LU 9 facing HBU

[eagle eye]

Don't despair Cardinal faithful, the loss to LSU earlier this week didn't mean squat but the Cards didn't roll over and play dead either, losing 10-4. It's no shame and didn't matter a tinker's damn in the grand scheme of things. What matters right now is how the Cards do in Conference and lately they have taken care of business. LU salvaged a win against New Orleans two weeks ago and they beat Grambling right before pulling out the brooms sweeping TAMU-CC last weekend.

They are in the middle of playing a weekend series against Houston Baptist and so far things are looking good. The won last night by a score of 17-11 and so far in the top of the sixth they are leading 10-5. They went into the sixth leading 9-5 when Cutter McDowell homered to lead off the inning. Reid Russell followed with a single and Robin Adames grounded out to 3B advancing Russell to 2B.

If Lamar holds on to win today they will be guaranteed a series win and will be looking to complete the sweep tomorrow afternoon. Right now LU is sixth in conference while HBU is 4th. A sweep of HBU would leapfrog LU over them and will have them in a better position in conference. The 5th place team is SELA but I wouldn't look to gain any ground on them because they are playing Nicholls and they have already beaten them once this weekend. Lamar needs to make hay while the sun shines and beating HBU is a step in the right direction and the LU 9 will get their shot at Nicholls at home next weekend.

LU did no further damage in the sixth and they head to the bottom of the inning. Jimmy Johnson is on the mound for Lamar and after a shaky 5 runs in the 1st inning he's shut down the Huskies putting up goose eggs ever since. I'm not sticking around to post any more for now because I don't want to jinx the Cards. Things are looking good so far and hopefully we will notch another win this afternoon.

[eagle eye]

Make that 6 conference wins in a row! LU beat HBU 13-8 this afternoon and have clinched a series win! Way to go Cards!!!

[geezer]

Sorry, one small correction. This weekend is ACU. Played HBU on the 31st of March and 1st of April loosing two of three.

[eagle eye]

Wow what a bonehead mistake I made!!! That was really dumb especially since I was keeping track of the game on the ACU stat-cast. Thanks geezer for not ripping me a new one for that mistake! The rest of the data is messed up too because HBU is in fact in 4th place in conference but sweeping ACU wouldn't help that much with HBU playing Incarnate Word this weekend. SELA is, in fact, playing Nicholls this weekend but, again, I was wrong to write off Nicholls because they beat SELA yesterday to even their weekend series 1 game apiece. Lamar should be beating ACU this weekend, beating them like an old drum as ACU is in the SLC cellar with a 1-19 conference record. Both ACU and IWU are ineligible for post season play but they could still win the SLC. It's sort of a moot point as both are no threat to win enough games to qualify as 'bad' teams at this point, they are just bad. I cannot explain what the heck I was thinking yesterday. I can't even claim to be smoking some good s**t because I wasn't. It was just good old fashioned dumb.

[geezer]

No problem, I make plenty of errors. Sorry to say the Cards lost game 3 today, so they still have an uphill battle with only three series left, Nicholls next week which Lamar is tied with in the loss column but has played one more series so Lamar has three more wins. The last two are against third place SFA and first place McNeese so most likely Lamar will have to have help as a 5-4 record over the last nine games is the best the Cards can hope for.

[eagle eye]

Dag nabbit! When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut? I chalked up a sure win for Lamar on Sunday over Abilene Christian based on the fact that ACU sucks and it obviously jinxed them. ACU’s record said they suck. You cannot come to any other conclusion when a team in late April is 1-19 in conference games and 11-25 overall. Well, yesterday it was Lamar who sucked as they lost to the Huskies 9-zip. That’s right, nix, nada, nyet, non, zilch, zee-freaking-roh. WTF Cards? I love ya but c’mon!!! Not only did Lamar lose the game they lost their spot in the conference standings. Instead of being in 6th place they are in seventh. Kids, tell he Cards way to go. Way to go, Cards. Okay, now you kids go play with your ninja knife collection. Good grief.
I have to think Coach Davis is pulling his hair out about now. I think he is still playing with predominantly Jim Gilligan recruits but it’s hard to be patient when you let a 1-19 team beat you in late April. Perspective, got to keep some perspective but, c’mon man, WTF!!!

I guess we’ll come back home this weekend and let freaking Nicholls beat us too! Sheesh. After we play Nicholls this weekend we have 6 conference games left and they are going to be against SFA and McNeese. Lamar can ill afford to lose to the likes of ACU and Nicholls. What did the Charlie Brown kids say when they were frustrated---ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

[LamarFan]

Let’s look at it like this, Lamar baseball fans. Don’t forget Lamar was picked to finish 3rd by the Coaches and Sid Southland Conference polls. If you look at the preseason all conference they were all returning players, and not Will Davis’s recruits. Look who is leading the team and the top leaders in the conference. There is talent on this team and this team is underperforming due to their now leadership.


Previous coaching staff players leading the team in offensive statistics

Cutter McDowell .372 *Leading the Southland in conference batting average*
Robin Adames .345
Reid Russell .336
Trey Silvers .310
Arredondo .299


All the other hitters in the lineup are Davis’s recruits. Davis did have a full year of recruiting.
Eagle Eye, it looks like Davis should be the one pulling his hair out for the recruits he brought in. Time will tell, this team will be one of the top teams in the conference with players selected in the MLB draft. Looks like tons of talent on this team, could be lack of leadership getting it done.
Hopefully these guys can rally and finish strong. Go Cards!

[geezer]

Baseball perhaps more than any other team sport really comes down to a potential dominant individual performance. If the pitcher has a career day on any given day more than likely his team will win. That may have been the case Sunday at ACU as the Cards were shut out. I believe pitching is where the Cards are weaker than we would like to see this year. ACU scored at least 8 runs in all three games. The difference between the first two and the last is that the Cards couldn't score on Sunday.

[eagle eye]

I wonder if we fans don't climb out on the ledge way too soon sometimes. Then again, it is late in the season and we are where we are. Preseason polls are fine but not entirely accurate so I tend to look at preseason polls as nice conversation while you're waiting on the games to begin. The polls do create an air of expectation and whether we like it or not a lot of people base eventual outcomes on lists created by ersatz Miss Cleo's. Spoiler alert, Miss Cleo is not a true psychic and neither are the people that are polled for those preseason forecasts. Still, the fan in us base what is as compared to those predictions.
Bill Parcells once said you are what your record says you are. So that means Lamar is a middle of the pack team who is clinging to the hope of making it to the postseason tournament. Given that perspective we can hit 'reset' and root for the Cards to succeed in that venture. Parcells also said, among many others, that all you need to do is get to the tournament because you never know what is going to happen. That means once you're in the postseason you have a chance to make some noise. Look at what happened in Coach Knight's team I believe in his first year as Lamar basketball coach. The Cards got to the postseason and caught fire and ended up winning the SLC tournament and made the NCAA tournament. Stranger things have happened if Lamar gets to the SLC baseball postseason. Lamar needs to sweep Nicholls and they need to win at least one game in each of the final season series against SFA and McNeese. Go Cards
I honestly wish I had not mentioned Davis recruits vs Gilligan recruits. That is a moot point. Gilligan is gone and there is not a soul in Cardinal Nation that didn't believe it was time for Coach Gilligan to retire. The posts on this website are proof of that. Most people wanted a young energetic coach to re-energize the program. I think Coach Davis is that guy. LamarFan, you pointed out how Gilligan recruits are kicking ass this year and that's great but don't you think Coach Davis has something to do with that? You also mentioned Davis had a year to recruit but I wonder how successful a recruiter you can be when the first year you play for Lamar the guy who recruited you is a lame duck assistant coach on a staff heading out the door. The whole Gilligan farewell tour thing with his successor sitting in the dugout the whole year was 1) unique as hell and 2) had to be uncomfortable as hell for both Gilligan and Davis. Honestly, this coming offseason will be the first real season Davis can recruit as THE head man and that makes a difference. Props to Jim Gilligan for all his years of leading the baseball program. It's Davis' program now and we will see what that means in the years to come.
All that doesn't mean I can't get screaming mad and frustrated because the team lays a big fat whopper of an egg against a team clearly inferior to LU. The only thing that would have made Sunday's loss worse would have been if ACU had been 0-20 and they got their first conference win. I'm glad we avoided that scenario.......
LU faces Texas Southern this evening. The Cards won 5-2 back in March let's hope they take some frustration out on TSU tonight.