Fayetteville (Super) Regional - 2025 Edition now CWS

[Show-Me Hog]

Maybe someone feels like nerding and can pull a list of the most recent winners of the CWS that lost game 1 to make me feel better...or worse.

The stat tonight was that 22/25 CWS winners won their Game 1. So only 3 counter-examples.

I don't know if that means the last 25 years, I assume so. And at some point they changed the format to two 4-team brackets.

[Thin Red Swine]

And they showed that LSU won the first game all seven of their championships, so they aren't exactly going to choke.

[Feral]

Sucks LSU can manage multiple championships and poor DVH can't piss a drop in Omaha. 

I've said this before but it's crazy to me that guys like Pat Casey, Tim Corbin, and Mike Bianco have a combined 13 trips to Omaha and 6 rings between them, wheres Mike Martin, Ron Polk, and DVH have a combined 35 CWS appearances and 0 rings.

[DirkPiggler]

And they showed that LSU won the first game all seven of their championships, so they aren't exactly going to choke.

But how many times did they win their first game and not win the championship?

[Thin Red Swine]

But how many times did they win their first game and not win the championship?

According to ChatGPT...

"LSU has never won its opening game of a College World Series and then failed to claim the NCAA championship.

Here's why:
   •   LSU's seven CWS titles (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009, 2023) all came in years when they won their first game in Omaha  �.
   •   In the 12 other CWS appearances where they did not win the title (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017), LSU never lost their first game and then came up short—they either lost their opener or went deeper but fell later .

Put simply: LSU has 0 instances of winning Game 1 of the CWS and then failing to win the championship."

[Barton Fink]

I've said this before but it's crazy to me that guys like Pat Casey, Tim Corbin, and Mike Bianco have a combined 13 trips to Omaha and 6 rings between them, wheres Mike Martin, Ron Polk, and DVH have a combined 35 CWS appearances and 0 rings.

It's called luck. We don't have it. DVH isn't the problem.

[BASS]

We've scored a total of 4 runs in our last 3 CWS games.

Oof. That's a pattern. Dave is doing something wrong between the supers and getting to Omaha. Change it up.

[BleedinRed]

It's called luck. We don't have it. DVH isn't the problem.

I think the dropped ball proves this is true. 

[Feral]

It's called luck. We don't have it. DVH isn't the problem.

Luck gets you a good draw, a dropped foul ball, or a bloop that falls.

It doesn't explain those coaches winning it all basically half the time they go to Omaha whereas other coaches who perennially go to Omaha come away empty.

I'm willing to bet it has something to do with routines, preparation, approach, etc. There's basically no other way to explain it.

I know one thing — this team was wound tighter than a new drum. We looked profoundly uncomfortable at the plate, out of sorts in the field, and Root looked rattled on the bump.

[Thin Red Swine]

Luck gets you a good draw, a dropped foul ball, or a bloop that falls.

It doesn't explain those coaches winning it all basically half the time they go to Omaha whereas other coaches who perennially go to Omaha come away empty.

I'm willing to bet it has something to do with routines, preparation, approach, etc. There's basically no other way to explain it.

I know one thing — this team was wound tighter than a new drum. We looked profoundly uncomfortable at the plate, out of sorts in the field, and Root looked rattled on the bump.

It's called playing not to lose.

Studies have shown that leads to losing approximately 97% of the time. 

[wmr]

I don't believe that at all.   There is a reason they didn't dogpile last weekend.  He and the rest of the team knows that their ceiling is higher than that.  They just weren't mentally ready for the moment. 

Really enjoyed watching the team have fun at the driving range and Omaha zoo this week on Instagram.

[DirkPiggler]

Really enjoyed watching the team have fun at the driving range and Omaha zoo this week on Instagram.

I'm sure no other team in Omaha has participated in the planned activities assigned for them. 

Obviously something was off yesterday.  The fact that they did more than just practice for a couple of hours and then sit in there rooms for three days wasn't it.

[Hogfan58]

This was Hoover 2.0. 1 bad inning where they hit 1 ball out of the the infield and scored 3 runs, ballgame. Another wasted great pitching effort, ala Hoover. LSU capitalized on their walks, we hit into double-plays with ours. It was typical Omaha Hogs.

[BleedinRed]

Doesn't help that over half our lineup haven't been able to have productive at bats for over a month now.   This team has reverted to the mean.  Nate, the only constant denominator year to year, hasn't been able to figure it out.   

The "Bash Brothers" have all but disappeared.  Iredale is Diggs 2.0. Thomas is unreliable.  Robinett is inconsistent. 

Don't misunderstand.  All these guys can hit.  They are unreliable and have been for months.

Root had a bad inning.  It happens.  Even if he had thrown a great game the bats were destined to lose it for us.  Which is an all too common story from DVH teams. 

[buff2.0]

Revisit this one

https://x.com/adamford92/status/1931852214089478481?s=46&t=DTGVKlgNTKh5Nq29PdZsdg

[Feral]

The "Bash Brothers" have all but disappeared.  Iredale is Diggs 2.0. Thomas is unreliable.  Robinett is inconsistent.

Kuhio has been MIA at the plate for what seems like 6 weeks now.

Wehiwa is great in low pressure ABs but presses hard in clutch situations with RISP and reverts back to his chase and miss tendencies.

Iredale is Ty Wilmsmeyer with power. Good defensively but far too often looks like he wants to he anywhere else during an AB.

Yesterday's home run aside, Robinett has been terrible since the Texas series and would probably bat in the 9 hole if Thomas didn't have the worst plate discipline on the team. The only reason he's playing is because Souza went down, Kozeal had to shift to 2nd, and Peppi is a worse option.

[Thin Red Swine]

Really enjoyed watching the team have fun at the driving range and Omaha zoo this week on Instagram.

Driving range? Really?

No wonder they couldn't hit a moving ball.

[Feral]

Revisit this one

https://x.com/adamford92/status/1931852214089478481?s=46&t=DTGVKlgNTKh5Nq29PdZsdg

Great find, and still very applicable.

I found this noteworthy:

So what's the postseason issue here? Let's go back to the that two-strike thing. Again, 52% of Arkansas' at-bats went to two strikes. While the Hogs didn't strike out much on these counts, were they forced to swing at bad pitches, leading to poor contact? The evidence says yes.

https://x.com/adamford92/status/1012511894467465216?s=46

We're still doing that same thing. Watching a lot of early pitches and seeing a ton of disadvantage counts. Seems like we're constantly starting out 0-2 or 1-2, and the approach is the same: take the first pitch, foul off the second (which often isn't close), and watch the third hoping it's a ball.  The order of the second and third pitches is sometime flopped, but always happens that way.

Ford's point then — and still applicable now — is that this approach leads us to more often than not being forced to swing at bad pitches to protect.

I don't know the numbers on how many advantage counts we see vs disadvantage counts, but I'd wager that the ratio is pretty lopsided.

[DirkPiggler]

After the game I was as disappointed as I've ever been with a Hog loss.  In spite of the limitations pointed out above (which affect every team), this is the best team Van Horn has put on the field.  There are capable hitters in 8/9 spots.  No one in the field has our pitching depth.

Thinking more rationally, we do have a path.  We should be able to beat Murray State and get our bats back on track.  UCLA can hit a little but I didn't see any pitchers who scared me.  They would be a bottom half of the SEC pitching staff.  We would then presumably play LSU again on Wednesday, with neither Anderson nor Eyanson available on normal rest.  Then should we win we would probably get some combination of those two for 2-3 innings each, still on short rest, facing Root again. 

Not the ideal path, and there's zero room for a day off mentally which is what killed us more than anything last night. 

[Son of Spam]

We are Sisyphus. We keep rolling that bolder to the top of the mountain, only to have it roll back down after we nearly reach the summit. I have let go of the rope for football and haven't missed it at all. Basketball has drawn me back in a little. Baseball was my true love, but even now, I feel like letting go. We just aren't going to make it. Ever. No matter how good we see to be, there is always someone else better. We just can't get to the summit. And who knows what we will look like next year. We need some of those 26 year old 9 year seniors.