.

Fire Smith and Christian!

This start is pretty bad though. Swept at home by Canisius, or for that matter any school in the frozen tundra known as Buffalo, can't happen.

You pessimistic bastards never posted anything when they won.  Talkng about firing people at this stage is just plain silly.  I see great potential.  Got to keep the teams morale positive and you guys aren't helping.
Also, it was the 7th inning 5 to 4 Canisius.. 2 outs a guy on 2nd.  The intentional walk was to set up a force out.  You know this.  It didnt work out... that is baseball.  I bet you may have called the walk as well.

No actually, I'd never intentionally walk a batter to face a guy knocking the cover off the ball. And most baseball people wouldn't.

I was in no way serious about firing the coach. If you check back, I was one of his biggest supporters.

Anyway, some of this stuff I am hearing does worry me slightly. Obviously, Ohio never does well to begin the season, but going 1-6 in the first two Athens series is troubling. So is stealing third with two outs if that is true. I doubt you are going to get daily updates each time we win or lose, so Billy posting this after the end of a weekend series is perfectly acceptable.

Probably the same exact thing I just said. It is extremely troubling.

Here are couple situations from the Kentucky game on saw on Tuesday in Lexington.  The most troubling was this.  I believe it was the 5th inning, Ohio down 6-1, runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out.  What happens?  Ohio proceeds to squeeze.  End result is we over engineer ourselves out of an inning when runners were already in scoring position.  At that point in time, outs are becoming the enemy, and what does 1 run gain you?  Nothing!  In my opinion, and I have played, not smart baseball at all.

In the following inning, Ohio had runners on 1st and 2nd with one out.  What are we doing in this situation? Ohio tries to bunt again, this time for a hit.  The result? Runners at 1st and 2nd with 2 outs, and the inning ends on a strike out.  I actually shouted out on this one.

In the 7th inning, one positive that I did see was that we put on a hit and run to perfection.  This led to scoring 2 runs and making the score 6-3.  It could have been a ballgame with the #9 team in the nation if Ohio had not ran themselves out of 2 innings.

My conclusion:  Quit playing small ball (specifically bunting) with 1 out and runners on base, and in wrong situations.  You gain nothing at all by giving up that 2nd out.  Also, quit micro-managing the whole game.  If you have confidence in your players, let them swing the damn bats!  I was more than disappointed with the strategy.  If I would have another suggestion,  and if you do not know it, go buy a baseball situation book (I think I still have a Ron Polk, Mississippi State book from the 80's), study it, and see what applies to the appropriate situation because from what I have read here, heard on the telephone, and what I have witnessed, Ohio needs to clean a lot up.

I want this program to win irregardless of who is coaching.  I could care less who that who is.  What I do care about, is being stupid on the baseball field.  It is unacceptable, period!

Except Mike Hargrove

Sometimes first-time coaches think they have to do more than they should. Hope he learns.

I understand what you're saying, but this is his first time as a head coach, right? If not, I withdraw the comment.

For the record, I gave Groce a lot of slack for the same reason.

I was a Carbone supporter, and am (and will continue to be) dubious of Smith. However, there isn't much to work with this year. The pitching especially is as bad as it gets...every decent pitcher from last season has departed.

I've been to a couple games, and what I haven't been impressed with is the overall attitude, hustle, effort, etc. of the team. To be honest, they really don't seem to care - and that bothers me. There's a weird "care free" vibe with this group...something you don't want to have with a 4-19 club.

Time will tell, but early returns with Smith are certainly not impressive.