, he pitched three games this week.
Speaker:He pitched on Wednesday, uh, Friday and Saturday.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Didn't get any outs in the Saturday game.
Speaker:Uh, I think he, what he faced one guy and walked him.
Speaker:Uh, yeah, that was right there.
Speaker:Just that he's, you know, and, and they decided, okay, at that point, it, it
Speaker:clearly, you know, when you bring a guy in for the third game of the week, you,
Speaker:you know, the stuff's not gonna be there.
Speaker:And I think they were smart to look at and say, okay, the stuff's not here.
Speaker:Let's get Frankie and Frankie got the job done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We don't have the rules in college where you have the three batter
Speaker:momentum or anything, so you can plug guys in for one batter.
Speaker:I think JMU did that with one of their lefties, didn't pay off for,
Speaker:and brought in the lefty to face Zach late and Zach rips one down the line
Speaker:on Saturday, which kind of helped blow the thing open a little bit.
Speaker:Um, but no, I, I, I love Dylan going back out there for the seventh.
Speaker:On Saturday, you're up seven, nothing.
Speaker:You just played a 12 inning game.
Speaker:He's been pitching really well.
Speaker:Got a couple bad sequence of pitches there, ends up giving
Speaker:up a three run home run.
Speaker:But that was it.
Speaker:It limited the damage, finished the inning, and we were all good.
Speaker:Uh, it just, it's kind of exciting to see these guys
Speaker:turning it on at the right time.
Speaker:It's, you know, I said yesterday, it's, it's when I tell people all year, it's
Speaker:like, Hey, if they play how they can play.
Speaker:They'll be really great.
Speaker:And that's what I feel like the last couple weeks is what we're seeing is
Speaker:like what I, it's the team in my head that I'm telling people about all year.
Speaker:It's like, you know, this is when they play and up to their
Speaker:ability, they're really, really good and now you're seeing it.
Speaker:So it's, it's nice for them to finally make me look like I'm not a crazy person.
Speaker:Just saying like, oh, they're really good.
Speaker:Try.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Yeah, they're, they're like 12 and 38.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Trust me.
Speaker:They're really good.
Speaker:And they've taken the pressure off themselves too, because they go into
Speaker:the series with Coastal, where they can still be very well positioned,
Speaker:even if they lose the series.
Speaker:Even honestly, if they get swept, they're still in a pretty decent spot,
Speaker:although we really need to take one game.
Speaker:Whereas if we were in a different situation, maybe lost one to
Speaker:JMU, now you're talking about having to take two outta three.
Speaker:From one of the best teams in the country against arguably the best
Speaker:pitching staff in the country.
Speaker:You, you lose Friday and the, those, that balloon just deflates real fast.
Speaker:But in this situation, we get to be kind of the scrappy ones with nothing to lose.
Speaker:'cause we just need to steal a game from these guys.
Speaker:And we're, we're locked in for five or six.
Speaker:So maybe, and this
Speaker:isn't a team that hasn't played top 25 teams.
Speaker:We played top 25 teams and we, we, we took a win off.
Speaker:We beat top 25.
Speaker:We, we took, yeah, we've taken, we've taken wins at big places.
Speaker:We played close games another way.
Speaker:We, we really haven't gotten blown out by those tough teams.
Speaker:And so, uh, it's not something they're unable to do.
Speaker:You know, they know it's, it's not gonna be like, oh man,
Speaker:we've never beaten a team.
Speaker:This like, no, we have, we absolutely have.
Speaker:And it's not a, it's not a, you know, okay, cool.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Coastal, whatever.
Speaker:Like, it's not gonna be like this, you know, big amazing, hard thing
Speaker:If we can take one from Southern miss on the road with that
Speaker:kind of crowd environment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think we get Oh, Auburn.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, Auburn.
Speaker:I mean, good guy State, we can take
Speaker:on a, on a Saturday night at Auburn after they've just had the, the
Speaker:number one and number two team in the country playing and with their biggest
Speaker:rival in basketball that afternoon.
Speaker:I mean, that whole campus is buzzing and we go out and just say, Hey, yeah,
Speaker:we know you lost the basketball game.
Speaker:Here's a little more sadness for you.
Speaker:Uh, yeah, no, these, these guys can do it.
Speaker:Man.
Speaker:They, they've, you know, when Troy came in, they were top 25.
Speaker:We took, we took one, uh, from them.
Speaker:You know, it's, you know, wasn't, didn't win the series,
Speaker:but they, they definitely can.
Speaker:It's, it's, they're not gonna be, if they lose, it's not 'cause they're
Speaker:intimidated, that's for sure.
Speaker:No, they lose just because let's be real coastal.
Speaker:Looks like they're a really darn good baseball team.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And who knows, maybe Coastal decides to just ease on back this weekend,
Speaker:start sequencing their pitching.
Speaker:'cause they've got a two game lead on Southern miss even
Speaker:if Southern Miss wins today.
Speaker:So little, little different end of the spectrum there.
Speaker:But, uh.
Speaker:Go, go get one next weekend.
Speaker:We're in great shape.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, we have a message out to Coach Finwood.
Speaker:We know a lot of you all tuning in.
Speaker:Tune in pretty much exclusively to listen to Coach Finwood.
Speaker:We're the ones that called this audible, so it's definitely
Speaker:not on him for not being here.
Speaker:As you saw, he was literally coaching when we started this.
Speaker:Uh, we'll see if we can get him to pop on here for a few minutes
Speaker:from the bus if they have signal going through the mountains.
Speaker:Um, no idea.
Speaker:You know, they gotta get their stuff together after we who, who knows?
Speaker:And if, and if we can't.
Speaker:It's also my fault for not telling 'em ahead of time either.
Speaker:I forgot to that I was getting a kitten.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I had life things.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:Uh, this is how it goes.
Speaker:Yeah, I, uh, did not send that message either, so definitely not just on you.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:Wait,
Speaker:let me see.
Speaker:Wait, let me, because she's over here sleeping.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:Can we see the, there she is.
Speaker:She's adorable and tiny and sleeping.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Oh, you made herself comfortable already.
Speaker:I see.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:She loves, that's her little hole right there.
Speaker:She loves that, that side of the couch already.
Speaker:That's her spot.
Speaker:She starts climbing on you here in about five minutes.
Speaker:Oh, she's, I got
Speaker:little.
Speaker:Hacks all over my hand already.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Well, one thing I did learn from the broadcast, 'cause again, the ESPN
Speaker:broadcast, they, ESPN plus broadcast was really good, really knowledgeable.
Speaker:Yeah, they were good.
Speaker:They were great.
Speaker:Uh, coastal Carolina is either first or second in the country
Speaker:and being hit by a pitch.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I watched some of their games now and went back and watched a couple of
Speaker:s ESPN plus they're basically standing on that front line of the Baters box.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So anything that's breaking late, I mean, yeah, they're, they're gonna get on dates.
Speaker:They're gonna get some free passes and wear 'em
Speaker:1 36 before today.
Speaker:I mean, that's a crazy amount hit by pitches.
Speaker:136 hit by pitches in 52 games.
Speaker:Something's a little funky there.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That's, yeah.
Speaker:I mean, they got what Mitch Walker, Mitchell's got 24 hit by pitches.
Speaker:They got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 guys with double digit hit by pitches.
Speaker:Well gimme those seven and Steven Meyer and, uh, we'll never get outta the plate.
Speaker:Geez.
Speaker:That is crazy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, I mean, they
Speaker:got like, like their top home run hitters are like the, they're having
Speaker:good, you know, 2 85, 2 75, but there's like, then there's five guys
Speaker:ahead of them hitting higher average.
Speaker:I mean, they're, they're batting number, they're hitting 2 85
Speaker:as a team, which is hard to do.
Speaker:But then they're pitching, they've got a 3 38 ERA as a
Speaker:team, which is insane in college.
Speaker:That, that's, I don't care what level you're at.
Speaker:That's ridiculous.
Speaker:That's, I mean, they're going down
Speaker:to, I mean, they've got, there's like, I be like, how many two was era?
Speaker:A, uh, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 4.
Speaker:It's about 14 or 15 guys before they have anybody with a four ER.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:You said their team ERA is in the threes
Speaker:3 38.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think our team, ERA just this weekend in this series against one
Speaker:of the worst hitting teams in the conference is around 3 30, 3 38.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, and they're doing that against everyone in the Sunbelt.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's pretty, pretty unbelievable.
Speaker:But hey, wouldn't be a bad time for them to cool off because they're on, on quite
Speaker:a little winning streak themselves.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For comparison,
Speaker:our, our ERA for the season is six 17.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A little different.
Speaker:And our batting is, uh, before today's day is two 60, which is
Speaker:actually way above where it was.
Speaker:I,
Speaker:well, anything can happen in the tournament and, you know,
Speaker:you just, you never know.
Speaker:Just get in that tournament, get away from the playing game and I'll, I'll put us up
Speaker:against anybody in the one game scenario.
Speaker:Um, and also I think there's, there's some thought, you think you see it a
Speaker:little bit like in the SEC tournament sometimes the a CC tournament, the
Speaker:teams that know they're getting in.
Speaker:They're not going to go over tax, their pitching staff to try to
Speaker:secure a conference tournament win.
Speaker:Uh, they're more likely just gonna go save their arms, rehab 'em up and get
Speaker:'em ready for the regional And coastal would very, very much be in that bucket.
Speaker:'cause they're, they're getting in like they're, they're hosting, I
Speaker:would imagine The only argument is are they a top eight or a top 16 seed?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Southern Miss is getting in.
Speaker:I, I would find it hard to believe that Troy doesn't get in as in, at large.
Speaker:Um, and then, you know, they're still Louisiana and ODU that could
Speaker:potentially go win the conference tournament in addition to that.
Speaker:Yeah, I think you're right When you say those, those top three should
Speaker:be going to the tournament and then anybody else has gotta be, well
Speaker:you better win the, the conference.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we're definitely in the, we gotta win the conference, but I
Speaker:think Louisiana is too, just 'cause of the slow start they've had.
Speaker:Yeah, they've definitely turned a corner similar, almost similar trajectory as us.
Speaker:I think they hit theirs maybe a week before we did.
Speaker:So, and that was of course the week we, we played them, but if you think remember
Speaker:that series, we had the lead going into the ninth inning against them, and we lost
Speaker:the lead then we lost in the 10th inning.
Speaker:So it's not like we were, you know, head and shoulders worse than Louisiana.
Speaker:They run rule us on Sunday.
Speaker:Uh, but, you know, we could have been a spot where we had already
Speaker:taken two games at that point.
Speaker:You know, that was one of the last really bad game.
Speaker:I mean, that's one I'm curious to go back now that we're kind of talking about.
Speaker:It was, was that a turning point for us that getting run ruled where it
Speaker:was like, all right, let, let me, let's see what we've done since then.
Speaker:Where were we at here?
Speaker:Uh, that was, we get run ruled on the, the Saturday.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And then we go and we win, then we actually lose to ULM and then
Speaker:we win the next two and then we, we lose win two, two or three.
Speaker:So that's, what is that?
Speaker:Uh, I can't do math.
Speaker:Uh, it's uh, four outta five.
Speaker:The next four outta five.
Speaker:And then we win four this weekend.
Speaker:So we won.
Speaker:Uh.
Speaker:Eight of the last nine games.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, if you start a game after that,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I mean, really.
Speaker:So even say eight, we went eight outta 10 since we we got that run rule game.
Speaker:The other difference there is one that was Easter weekend, I believe.
Speaker:So they, they didn't play on Sunday, so they got the extra day
Speaker:arrest and their travel drastically reduced for the rest of the season.
Speaker:Pretty much after ULM, so they've been having much shorter trips.
Speaker:Uh, we had two weeks there.
Speaker:We didn't have midweeks, which I think did wonders for our pitching staff to
Speaker:get them a little bit of a breather.
Speaker:And when we went back to kind of a more normalized baseball
Speaker:schedule, we start playing the way we expected the team to play.
Speaker:I don't think that's a coincidence.
Speaker:And now there's no school, which is huge.
Speaker:Now all of a sudden everybody's just relaxed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now all the, all the, uh, you know, I mean, it's, it really is.
Speaker:I mean, you think about this life of student athlete, it's, it
Speaker:is just a time, it's just, it's all the amount you have to do.
Speaker:I mean, I remember talking to Jack Spice last year, one of our guys,
Speaker:and he was like, I don't do anything.
Speaker:He's like, I see some of these guys go and hang out, get play.
Speaker:He is like, I go to, I work out and I, and I go to, I do school.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:He's like, and he is like, that's all I do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He says that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He has a girlfriend that hangs us.
Speaker:I don't know what he's, he's lying to, he's just,
Speaker:oh, uh, I don't think anyone's happier to hear that school
Speaker:is done than Kyle Edwards.
Speaker:As we found out from interviewing him earlier this season.
Speaker:I definitely check that out.
Speaker:If you go back on YouTube and, and find it.
Speaker:Kyle was very hilarious about his future academic endeavors.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Uh, did you get that, uh, text I sent you with the, um, the players of the week?
Speaker:I sure did.
Speaker:Gimme about 10 seconds here.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I think I, I, I did that kind of as thing.
Speaker:I was like, well, nothing much is really gonna change
Speaker:in this game to make this, uh.
Speaker:Yeah, I usually, I usually, uh, Gary and I usually have a conversation,
Speaker:but some weeks it's just like, nah, this is the, this is what it is.
Speaker:These, these are the, these are the answers.
Speaker:It's, it's not much you can really, uh, argue with.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Um, pretty clear.
Speaker:We'll throw 'em up here now.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Shocker.
Speaker:Luke Waters.
Speaker:Yeah, Luke Waters.
Speaker:Uh, 'cause he, he did pretty solid on the, the, the Wednesday game also.
Speaker:So for the week, uh, after today's game, Luke ended up nine for 17,
Speaker:had a double two home runs, which obviously both came in yesterday's game.
Speaker:Had four rbis and three walks.
Speaker:Um, so he, let me see if I can see this real quick.
Speaker:So he is now hitting oh, and I don't know where I can Oh, right.
Speaker:Go thing, make it bigger.
Speaker:Um, hitting 2 77.
Speaker:When I, I actually took a screenshot, uh, yesterday of his, like, stats from
Speaker:like last year compared to this year.
Speaker:And yeah, so before this weekend he was hitting two four, so he gained 30
Speaker:points on his batting average and that I, I don't even know what he gained
Speaker:in his OPS, it's through the roof.
Speaker:He's over 700 something.
Speaker:So he probably gained another, uh, 60, a hundred points on his OPS.
Speaker:So he went from having like, I mean, he was sitting 2 47 with
Speaker:a 6 72 OPS before this week.
Speaker:Like he was not doing well.
Speaker:'cause I was like, well, he does, he's got a little bit of a season left to,
Speaker:to, you know, make up the respectable and then you know what he's doing that.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:So, way to go.
Speaker:Luke.
Speaker:Um, Kyle Edwards had another great week.
Speaker:He was seven for 16, um, had a triple an RBI three walks, two steals.
Speaker:Uh, Tahraun Hammond had a solid week.
Speaker:He was six for 13.
Speaker:Uh, three rbis, three walks, a couple of hit by pitches and made
Speaker:some really nice plays on the field.
Speaker:Um, and Kainen Jorge had a solid little week.
Speaker:It wasn't, wasn't the best.
Speaker:Uh, average would be five outta 19.
Speaker:Had a double, had two Homers, three rbis, four walks, and a steel.
Speaker:So another nice week for him.
Speaker:Um, and then pitching wise, uh, you know, again, I think you could have
Speaker:given it to multiple guys, but I, I think Dylan with pitching seven innings.
Speaker:Yeah, he gave up the three earned runs, uh, with the, with the home run there.
Speaker:But that was kind of whatever, uh, eight hits, no walks and five strikeouts.
Speaker:He was up to 87 for the season, which is a really high amount.
Speaker:Um, that's actually the second most of an ODU pitcher since
Speaker:Finwood has been the coach.
Speaker:Uh, 'cause uh, hunter Gregory had 88 in 2021,
Speaker:so he needs two more to break that.
Speaker:So two strikeouts against Coastal and he's gonna clear Hunter Gregory.
Speaker:Yeah, he and I, I know I looked back a little while the last.
Speaker:The last highest total that anybody had was, um, Kyle Hall that had 1 0 8 in 2011.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Uh, which is actually ties for fifth all time in a season
Speaker:with, uh, Jeff Ware from 92.
Speaker:So, you know, Dylan's got an outside shot.
Speaker:If he has a couple more of those big strikeout games, like he,
Speaker:he's kind of strikeout numbers has kind of gone down a little bit.
Speaker:We just, you know, he is getting tired and, but he is still pitching
Speaker:effectively, so, you know, it's whatever.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, I
Speaker:think there's a concerted effort there too, I think for him to
Speaker:be a little bit more efficient.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he is letting guys football and play, which you saw, he gave I think
Speaker:seven hits on Saturday, but they were all just ground balls, little loopers.
Speaker:He was not letting guys barrel things up.
Speaker:He also, I mean, he is got those strikeouts and like way fewer innings
Speaker:than those other guys had 'em in.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That, that's a, that's an interesting factor.
Speaker:Um, and then, you know, uh, Ben Moore did have a great, I think we said six
Speaker:innings, four runs, only two earned.
Speaker:Eight hits, only two walks, which has been great for him.
Speaker:He had, he is walked way too many guys here in two strikeouts.
Speaker:And, and also Frankie Wright will mention him.
Speaker:He picked up a save, had two games, uh, two totals, no runs, three
Speaker:hits, no walks, two strikeouts.
Speaker:So, so some guys had some really, and, and some of the guys, you know, had, had
Speaker:solid hitting and pitching performers.
Speaker:Those are kind of the best standouts of the week.
Speaker:It was a little harder to to, to do the math on all of them as we're sitting
Speaker:here watching the end of the game.
Speaker:So I, I, I only picked a few,
Speaker:well, we, we could have done the cheat version and just
Speaker:gone like the entire bullpen.
Speaker:Congratulations.
Speaker:You know, I mean, it's a whole offensive line.
Speaker:No, it, it would be fair.
Speaker:You would, you would not be wrong.
Speaker:I think, you know, we, for, for the whole week, the, especially when you
Speaker:consider the whole bullpen pitched on Friday, on, uh, Wednesday's
Speaker:game, that was all the bullpen guys and they all pitched really well.
Speaker:Yeah, it was, and that, and that's been it because how many times here we
Speaker:said, man, the bullpen, uh, killed us.
Speaker:Like how many times?
Speaker:We said all year, if we, we win these games or the bullpen
Speaker:wasn't giving games away and.
Speaker:I, I mentioned it, you know what, half an hour ago I said this.
Speaker:It's nice to see these games where we're getting ahead and keeping
Speaker:the lead and grinding it down.
Speaker:Yeah, you may get up a run here or there, but at the end of the day you,
Speaker:you don't give up enough runs to tie the game and you hold onto the victory.
Speaker:Um, and that's the thing the bullpen had not done for most of the year.
Speaker:Now all of a sudden they're doing it and yeah, you're seeing in every kind
Speaker:of aspect of the game is it's all the things that need to ha happen that weren't
Speaker:happening now are, and that's where they said we won eight of the last nine games.
Speaker:And I know Paula Ambrose was asking about, uh, lineup consistency.
Speaker:We've been very consistent with our lineup with, with Tahraun at second.
Speaker:Um, now Maverick going to third.
Speaker:That's really been the, kinda the only change there.
Speaker:But I mean, other than some left right matchups, we've seen some consistency at
Speaker:the positioning where guys are hitting in the order and that's just kind of
Speaker:starting to gel really, really nicely now.
Speaker:And I love Kainen in that we off spot 'cause they, it having a, someone
Speaker:that can hit home runs but also hit for average and get on base.
Speaker:At the top, the order he steals,
Speaker:he's second on the team in steals.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, he's, that was a move where it's like I wasn't thinking about
Speaker:it, but then as soon as Finney did it, it's like, well yeah, that's why
Speaker:he's been coaching a million years.
Speaker:'cause he knows kind of when to pull the trigger on those moves.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:'cause it was, immediately I saw the lineup.
Speaker:I was like, I love that.
Speaker:Like, I didn't even question, it was like, yeah, why wouldn't he be there?
Speaker:Um, it we're, you know, very few teams have those old style, you know,
Speaker:little fast guys that don't hit for power that, you know what I mean?
Speaker:It's, it's, it's really is the modern days of having a big strong
Speaker:guy who can hit the ball out.
Speaker:But as long as they get on base, that's what it comes down to.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:You were talking about stealing.
Speaker:I don't know if the, the numbers are updated, but I know going into the
Speaker:game today, Kyle ever was 24 for 25 at stolen base and he was leading Yeah.
Speaker:And he got one
Speaker:today.
Speaker:Yeah, he got one today.
Speaker:Uh, and that is a sneaky guy to have hitting like six or seventh down in
Speaker:year lineup where they can get on.
Speaker:He is got a good average, he can hit for a little bit of power.
Speaker:And, but then if he gets on base, you can put pressure on the pitcher
Speaker:against like 7, 8, 9 guys in the lineup where typically they can relax more.
Speaker:If they're more fastballs, throw more in the middle of the plate.
Speaker:But not with Kyle over there stealing second, immediately
Speaker:getting, scoring, scoring position.
Speaker:It's, it's nice, you know, Kyle has moved kind of all over the order and
Speaker:I've always liked him hitting kind lower down because I think he's the way he,
Speaker:his abilities are more in tune to like a one two hitter, but his mentality is more
Speaker:at tuned to a lower the order hitter.
Speaker:And so when he has 'em, he's been hitting seventh recently and that's, that's a
Speaker:great spot for like, as you said, he gets on, he can steal and then, you
Speaker:know, if he got Hammond and Holman or Hammond and Slater hitting after him,
Speaker:well then, you know, one of 'em could bunt and then they're pretty good hitters.
Speaker:And then you're coming back around to Jorge, who is more like a three, four
Speaker:hitter, even though he's hitting leadoff.
Speaker:So you've got, uh, it, it, it is kinda like having a, a second leadoff
Speaker:hitter in the middle of the lineup, which is, I. Kind of what you want
Speaker:and it's helpful when your best defensive player can also hit, get
Speaker:on base and steal because he made some great plays at shortstop.
Speaker:I think he loved playing on that turf at JU 'cause the
Speaker:bounces were more predictable.
Speaker:He was eaten over there at short.
Speaker:Uh, and I don't, I. I didn't check the box score, but I know
Speaker:we had no errors yesterday.
Speaker:Uh, let's see.
Speaker:I have it right here.
Speaker:We had no errors today.
Speaker:No errors for either team two days in a row, which is pretty great.
Speaker:Yeah, no, he, I mean, I remember, again, I think I've said this
Speaker:before, but the first time I ever saw Kyle playing, he was like 14.
Speaker:And I remember thinking at the time, I was like, this was kind complaining.
Speaker:Uh, defensive college right now, and he's never proven me wrong.
Speaker:He could play defensive and he, he also showed he could play defense in the
Speaker:outfield in college at, at a high level.
Speaker:He, he's just that good.
Speaker:He's as, as, as Kyle said before, he's utility guy.
Speaker:He is, he is not a shortstop utility guy.
Speaker:Um, he, he's, yeah, he had a phenomenal weekend.
Speaker:He's been making some great plays.
Speaker:He, he is just, he's just so athletically gifted and, you know, it's, it's one
Speaker:of those, as someone who has never been athletically gifted in any way,
Speaker:it's like, you look at it like, how do you, how do you, how does your body
Speaker:and brain just all do that at once?
Speaker:Like, I would, I would, Scottie made a play in the outfield yesterday where
Speaker:he, uh, you know, we, we, we tend to call him, uh, my dad said he is like
Speaker:a baby GI draft sometimes out there.
Speaker:'cause he is so long and lanky.
Speaker:He, he runs a little, he does sometimes he makes, he, he
Speaker:makes some bad reads on balls.
Speaker:He's a little goofy sometimes.
Speaker:But he made that nice kind of leaping catch and I said, oh, the
Speaker:baby draft got the top branch.
Speaker:Uh, but then he immediately, as he's running back in his hat's falling off.
Speaker:Just for, for no reason whatsoever.
Speaker:I mean, I was like that.
Speaker:There it is.
Speaker:That's, you know, the guy makes an amazing play and is,
Speaker:he's still a little bit goofy.
Speaker:And I was like, that's, I can relate to that.
Speaker:I can, I can relate to being like maybe doing, maybe accidentally doing something
Speaker:and then being a little goofy afterwards.
Speaker:But like someone like Kyle, it's just like, no, you're just like,
Speaker:you're on a, a physical level.
Speaker:I could, couldn't even imagine.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, that play that you're talking about with Scotty out there and
Speaker:left, saved us two runs as well.
Speaker:That would've been a, a big swing.
Speaker:So maybe a slight misread to begin with it, but he used the size to, uh,
Speaker:to make the catch and save the game.
Speaker:I, I, I gotta say, I wanna know Scotty's bat di dimensions 'cause I. I'm used
Speaker:to watching like a Jose Altuve swings like a 37 or 38 inch bat, and it looks
Speaker:hilarious because he's five foot six and swings that, and I'm sure that he's
Speaker:swinging a perfectly normal sized bat.
Speaker:But because Scotty's six foot six, it looks like he's swinging with a toothpick.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like he should, uh, needs to upgrade there.
Speaker:But I don't know.
Speaker:We'll, we'll ask him about that if we have back on again.
Speaker:He was another very funny guest of the
Speaker:podcast.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes, he was.
Speaker:Um, well, any, uh, any word back from Coach Fin Wood yet?
Speaker:Are they?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Again, you know, probably just between getting, getting going on the road.
Speaker:I'm sure he just, you know, and he is not like us.
Speaker:Uh, you know, the youth and all we're on our phones constantly.
Speaker:He is, he is doing whatever he is doing and taking care of business.
Speaker:Then he might relax and look at the phone.
Speaker:He probably has like 900 messages in his inbox too.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm sure too.
Speaker:So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would, I would not bet on Finney being able
Speaker:to join us, uh, today, which is, you know, again, that's, I'm sure he's
Speaker:as sad about as anybody because he, he, he really does enjoy coming on
Speaker:here, getting to talk to everybody.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think he likes having the direct connection to the fans for sure.
Speaker:Well, I see there's still a, let's see, a couple hundred people still tuning in
Speaker:across different social platforms, so.
Speaker:Uh, haven't gotten a comment in a while, so if you're
Speaker:listening, shoot us a message.
Speaker:Question, anything.
Speaker:We'd love to start.
Speaker:Yeah, we, we would definitely love to, you know, I know you hear us
Speaker:babble on enough, and as I, as I said, my mom says, uh, we talk too much.
Speaker:So, but if there's some things you'd like to, to bring up or like to talk
Speaker:to us about, we, we would love it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's, but it is, it's, it's, it's nice to see.
Speaker:Um, I got to go out and see one of our commits of the day, uh, uh, cam
Speaker:Teflon's, a big first baseman here at, uh, Lance Town High, so he looked good
Speaker:and his team didn't win that game.
Speaker:That was, that was a tough game.
Speaker:But he, he is, uh, he, he's been coming out, him and his dad been coming out
Speaker:to, and his granddad, I think had been coming out to some games here and there.
Speaker:And so he is, uh, the other day, I, we were getting, uh, we were getting beat
Speaker:pretty bad in that one game against, I think it was Marshall the Friday.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:And I was, I was, I walked by, we weren't scoring any runs.
Speaker:I walked by and told him, Hey, this is why we need you next year.
Speaker:I mean he, that he's a big boy and I know you've seen him play, but
Speaker:I mean he's he's what, six four?
Speaker:Six five.
Speaker:Still growing.
Speaker:Uh, big, big first base, uh, commit for us.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we're, we're pump for him.
Speaker:I, um,
Speaker:yeah, we had a few and then Jackson o Conco is there, Greenbrier Christian,
Speaker:they're going to the, um, this week is gonna be their state tournament.
Speaker:They won the championship again, of course, because
Speaker:they're Green Bear Christian.
Speaker:That's what they do.
Speaker:Uh, they won the, the, the, the regional.
Speaker:Um, and so they're gonna states, um, I saw Nick Felton's
Speaker:outfit that was coming to us.
Speaker:His team is like 26 and one and I think the one loss they had all year was
Speaker:to the IMG national team, which, you know, we all know how good they are.
Speaker:Um, so he is on a really guy you can get a chance 'cause they got rained
Speaker:out the day I was gonna go see him.
Speaker:So I didn't get a chance to get to see him this year.
Speaker:Uh, so we, yeah, some, some time I saw Will Johnson's a JUCO outfit.
Speaker:He had a sixth home round the other day.
Speaker:So we got some, some other guys coming to us are, are doing pretty
Speaker:well as they're getting toured, you know, the end of their seasons also.
Speaker:Good to see the new crop coming in.
Speaker:'cause who knows what things look like next year with changes to roster
Speaker:limits and yeah, general portal and new stadium and all of that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But while we're waiting for some question, yeah.
Speaker:We had, um, we had what, 18 returners and 22 new guys this past year.
Speaker:And my guess is just, just based on the reality of the way things go, I wouldn't
Speaker:be surprised if it's pretty much similar numbers to that kind of every year.
Speaker:That's just how, how it is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's gonna be baseball moving forward.
Speaker:I feel like baseball kind of ducked some of it for a couple years.
Speaker:They made it longer than football and basketball, but it's coming for
Speaker:all the sports now that it's there.
Speaker:I still think for us, the NIL isn't as huge of a deal.
Speaker:Um, I think now if you do have some guy who's like a.
Speaker:All American standout as like a freshman or a sophomore.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's a good shot of a team coming and getting him, but I think in
Speaker:general, well, especially with like with basketball, what I'm noticing is you see
Speaker:a lot of players moving from one team to the other in the same conference.
Speaker:And again, that's just because of the money.
Speaker:I don't think that's gonna happen in the baseball because how many teams in, in the
Speaker:Sunbelt and baseball actually have in NIL what, like Southern Miss has one, probably
Speaker:Coastal probably has one, but they're not in the millions we're talking about.
Speaker:I think I hear, heard Southern miss is like 250,000.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's like, you know, maybe you can offer the guy, you know, $20,000.
Speaker:Like, is that life changing enough to go and check?
Speaker:Probably not.
Speaker:I mean, most of the guys, they're probably not gonna be, they're,
Speaker:they're trying to get other guys, um, or, or pay their own guys.
Speaker:So I think
Speaker:I, I would also assume that some of the 20 K may be in lieu of scholarship,
Speaker:which the roster limits and scholarship limits thing is gonna limit that.
Speaker:But the, I guarantee you, especially in baseball with 11.7 scholarships,
Speaker:you're probably, if you can fundraise 250,000, that's what like, you know,
Speaker:they're three, four full rides.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think in, in, in general right now, the NIL is still
Speaker:is not really a Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Again, if you have somebody who's like an all world, like, uh, just for an
Speaker:example, like Carter Trice after his freshman year, he was an All American,
Speaker:he's playing team USA that and he did eventually end up leaving us.
Speaker:You really ended up being kind of mutual decision at that time.
Speaker:Uh, but probably if a player like that happened again, yeah, you might see an
Speaker:S-E-C-A-C-C team try to steal 'em away.
Speaker:Uh, but, you know, good problems to have, I guess you got a good year of a guy.
Speaker:But the reality is, I don't think, I think when you see our guys moving,
Speaker:there's gonna be guys who leave us because they really didn't get a chance
Speaker:to play here or didn't play that well.
Speaker:And we both kind of, the team and the player decided it's time for the move
Speaker:on, or we're, we got guys who just didn't play and they wanna train.
Speaker:You know, we're, we're probably not losing guys who we really,
Speaker:really don't wanna lose.
Speaker:Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker:And hopefully that continues to be the case.
Speaker:And I think we need to go probably attract some arms, uh, in the transfer portal
Speaker:'cause we're, we're gonna lose our three weekend starters, but, uh, really inspired
Speaker:by Hubble's performance on Friday.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:MoMA doesn't get much bigger than what he had to go up against.
Speaker:He comes and gives us three scoreless and wins the game.
Speaker:You can tell it meant a lot to him.
Speaker:He was pumped.
Speaker:If you weren't on the stream earlier, uh, you need to go back and watch
Speaker:that ODU baseball, uh, social media accounts have it out too, but.
Speaker:Getting that last out.
Speaker:He's celebrating, you see, and Kyle and Teran come together, celebrate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Canaan and Scotty and I don't know some other people were doing, I don't know
Speaker:what, uh, but it was just a great shot, just big moment for Hubble, but he's
Speaker:got to be someone that probably steps up and starts for us on Friday or Saturday.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he was the guy when they brought him in this year, that was a possibility.
Speaker:You know, he was kind of making like starter type, um, appearances
Speaker:all throughout the, the fall and the early spring and just decided
Speaker:okay, he, he's probably better.
Speaker:And, and compared to the guys we have, he's, we'd be better outta
Speaker:the bullpen, but he's, yeah.
Speaker:It's, it's, now you're looking at you like, okay, this is a guy who we probably
Speaker:can build with and, and have him become a, a, a starter next year, which is nice
Speaker:because Yeah, you know, again, about a month ago it was like, man, who is
Speaker:gonna start for this team next year?
Speaker:Uh, you know, which again, I don't have to figure it out.
Speaker:That's, that's on them.
Speaker:You know, Marin and Finwood, the guys are gonna figure it out.
Speaker:I, I, I believe in them.
Speaker:They haven't, they have yet to come into a season where, where I was like,
Speaker:it was all these guys are terrible and no one's gonna be able to pitch.
Speaker:Um, you know.
Speaker:That doesn't mean that some of the guys don't perform as well as
Speaker:you'd hope, but that I, again, I don't think I ever, I haven't, they
Speaker:haven't started one yet where I've been like, these guys are terrible.
Speaker:I'm gonna have the fall.
Speaker:This guy, they can't throw, they're, no, I don't, I usually go like,
Speaker:Hey, if they pitch up to their ability, we're gonna be fine.
Speaker:And sometimes that doesn't happen, but, so yeah, I, I, however it happens, if
Speaker:it's, if it's guys like Hubble stepping up, you know, if, if a guy like Nick
Speaker:Ezio has a great strong end of the year here and then comes back out all
Speaker:of a sudden next year and it's like pitches how you've been thinking he
Speaker:is gonna pitch, you know, who knows.
Speaker:But yeah, you definitely, they're, you're gonna see some, some arms, I'm
Speaker:sure, uh, coming in either through the portal or through some more JUCO guys
Speaker:and they might even have guys who are committed that were not, I'm not aware of.
Speaker:Sometimes they're just, yeah, sometimes between Twitter and Instagram and
Speaker:all the places, you just don't see some guy say, I was committed.
Speaker:It's, it's not, it's not as, as, as hard as I search, uh, through find it sometimes
Speaker:it's like, well, I didn't see that one.
Speaker:I had no idea.
Speaker:There's always somebody in the fall that I walk up, I'm
Speaker:like, never heard of this guy.
Speaker:And I, we also have a couple guys that we really haven't seen
Speaker:this year because of injury.
Speaker:Um, so there's, there's definitely that el element of it as well.
Speaker:I don't know how this is coming in.
Speaker:Hey dudes.
Speaker:Excuse me.
Speaker:Copy, while you prep for Mother's Day dinner.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yes, that's good.
Speaker:We love Happy, happy Mother's Day.
Speaker:To your mom and to my, my mom.
Speaker:And my mom's awesome.
Speaker:She makes everyone cookies and they love them and, uh, they all act like
Speaker:they're the, she gets 'em from Walmart.
Speaker:She's always baffled by why people love them so much.
Speaker:She, she doesn't understand it, but she, she'll keep making
Speaker:'em 'cause she loves everybody.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, of course.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:Harry McBrien, one of the fellow Monarchists with us, and he has an
Speaker:important job on Thursday, potentially the most important job that will exist.
Speaker:On Thursday at 7 5 7, he is driving the team over to War Memorial for, uh,
Speaker:game one of the series with Coastal.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:If you see the ODU bus, stay outta the way.
Speaker:'cause Harry will run your ass off the road and do it with a smile on his face.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:no, I remember I was there at the memorial and I think, and Paul
Speaker:Panik was like, yeah, one of the markets guys was driving us today.
Speaker:I was like, all right.
Speaker:Yeah, it was Harry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We've reached a new, new element of trust apparently.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:It's one thing to let, talk to us on the podcast, nothing less actually drive
Speaker:you all at a bus across, uh, the worst place on the planet that, that that
Speaker:tunnel from Hampton is, that is the worst spot in, in, in, in the world.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:Well, uh, Harry McBrien too, uh, you know, during, uh, basketball season,
Speaker:actually got a group of kids from the community in Virginia Beach.
Speaker:Uh, got 'em away from their parents for a little bit, took 'em over
Speaker:to the ODU football facility.
Speaker:He got the coach, Ronnie was there, the rest of the coaching staff, spoke with
Speaker:him, fed him lunch, took him to a women's basketball game and dropped him off.
Speaker:Uh, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker:But that's, uh, part of the reason why Harry has that bus license and the ability
Speaker:to drive it is community minded, things like that, which obviously our group is.
Speaker:A big part of still we'll have, you know, dollars for
Speaker:Dingers is a big thing for ODU.
Speaker:Uh, but Toys for Tots for us in the fall is like our biggest kind
Speaker:of nonprofit event that we have.
Speaker:We bring in all kinds of armaments and, uh, fighter jets and all
Speaker:that stuff to, to help push that.
Speaker:So be on lookout for that.
Speaker:Um, I have one baseball related story that I wanna tell because
Speaker:I just can't believe it.
Speaker:And also kind of as a Astros fan, it's kind of funny.
Speaker:Uh, so Ryan Presley talking about relievers and everything had potentially
Speaker:one of the biggest meltdowns as a pitcher in pro baseball history.
Speaker:And it was earlier this week.
Speaker:Uh, they're in extra innings.
Speaker:And, uh, Ryan Presley, final stat line, no outs recorded five hits,
Speaker:nine runs, eight of 'em are earned.
Speaker:One walk in, technically zero innings of work.
Speaker:He, uh, went into the game with an ERA of 2.08 and he walked out with 7.62.
Speaker:And he, he'll he could be amazing the rest of the year and he'll still end up
Speaker:being like four and a half or something.
Speaker:Yeah, it's, it's tough as a reliever to get that.
Speaker:Ryan Presley's been a really good reliever for years.
Speaker:I think he had only given up one run since the beginning of the season or one or
Speaker:two runs at the beginning of the season.
Speaker:He's been good, obviously great for the Astros for a long time as a closer.
Speaker:Uh, but man, the only run that wasn't earned is the imaginary runner that
Speaker:starts on second base and extra innings.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:That's fully on a run.
Speaker:Everything else was earned.
Speaker:There were no errors.
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:But that's how quickly the world can change on a, uh, on a reliever.
Speaker:So I think of like Sulp Pio who started out rough, his total stats for the season
Speaker:may not look that great, but what he's done in the past couple weeks is huge.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:Same for Alex Hunt, a couple of the other guys and it's like maybe
Speaker:that lulls some teams to sleep when they're going down our pitching stats.
Speaker:'cause we would probably do the same thing if we saw a guy with like a seven number
Speaker:next to his name coming in to pitch.
Speaker:Well to tell you right now.
Speaker:So I happen to have, so Ezio came into the game with a 8 53 ERA.
Speaker:Two scoreless innings, knocked him down to 6 89.
Speaker:So almost two runs just off of that.
Speaker:'cause that's how few innings he has.
Speaker:Even just pitching.
Speaker:Well it drops down some.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, I mean it's says a lot.
Speaker:It's, it's wild how quickly things can turn one bad night.
Speaker:And my goodness, you've gone from uh, probably a no doubter all star
Speaker:2D FA, this guy send him down.
Speaker:I didn't even wanna look at Lance McCuller yesterday.
Speaker:Uh, he was on his second start back pitching for the Astros
Speaker:after Tommy John's surgery.
Speaker:And I looked, it was 10 to nothing reds in the first inning
Speaker:and I just changed the channel.
Speaker:So
Speaker:one of the nicest human beings I think I've ever met Lance McCullers.
Speaker:Like, what a dude, what a, they, the Astros have a lot of
Speaker:really good, i I saw them a lot.
Speaker:Um, their spring training was, was really when I was still going to spring training.
Speaker:They had a really accessible spring training place and, and
Speaker:they were always really nice too, so it was a good place to go.
Speaker:And yeah, Lance is, is one of the nicest human beings you'd ever meet in your life.
Speaker:Yeah, he was, uh, unfortunately getting some death threats
Speaker:after the game yesterday, so I don't know if it's, uh, it's
Speaker:crazy.
Speaker:Gamblers are just really salty Astro fans, but, uh, either way
Speaker:it's ridiculous.
Speaker:It's just a baseball game.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's, it's
Speaker:crazy.
Speaker:All right, Gary, I don't know this, I, I think we're, we feel like we're, now
Speaker:that we're just randomly talking to my Astros flares, it might be tough.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I gotta stop that to wrap it up.
Speaker:Well, there is one thing I have to, there's one thing I have to do real quick.
Speaker:This episode of the Monarchist Podcast is brought to you by
Speaker:the pride of ODU Collective.
Speaker:Their mission is to elevate the experience of student athletes through
Speaker:name, image, and likeness, while also elevating the fan experience.
Speaker:If you or your business are interested in getting involved,
Speaker:you can reach out to us directly or go over to the pride of odu.com.
Speaker:That is the pride of odu.com.
Speaker:Thank you for listening And go Monarchs.
Speaker:Accurate.
Speaker:We did need that.
Speaker:Correct?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We absolutely knew that.
Speaker:I was stalling to see if Coach FEMA would be able to join.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I know.
Speaker:I'm sure when he, when he finds out, he's be like, oh man, I
Speaker:wish I would've seen the message.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He, we, and we, we did let him know.
Speaker:Like he, I remember he did ask, he said there was some week he
Speaker:knew we, this was happening.
Speaker:So, you know, not ideal, but how stuff goes.
Speaker:Again, if you, if you want things to be perfect, make sure, you know, give
Speaker:or give enough to the, to the pride.
Speaker:So this is all our, our full-time job, then we can all make it out.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:And Gary's not off traveling wherever.
Speaker:'cause he is, he is fully committed to, uh, to, to, to the fandom.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Just don't become important at work.
Speaker:And you'll get to see the coastal series.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:But, uh, I'll be down in Montgomery for the Sunbelt tournament, so I imagine
Speaker:we will continue to do some live things there, coordinate that from a couple
Speaker:states away, uh, especially if these guys get in there and start winning some games.
Speaker:Do some good stuff.
Speaker:Fun.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we're on that trajectory, like, as you said it, it's really, I
Speaker:mean, I, I think you'd be lying as a Monarch fan if you said like about a,
Speaker:you know, three weeks, a month ago.
Speaker:It wasn't like, well this is, uh, you know, this is how
Speaker:the season's gone, I guess.
Speaker:I mean, I've said a few times, like, I just don't think we're
Speaker:that good of a baseball team.
Speaker:And we kind of played enough games and it kind of has proved it.
Speaker:And now they're turning around and they're showing like, Hey, we're
Speaker:gonna play like we Kainen like we should have been playing all year.
Speaker:And, and yeah, it, it's been a tough year and you've had all these, all
Speaker:these tests and all these trials and what you're seeing I think is,
Speaker:uh, I think you said it or like one, some, somebody said it the other
Speaker:day, but it was like, this is what a.
Speaker:Battle tested team looks like.
Speaker:I think you said that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:I wanna make sure you get the credit.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, and, and it's the truth, like this is, this is what a team that
Speaker:has been through the Ringer looks like and, and they're coming out the other
Speaker:side with some lessons and finding success that a team that has had it easy
Speaker:all year wouldn't, you know, it's one thing when you, when you blow everybody
Speaker:out, you know, that was, uh, that my, my buddy Pat Nichols that, uh, the coach of
Speaker:Greenbrier Christian at ODU u baseball alum, he had the second most home runs
Speaker:of anybody in a season up until, um, a few of the guys just obl those records.
Speaker:He, he's got his, um, his eight U team is his son Max is playing on
Speaker:and they kind of blow people out.
Speaker:I mean, it, it's, it's funny 'cause I go out and take pictures of them and
Speaker:I've taken pictures of other folks as kids and, uh, these eight year
Speaker:olds are like turning double plays.
Speaker:I mean, they, it does not look like eight year olds.
Speaker:Like I, I've seen, I've seen.
Speaker:High school teams don't play as well as they play.
Speaker:Um, and they blow out kind of every game.
Speaker:And so, uh, I, I, his, uh, his mom Brittany had a post about a game, uh,
Speaker:Syria, a tournament they played last weekend where they actually lost the game.
Speaker:And she was like, we were worried we hadn't really prepared them for failure.
Speaker:Uh, and so she, it was nice, she said they, they actually, they took it great.
Speaker:They weren't wanting, they were just like, okay, let's go to work.
Speaker:And they win and won the rest of the game.
Speaker:And so it's, yeah, it sometimes, but sometimes those teams, the,
Speaker:the whole point of that Longwinded story was sometimes those teams
Speaker:who win too much, they did not prepared for win the you lose.
Speaker:Um, and so we don't have that.
Speaker:We have a team full of guys who were like, you know, if we lose, okay, we get down.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And now they've kind of learned those lessons of how to come back,
Speaker:how to get, and, and you're seeing guys step up and have success.
Speaker:And it's, it's really, it's really fun to watch, man.
Speaker:It's been a, it's been a fun few weeks here watching 'em win these games.
Speaker:The growth has been awesome.
Speaker:They're also just so much tougher than they were at the beginning of the year.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We would have Coach Finwood on, he would talk about toughness and attitude
Speaker:and work and taking accountability.
Speaker:And you, you see that now.
Speaker:You see guys, we're still gonna strike out, we're still gonna get out,
Speaker:we're gonna get out in big moments, but it's just like it's done before
Speaker:they even get back to the dugout.
Speaker:There's so many
Speaker:more foul balls than the ab bats.
Speaker:There's so many more fighting off pitches.
Speaker:Getting one more pitch, one more pitch.
Speaker:I before it is like, whiff, whiff, whiff.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:Go back to the dugout.
Speaker:Like, no, it's, it's, it's what?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I said it to him and I said to Hera, I was like, it took, it's like
Speaker:it took half the year for what you guys were telling to finally sink in.
Speaker:Well, today, JMU starts a guy through 36 pitches on Friday, and
Speaker:we need to get him out of the game.
Speaker:Through four and a third, I think it was at 95 pitches.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we were able to get 'em out.
Speaker:We, we got guys on base, knocked them out of the game, and we were able to, to get
Speaker:ahead and get the hits that we needed.
Speaker:So it, it is, it's that toughness and war of attrition in the Sunbelt tournament.
Speaker:You can get the opposing starter to a hundred pitches in the fifth inning.
Speaker:You're probably gonna win that baseball game and you're probably gonna screw
Speaker:them for the rest of the tournament.
Speaker:So that is a, a good skill to have, and glad to see it coming together for 'em.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:We love it.
Speaker:I'm, I'm excited about it.
Speaker:We got our final home stand.
Speaker:We got the game, uh, Thursday night, Friday at three.
Speaker:I made sure I was off in the afternoon so I could come over and
Speaker:get, see that, that's gonna be our graduation day before the game.
Speaker:Uh, Saturday is the, the home finale at one o'clock.
Speaker:Uh, and now we'll have our, our senior day.
Speaker:So, so make sure if you're coming at these games, try to come out early.
Speaker:Uh, graduation day is always cool 'cause they, they, these guys
Speaker:obviously missed walking this weekend.
Speaker:Um, I have you probably all kinds of great pictures from our sports teams with all
Speaker:different athletes, but they didn't get to have that, so they get to have their
Speaker:own walk, uh, on, on Friday and then, and then Saturday honoring our seniors, which
Speaker:I think we, I don't even know the number.
Speaker:We have a ton of seniors.
Speaker:We do have a ton.
Speaker:I'm sad that I'm gonna be missing it, but get to War Memorial
Speaker:Thursday, Friday or or Saturday.
Speaker:Get there.
Speaker:Go see these guys play.
Speaker:Uh, and then tuned into 'em for the Sunbelt tournament because they're
Speaker:gonna be a very fun team to watch.
Speaker:So if you hopped off the bandwagon when they were like 15 games over 500, come on.
Speaker:Plenty of room.
Speaker:Hop back on.
Speaker:We whoa, hop
Speaker:back
Speaker:on.
Speaker:Let's, let's end a, the athletic season and all the positive.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:By supporting these
Speaker:guys, we are, they're the last, uh, ODU athletic team playing right now.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The last ones.
Speaker:And they just swept JMU.
Speaker:So hey.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Hey and j and well, you said four zero rival week beat,
Speaker:beat, uh, VCU and three swept.
Speaker:Three against, uh, JMU
Speaker:pretty much.
Speaker:What else?
Speaker:What else can you want from A ODU sport?
Speaker:I'm just glad we're recording today before anything else can
Speaker:come out for the rest of the day.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Uh, all right, well thank you everybody for tuning in.
Speaker:This was a lot of fun.
Speaker:Appreciate everyone who sent their comments and messages and.
Speaker:Very inappropriate text messages.
Speaker:That was actually hilarious.
Speaker:Oh dear.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, cb, anything else?
Speaker:Hey, go Monarchs.
Speaker:Go Monarch.
