Makes you start to question this incredible player development Mercer continues to preach, no?
Some players, especially the position players, are just late bloomers and maybe it's not necessarily the coaching aspect to it. However, I certainly believe it makes a difference with the pitchers. Luke Hayden had two straight seasons of control issues, but most of that problem disappeared in a matter of months after transferring to ISU.
I think that’s a stretch kip didn’t fit in at the time and we have plenty of guys with similarly solid offensive stats albeit fewer homers. Good for him. Our issue is pitching Ethan Phillips who showed promise his first year is in portal now he stunk this year.
I believe someone like Mercer often counsels guys to try portal if he doesn’t see potential against existing or incoming talent. Kip I think was one of those as believe he was 1b and likely had tibbets and Ellis to contend with and had not established himself offensively. I’m much more concerned about proper talent ID and development of pitchers. For position players one critique should be defensive especially exacerbating below par pitching
You might be right in your overall assessment, but I seem to remember a bunch of times our bats went dead and cost us winnable games. And way too often the bats didn’t come alive until the 5th inning or so after the opponent had put us a pretty deep hole.
He was on Indy radio the other day. He saw himself buried behind Matt Ellis and Brock Tibbitts at 1B, by Mathison at DH, and wasn't fast enough to play 2B on the turf.
I saw some additional stats on Fougerousse in a preview of the Knoxville Super Regional. He has hit a home run in his last six games with eight in his last nine games, 10 in his last 13 games and 12 in his last 15 games. He is batting 27-for-61 (.443) during that stretch with 29 RBIs.
Parity and hot pitching perhaps. Our pitching went cold, after a hot first regional game.
