Took me 2 days to be able to open this thread. Atrocious loss on a miserable day weather wise (not that the weather had any effect, it was just lame to sit out there for 3 hours in that tty weather). The moment when I knew the game was over was when Fuller made that error at 3rd and the next guy bunted for a single.
It wasn't that he made an error or the next guy bunted for a single, but how it happened. For those that weren't there, Fuller makes a charging play on a ground ball and makes a bad/weak throw wide of the bag. Martin, who I've never seen play first, should have came off the bag to make the tag but the runner probably would have reached regardless. Anyways, the important play was the next one.
Bunt gets laid down pretty well down the 3rd base line. Probably like 35-40 feet out. Very well placed. Probably would have been a single no matter what happened but the disconcerting part was that the pitcher (can't remember who it was or what inning it was) cut the ball off with no chance of making a throw. The ONLY play there is to let the 3B field it and try to throw him out. The complete lack of trust that the fielder would make the play there was painfully evident to anyone who has watched the team all year. It has to have an effect on the pitcher's willingness to throw strikes and let the batter hit the ball, trusting that his defense will make the play.
This game really showed that to win games consistently, we need to put up 7 or 8 runs and collectively hold our breath. When Fischer or Marzi are having good days the offense will generally be good enough to win, but if the pitcher is shaky at all, when you factor in the defense and the effect it has to have on the pitcher's psyche, the offense is going to need to rake for close to 10 runs. It's not a good formula for winning. That's not to say winning in the Big East is out of the question, as we have shown to this point in the season, but it certainly limits our options. With the Bryant loss, I have officially moved from hoping for a miracle run for the sake of getting into the NCAA tournament to hoping for a Big East Championship - regular season (would be a miracle given our fielding) or tournament (anything can happen in one week of baseball). I would sign up for either one at this point and obviously feel like we were making out like gangbusters.
I've said it before, but this is more or less what expectations were coming into the season given how much we lost. It just hurts that the most fundamental part of the game is why we are sitting in this position. With average fielding to this point in the season, we are probably a favorite to win the conference as crazy as it is to consider that on the heels of losing the entire weekend staff and most of the starting lineup from last year.
