Bulls Lose 3-2 in 9th

[JoeB]

USF forced a tie in the top of the 9th only to give it away in the bottom half.  Once again Randy Fontanez gets hardly any run support and loses a tough one.  Bulls play the WVU Mountaineers tomorrow at 5 PM.  If you're in the area, come out and support the baseball team.

Go Bulls!  Let's go Barbosa!!!  Need a quality start from you tomorrow.  Hopefully our hitters will show up too.

[Cpa_bull90]

Two and a BBQ!

Go Bulls.

[outrunner]

1) Mohammad Ali was there. Pretty cool.

2) Saw the worst umpire call ever. St Johns player catches the ball but slams into the outfield wall and drops it. Gets up picks up the ball off the warning track, and the umps say he caught the ball.

3) Once again, great pitching and no timely hitting.

[jg]

1) Mohammad Ali was there. Pretty cool.

2) Saw the worst umpire call ever. St Johns player catches the ball but slams into the outfield wall and drops it. Gets up picks up the ball off the warning track, and the umps say he caught the ball.

3) Once again, great pitching and no timely hitting.

1. Where was he, in Frenchy's partying it up ?

2. Actually it was his sun glasses that fell off not the ball.

3. No hitting except for Hunt for sure. The other kid pitching was good though. Bases Loaded and line drive bullet to 2nd base for double play in the 9th was a dagger. 

[usfgrad84]

How many games have we lost this year in the last inning? I am thinking it hast be close to 8 or 10 games. Maybe more. If we can develop a good, consistent closer we aren't too far away from being a pretty good. Closing pitching was the difference in being near the top of the league and having to listen to the people aroung here complain about Prado.

[CousinRicky]

I've never had many complaints about Prado.  But you have to question the move in the top of the 9th when he asked Mende to bunt with a runner on first.  I've watched baseball a long time and you rarely see the visiting team (USF last night) play for a tie.  If you are the home team you would do that, but as visitors you play for the win.  Sam failed the first two times to get the bunt down and then took a third strike.  But he is one of the few on the team with any semblance of power.  He needed to be swinging away there.

And talk about coaching moves, you have to wonder why the St. John's coach pulled the starter going into the 9th.  I don't know what the pitch count was, and I don't care how good a closer you have, he gave USF an opportunity to get back in the game with that move.  The line drive to end the inning was smoked. 

A couple of questionable defensive plays ultimately cost USF the game.  The throwing error by Kosco allowed a runner to reach third.  The base hit that followed may have scored the guy from second, but you never know.  Fontanez' decision to throw to 2nd instead of taking the out at first in the 9th got him in trouble.  They took the error off the board probably scoring it as a fielder's choice.  The runner beat the throw even with the throw going into center and the runner didn't advance.  But losing that out was costly.

[lerbut23]

Guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Having Mende bunt in that situation is a no-brainer in tournament play.

You simply have to get that runner in scoring position.

[CousinRicky]

Guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Having Mende bunt in that situation is a no-brainer in tournament play.

You simply have to get that runner in scoring position.

I've only been following college baseball (Bulls) for a few years.  Why do you play differently in a tournament as opposed to regular season?  Not starting an argument, would just like to know the difference?

[JoeB]

Totally agree with Ricky.  Why bunt your best player?  You are giving them an out and taking the bat out of arguablly USF's top hitter.  To be perfectly honest, there are only 3 guys in this lineup I trust with the bat.  Kocsco, Hunt, and Mende are the three.  Other than that its a crapshoot.  Sure other guys can get a hit occassionaly, but those three are at a different level.  I couldn't believe he bunted him.  Terrible decision in my mind.  But it ended up not being much of a factor that inning.

[Jamie]

I've never had many complaints about Prado.  But you have to question the move in the top of the 9th when he asked Mende to bunt with a runner on first.

From what I understand, Prado is addicted to bunting runners over and playing small ball. In that particular situation it makes sense. And Mende is not the best batter on the team right now, he only hit .281 this season and had a really rough time at the plate.