Men #15 UConn v. Northeastern Huskies (Tuesday 4/18/23 @Elliot Ballpark @ 4:05p). Game on UConn+/Mixlr

[dbmill]

Top 9th, after getting the first out, Pascarella issues 2 walks. He comes out of the game, Braden Quinn coming in to pitch.

Quinn gets 2 outs to end the inning with no runs scoring. 12-3 Northeastern.

 

[dbmill]

Bottom 9th, UConn offense loads the bases with 3 walks in a scoreless inning. Northeastern wins 12-3. No question, an ugly game for UConn.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

Now I like our chances tomorrow against BC more…

 

[Viet Vet]

Beat BC, or hosting a regional is toast.

 

[MarkyMark]

Trip Report:

• Sat behind NE dugout. NE fans loved Elliott. "Stunned" how nice the facilities are. "Incredible" was another description. Nice feedback.
• Wind blew left to right early but by the 7th inning calmed down other than the occasional gust.
• Big field/small field, wind/no wind, juiced ball/no juiced ball - Balls were barreled today when the game was being decided. Even outs were hit hard (early). I don't care what the circumstances are the 2 HRs Maldonado hit were bombs. Heard good things about him and I was impressed. He was in RF (thought he was a SS but I think they have a Sr playing SS). In any event, if he adds some bulk to the frame he has a very bright future. Need to look at his recruitment history being a CT kid. He's having a great year and he wrecked today's game.
• The feedback from the NE hitters coming back to the dugout on Ellisen was "The hard stuff is straight". He needs late movement or location has to be perfect. Otherwise, you get hurt. He was consistently in the 92 range but if it's straight...
• Kirby was topping out at 87 today. Can tell from the start it wasn't there today.

-Good to see Carrea and Pascarella - both top out in 87-88 range. So until they add velocity the location needs to be almost perfect (see Maldonado 2nd HR off Carrea). But both did well for young guys. The key for both will be adding ~3 mph on the fastball going forward. Nothing else was working and with BC tomorrow give the kids a shot. Good move.

• Nice to see Garbo having quality ABs. Early in the year, he was getting himself out. His approach at the plate is so much better now. Good to see and happy for him. Daniels also had a nice day at the plate. Was patient today.
• Looked like Simmons had a wrap/bandage on the hand. Appears the cast was off. But I was looking from across the field.
• Have to face the hard facts - the pitching needs to be fixed and I don't know what the answer(s) is/are AND it's late in the year. Any good lineup seems to really do damage against this staff. Can't rely on the offense to score 12-13 runs to win every game. Never seems to be an easy inning. Always guys on base which leads to a lot of stressful innings. If there's going to be an Achilles heel this year it's going to be the pitching obviously.
• See what happens tomorrow. Feels like Coe, M Quigs, Nowak, Fogell etc.

 

[businesslawyer]

Trip Report:

• Sat behind NE dugout. NE fans loved Elliott. "Stunned" how nice the facilities are. "Incredible" was another description. Nice feedback.
• Wind blew left to right early but by the 7th inning calmed down other than the occasional gust.
• Big field/small field, wind/no wind, juiced ball/no juiced ball - Balls were barreled today when the game was being decided. Even outs were hit hard (early). I don't care what the circumstances are the 2 HRs Maldonado hit were bombs. Heard good things about him and I was impressed. He was in RF (thought he was a SS but I think they have a Sr playing SS). In any event, if he adds some bulk to the frame he has a very bright future. Need to look at his recruitment history being a CT kid. He's having a great year and he wrecked today's game.
• The feedback from the NE hitters coming back to the dugout on Ellisen was "The hard stuff is straight". He needs late movement or location has to be perfect. Otherwise, you get hurt. He was consistently in the 92 range but if it's straight...
• Kirby was topping out at 87 today. Can tell from the start it wasn't there today.

-Good to see Carrea and Pascarella - both top out in 87-88 range. So until they add velocity the location needs to be almost perfect (see Maldonado 2nd HR off Carrea). But both did well for young guys. The key for both will be adding ~3 mph on the fastball going forward. Nothing else was working and with BC tomorrow give the kids a shot. Good move.

• Nice to see Garbo having quality ABs. Early in the year, he was getting himself out. His approach at the plate is so much better now. Good to see and happy for him. Daniels also had a nice day at the plate. Was patient today.
• Looked like Simmons had a wrap/bandage on the hand. Appears the cast was off. But I was looking from across the field.
• Have to face the hard facts - the pitching needs to be fixed and I don't know what the answer(s) is/are AND it's late in the year. Any good lineup seems to really do damage against this staff. Can't rely on the offense to score 12-13 runs to win every game. Never seems to be an easy inning. Always guys on base which leads to a lot of stressful innings. If there's going to be an Achilles heel this year it's going to be the pitching obviously.
• See what happens tomorrow. Feels like Coe, M Quigs, Nowak, Fogell etc.

The record has been better than the quality of play all year. Look at the last 4 games. We’re 2-2 through a stretch of quality opponents, but we won one 50-50 game and stole another, while getting blown out twice. Pitching needs to be better or the percentages are going to catch up with us.

 

[gtcam]

WTH games happen but this year there has been a couple of really bad WTH games
Goal should be hosting a regional and this doesn't help
Beat BC tomorrow and the chances improve again

 

[MarkyMark]

The record has been better than the quality of play all year. Look at the last 4 games. We’re 2-2 through a stretch of quality opponents, but we won one 50-50 game and stole another, while getting blown out twice. Pitching needs to be better or the percentages are going to catch up with us.

100% correct. Totally agree. Pitching just isn't where it needs to be right now.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[dbmill]

Coach Penders has positive things to say about pitchers Carrea, Pascarella, and Quinn, and for Garbowski, but nothing much good for the rest of the team.

One of the few interviews that was not done out on the field after the game.

 

[MarkyMark]

Thanks for posting this. It's interesting in this and other interviews he's tiptoeing around the pitching. Not being super critical. I believe he knows the confidence of the staff is probably shaken a bit and doesn't want to add to it. I felt bad for Kirby yesterday. He came off didn't acknowledge teammates, etc. It's frustrating and deflating when every ball finds a hole and when they don't find holes they are hit hard. Penders is probably going the carrot route rather than the stick with this staff. On another note: LSU, Vanderbilt, Louisville and Tennessee all lost yesterday so ton of upsets. I believe Tenn RPI dropped like 35 spots.

 

[dbmill]

Thanks for posting this. It's interesting in this and other interviews he's tiptoeing around the pitching. Not being super critical. I believe he knows the confidence of the staff is probably shaken a bit and doesn't want to add to it. I felt bad for Kirby yesterday. He came off didn't acknowledge teammates, etc. It's frustrating and deflating when every ball finds a hole and when they don't find holes they are hit hard. Penders is probably going the carrot route rather than the stick with this staff. On another note: LSU, Vanderbilt, Louisville and Tennessee all lost yesterday so ton of upsets. I believe Tenn RPI dropped like 35 spots.

Northeastern is also a quality team, and Coach Penders certainly admits to it in the interview. Northeastern has been hitting extremely well all season. It's interesting to look at Northeastern's record in the RPI ratings, they have done very well against teams in the top 100 and for that matter beyond, so UConn only dropped a little bit unlike Tennessee.

All those quality teams losing. Well, things like that happen in college baseball, most teams are going to lose some games, even to not so good opponents.

 

[ATLDYKA]

I'm not sure what it is, but Kirby, Coe and Willis for that matter just aren't as sharp as they were last year. On the good side, Fogell has been a very nice surprise. Afthim I think is going to be a reliable weapon going forward as well. The thing I noticed about Ellison is he does a nice job getting to 2 strikes on the batter, he just doesn't have that go to pitch to put them away yet. Gives up a lot of 2 strike hits.

 

[dbmill]

I'm not sure what it is, but Kirby, Coe and Willis for that matter just aren't as sharp as they were last year. On the good side, Fogell has been a very nice surprise. Afthim I think is going to be a reliable weapon going forward as well. The thing I noticed about Ellison is he does a nice job getting to 2 strikes on the batter, he just doesn't have that go to pitch to put them away yet. Gives up a lot of 2 strike hits.

Have to wonder how much of it has to do with the ball that college baseball is using this season. Chris Jones said during the game that he recently had a conversation with Coach Mac about the ball, and how it was different. Guessing Chris Jones will be talking about it again as the season goes on. Jones has said several times during games that run production is up all over college baseball.

Whatever the case, right now I'm guessing UConn is still in pretty good shape for making the NCAA Tournament. Of course, we still have a chunk of the season to go, so we'll see what happens.

 

[MarkyMark]

I'm not sure what it is, but Kirby, Coe and Willis for that matter just aren't as sharp as they were last year. On the good side, Fogell has been a very nice surprise. Afthim I think is going to be a reliable weapon going forward as well. The thing I noticed about Ellison is he does a nice job getting to 2 strikes on the batter, he just doesn't have that go to pitch to put them away yet. Gives up a lot of 2 strike hits.

You're touching on an interesting area. There's velocity, late movement, and location. They have a lot of guys out of the bullpen who throw high 80s maybe touch 90 with no late movement. So you need location. When I say late movement I'm referring to guys like Austin Peterson, Ben Casparius etc. I know both guys are in the minor leagues but when you have late movement/velocity it provides you with a larger margin of error. For the current staff, the margin of error is very thin. They have to throw strikes. get ahead and hit spots. These guys are not professionals so that's a challenging task. At this point, you have to keep building confidence and encourage the staff to go after hitters. Tough to make major changes at this point in the season. It's more reinforcing the approach. Kirby - velocity is down, Coe - doesn't throw enough early strikes (when he does he's hard to hit) and Willis hasn't really pitched a lot this year but yes has been hit hard.

 

[huskymedic]

On another note: LSU, Vanderbilt, Louisville and Tennessee all lost yesterday so ton of upsets. I believe Tenn RPI dropped like 35 spots.

… All those quality teams losing. Well, things like that happen in college baseball, most teams are going to lose some games, even to not so good opponents.

Yup…

 

[Palatine]

Penders better figure out how to fix the pitching because it seems broken.