Yeah.
What is up CB?
Nothing but we're doing it.
We'll do it live.
Yes, we are live right now.
Uh, if you're listening a few days later, the, of course, the audio and the video
recording will be out and available.
Uh, but we're headed to the top of the eighth right now in the O-D-U-J-M-U game.
ODU is up four to two.
We, uh, we can't show the game.
We are not even really supposed to talk that much about it, but
we'll be creative here today.
Only two more innings to go, and we've already won the series anyway.
How, how do I as a, uh, as, as the person here share this and make sure
people that are currently out there know?
Do I need to go to the Monica's page and does it show, let's see.
Does it show that we're live?
Yes.
Anyone subscribe to us on YouTube?
We'll, on YouTube Get an alert and Instagram live as well.
So we are, it should be fully covered today.
Okay.
I will, I'll share the link on the YouTube on, uh, the Facebook for the olds.
Uh, yes.
Maybe
the Twitter, maybe the Twitter for the olds,
whoever it is.
I finally have an Instagram now and I was having fun with metal songs and
pictures of our pictures this week.
So.
Got a little weed eater today for Blake, and he's been pretty good.
What, five and a third I think.
Yes.
Two arms.
I think it was five and two thirds, I think.
Yeah.
In the box here he was.
He's pretty solid here.
Yeah.
I had the box up a second ago myself somewhere and my mini things.
So you did five and no, five and a third.
You're right.
And Kellen got to, and then Nick Sulpizio who's on a little, little
streak here all of a sudden,
I mean, he's, uh, he's looking all right, we're finally getting some
arms to bounce back at the right time, which I think is pretty key.
Uh, it's, it's kind of feels like it's all kind of coming together.
Like we're playing baseball all of a sudden,
hey, in a good time of year to start doing it.
And I, I see that our links are working because there are Okay.
People popping in here.
We love that.
So welcome everyone that has just joined us.
Uh, we are watching the game live.
We can't show it.
Uh, but ODU is up four to two in the top of the eighth, already has the series
in the bag, but I. Really helpful for us if we can win this last one, it
gets to 15 wins with one series to go.
Yeah.
Well this, this weekend's gone pretty well as far as the, um, the other teams
helping, not, not just ou doing their job, but other teams like we needed,
uh, Georgia Southern to win two outta three against Texas State, so that
way they didn't get too far ahead.
And that's exactly how that worked.
And some of the other ones worked out.
It's just, it's been going well this weekend for what we needed to have happen.
Yeah.
If I knew that I just needed to tweet about what ODU baseball needs to Right.
I started doing this a long time ago, but yeah, we've been doing that
the first week of the season.
Yeah.
But I tweet yesterday, it was, who do you need to root for ODU, obviously South
Alabama to win to Troy and Texas State.
We, we hit the whole parlay there, the whole thing cashed.
Uh, so today it's really just, we need to win.
There are some things that could help us, but uh, like app State losing
would, I think officially put them out from getting in the top five or six.
But they've lost 11 in a row now.
They are in a tailspin at the moment,
which is, you know, they're a good team.
We saw 'em, they, they, they played us well and yeah, it's, it's crazy
what can happen with these streaks.
Yes.
I see Aaron Zelensky is there in the comments watching.
There we go.
Nice.
Twitter or X, whatever we're calling it these days.
Nice little walk for Tahraun.
Tahraun Hammond, after not playing for a few weeks.
He's played this week.
He's done really well.
Yes.
Yeah, he's been, uh, he's been awesome.
I think it's 'cause we had him on the show.
He's had a great weekend.
Yes it is.
It is.
I,
I was worried this thing would become a curse for whatever player joined, but
that seems to no have the opposite effect
this year.
I mean, now that you, now that you've named it, it will be,
there's a nice bunt for Evan.
Oh, that's gonna be a hit for Evan.
There we go.
Nice.
Nice bunt
for Evan.
You're clearly ahead of me by a few seconds on the broadcast.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Maybe.
I hope I'm not, if I'm ruining it for anyone, I'm just gonna
ruin it in the nice things.
I I'll ruin the nice things.
Yeah.
Nice.
Uh, Evan probably going for a, just a sacrifice bunt and, and got it
right past the, uh, pitcher and into that no man's land triangle.
Yeah.
Here's a nice review of it.
Uh, beautiful.
The first baseman kind of made the right move that turned out to be the wrong move.
Oh, oh, oh.
No one covering Beautiful.
Yeah.
Well, Luke Waters is someone we're gonna have to talk about a lot.
Woo.
'cause he has awoken this weekend.
He was, what, five for five yesterday.
Let off today's game with the hit, had the game winner on Friday night, driving
in two runs and the 12th will put us up.
Uh, three hits in that game.
Yeah.
He is one for three today.
I mean, he is, yeah.
Lemme see.
I had, I was getting together our, you know, 'cause we like
to get our numbers for guys.
I've already made the graphic with Luke as the hitter of the week.
'cause I mean, come on.
Um, coming into the game, he was eight for 13.
So, let's see.
So now he'd be, uh, nine for 16 on the week with a double
two Homers, uh, five rbis.
Uh, yeah.
Five r you know, four rbis, uh, three walks.
Yeah.
I mean, hell, hell of a week for Luke and the Yeah, when Plus had been talking
about him and of course his dad, Roger Waters, who played football at JMU
department for a while, uh, they've been kind of seeking him out on camera.
I feel like every opportunity they get, he was
wearing the, uh, the Bud Bomber shirt yesterday.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, he's always been a big supporter of us.
Always a nice guy.
Appreciate he's bought me.
They're,
we've got another, um, Delmar High School kid.
I think he's a 26 grad that, you know, Roger coaches obviously up there is
coming to ODU, uh, in another year.
So we're, we're not gonna stop the train of the, uh, the great, um,
kids from the, uh, Eastern shore.
Yeah.
If we can get some more like Luke, that would be awesome.
Yeah.
Um, but man, just o overall this weekend, I mean, we were
up against it a little bit.
I felt like on Friday, anytime you go to extras, I feel like the advantage
is always to the home team because they hit last and our bullpen did a
tremendous job throughout that game.
Yeah.
To keep it tied, keep us in it, and then ultimately hold on for
12 innings to get us through that.
Yeah.
Big day for bullpen.
Ethan Hubble just getting better and better as the season goes on.
I mean, he came up big.
He, he had some, you know, in the midst of three score the settings, he
had some pitches that looked terrible.
You know, he, he had one pitch, I think it's one of the
best pitches I've ever seen.
He, it was that kind of, I dunno if it's a curve ball slider that came
in and the, the right handed batter looked like his knees were shaking.
He thought it was gonna hit him in his back, and it loops in there and it's,
I mean, really, like, probably the best pitch Ethan's ever thrown in his life.
And then immediately after, he probably tried to do the
same thing, kind of overcooks.
It throws it too far and it's way far down the way.
So he had some, it might have been effectively wild, he had some really
good pitches and in the midst of some bad pitches, but three scoreless when
you needed, and you saw his emotion at the end of the game, which, you
know, is, that's not something I, I, I've seen outta Ethan all year.
So it was awesome to see him hype in a big moment.
Yeah, that whole
fellas right there on the screen.
Look at us.
Yeah, I, I forgot that I can add the comments to the screen, so Sure.
If, if you're watching us on any of the social media platforms, feel free to
drop us a question, topic to chat about.
We just kind of wanted to hang out, and the reason we're having
to do this on a Sunday is solely because of my dumb work travel.
Uh, I have to fly tomorrow.
We normally be recording.
We've got a, a midweek game for now on Tuesday.
Uh, so no real chance to, to record this any other way, but we wanted
to try it live, see what happened.
Um, yeah, it's, I. Just hold on, hold on.
Another, another two innings here.
We'll be in good shape.
Yeah, we're, we're in it.
Well we got, uh, runners first and second no outs.
We got Jorge who's had a, had a nice week up.
Uh, you know, he is, Jorge has had a great season.
I mean, he is, the strikeout total is high.
I know that's been, you know, some of the people love to complain all the time.
That's been a complaint.
It was easy, easy, easy one to target.
Uh, 'cause he is got, you know, almost probably 60 strikeouts, but he's, he's
been a, um, he's been a very good place.
He is pretty much seconded.
Like every stat, you know, he's, he's just good and, and put him
in center field has been huge.
'cause he's, he's definitely our best fielder.
He covers a ton of ground in center field and looking at him, you
wouldn't think he's a super fast guy, but he can move in that outfield.
He gets a good read, good jump, and um, definitely on the all mustache team.
Yeah.
Yes.
We got a few of those that that was a No, I noticed Alex was, he
had mentioned the other day when we talked to him, he, he had the, uh,
the rally fingers kind of going.
Oh yeah.
Oh.
And they have like the perfect camera angle there.
They were just zoomed in.
You could see his whole face.
Right.
It was great.
And, uh, you know, he, he pitched well.
Uh, we're just getting a lot of guys in the bullpen stepping up in the big wave
business ball.
Ah, dang it.
Dang.
Yeah.
Doubled off.
Uh, so little looping ball the shortstop caught and got right
back to second base for now.
We got so double play.
So now run our first two outs.
That's, that's my fault for saying that.
Teron was getting a boost from being on the podcast last week.
He immediately gets Well, you know,
I don't, that's not even his fault.
The guy I don't think he can much, you can do, I mean, you look where his ball
hit hits and he's just out his lead.
Yeah.
Right there.
They showed the replay.
There's nothing you can do that's Yeah.
You gotta freeze on a line drive.
Yeah, he
did.
Yeah.
Nothing.
He's out by four or five feet.
Yeah.
So,
nice guy.
Keep it going.
Yes.
I I was a little surprised to Kellen Davis come into the game today.
'cause I know he's pitched a good already this weekend, but he,
you know, give the one sack fly.
They got the, the inherited runner in, but other than that,
he was looking pretty good.
His stuff has gotten so filthy.
Like it.
Yeah.
I encourage anyone, uh, imagine Kellen be around next year, go stand behind
home plate while he's pitching and you figure out what that pitch is.
'cause no one else seems to be able to.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and now we, I know we talked about it, Kellen's
such a great example of a kid that just showed up and worked.
I mean, he came in, he was, um, I, I don't think he had a scholarship.
I think it was like the, the preferred walk-on.
Um, and he, he red shirt.
And I know that first year it was kinda like, is this kid
ever gonna get the pitch for us?
Is this, you know, is there any future for him here?
And he just kept working and working and working into where, you know, now he's,
uh, uh, the last two years, one of the most important pieces of the bullpen.
And he's a huge, uh, bench guy.
Like he's, he's always right there cheering and he's, he is leading the
nonsense, uh, as I like to say, which is what you need as a, as a bench.
Um, and he, he's great for it.
So it's, yeah, Kellen's just like, I mean, that's just a, a
success story of college baseball.
It's what you wanna see those guys that come in and you work your way from really
not getting a chance to being a dude.
He also might be the most in shape person I've ever seen in my life.
If he, if he's got a body percentage, like a body fat percentage is under one,
it's, it's probably negative.
He probably gives fat away.
He is, yeah.
He was one his first year when he wasn't playing.
His, his role was to go down and get the foul balls and he would always
run back down the line and just do like a standing jump over the, like
three foot brick wall that, you know, I would have to like climb over slowly
to make sure I didn't break something.
Uh, well, Alec, we're not allowed to live stream the game.
I wish we could.
No.
So, uh, if anyone asks No, we're, we're definitely not doing that or play
by play or anything of that nature.
I don't want the mouse showing up at my house.
Yeah.
Here.
Yeah.
Don't get me legally.
Uh, although I would, it would be, I guess technically the
Avengers would be suing me.
Isn't that how that would, what we would call that?
I wouldn't mind that on my record.
And,
and Luke Skywalker,
those one sued by the Avengers, Luke Skywalker.
Yeah.
Had that frat, they're showing the frat alley out there in the left
field, and there's no frat today.
And the frat boys must be, uh, they're all at church on Sunday?
Probably, I guess.
Yeah, there's a, there's a puffer sitting out there though, so at least
we're getting to see some of that.
They've had pretty good crowds, I think up there in Harrison.
They got very nice.
Yeah.
I, I have not been up there.
My, my parents went to a game, uh, when they were playing the VA in
the Valley League, um, the Turks.
And, uh, they sort, you know, it's a nice place and you could tell it looks nice.
And I know the guys mentioned a few times that it, they built it up in 2010.
So it's, it's a good, I mean, JMU has good stuff, man.
You know, it's, it's, uh, I'm glad we're beating them.
It's, you know, between, uh, I know, I think we've mentioned what
we said, football and basketball haven't beaten them since we've
gotten back in the Sunbelt.
Nope, sure haven't.
So, you know, it, it's this rivalry that's in the big money sports, not a rivalry,
but clearly here it is, you know, I mean, at least, well, I know the other way.
Maybe it's not because, uh, ODU baseball keeps whipping up on 'em and
then the tennis seems to dominate 'em.
So maybe it's, it's a rivalry in the overall sense because like what we
say, they'd be both be 11, 11 in the, um, row rivalry after this, if we win.
Yeah.
It's, uh, ODS 10 and Jamie u has 11 right now, so I guess
it would technically be a tie.
I have no idea if they're tiebreakers.
Uh, and I'll say for clarity, I didn't care when we lost that thing.
I won't care if we tie it.
And I also won't care if we, like, I just, I can't get into the force there.
There's already enough of rivalry there.
We don't need like a Yeah.
Fake, fake thing attached to it.
It's the, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to say, I guess to say you won the
raw rivalry, but, you know, it's, I, I think at the end of the day, again,
if you're not winning in the big money sports, then it's like, okay, cool.
I mean, JMU can always say, well, yeah, but you can't beat
us in football or basketball.
It's like, all right, that's fair.
It's always the excuse that Virginia gives when tech dunks on 'em for football.
They're like, well, we've got swimming national titles.
It's like, yeah, you do, and that's awesome.
You should be, should be proud of that.
But
yeah,
you know, I, we, we gotta do, do a little bit better, in my
opinion, on, on those games.
Well that's, you know, that's how it goes.
Uh, it's not easy.
It is, it is fascinating.
Like, why.
JMU is so much better than us in the basketball and football there,
there's no real good reason for it.
Um,
' cause they, I mean, they've had coaching changes.
They've reloaded Yeah.
They've done all those things like, you know, last year for football,
there was no excuse for us not to win that game, but we just didn't
really show up in the second half.
And I don't, I don't wanna relive that.
Oof.
No, I have enjoyed the, and you mentioned, uh, yesterday the announcers in these
games have been really, really good.
The guy's done a great job and, and mentioning the, all the connections
between the ODU, uh, and JMU coaches, you know, the, uh, Marlon Eikenberry,
uh, played for, for Finwood and then you coached with them and, you
know, they have all the, all the, you know, Auburn coaching and, and
then bringing in, uh, Jack Slater's dad, Tom and his VMI and Auburn
coaching is, it's, it's always neat.
Those kind of interweaved webs.
I've learned more about VMI baseball in the last three days
than I ever thought I would know.
It's been cool to hear the connections.
Yeah.
I also didn't know that VMI leads the country in stolen bases.
Yes.
Oh, they're, and that was, I, I think I told you they played up
there at War Memorial and, uh, went to the game and when I left, they
were playing, um, William Mary.
I'm about to sneeze.
Uh, when they were playing William and Mary, they were losing nine to one.
Oh.
I left in the middle of seventh.
They ended up winning the game.
12 to nine.
VMI did on a walk off home run.
And because I remember during the game I was like, you know,
we're driving over there.
I was bringing my parents and my mom's reading off all these stats
that like, you know, they're, they're VM i's offense is like a top 10 in
the country and all kinds of things.
You know, they're pitching obviously is, has left them down.
That's why they, they kind of have a sub 500 record.
But I, during the game I'm thinking like, where is this?
Like, you know, a few of the guys had hits, you know, but it's
like, where is all this offense?
And then, well, there it is.
It showed up eventually.
Yeah.
They're, uh, they're, you know, and, and that was how it was when had, was there.
I mean they've been, they're a very good offensive team.
And, and if you've been to VMI, you know, the ballpark has got a, it's, it's got a
short porch and it's, but that doesn't, that doesn't help you steal bases.
No, it was just kind of wild.
Just think, you know, you've gotta get enough guys on base to have the
steel opportunities to begin with.
So they must be, be pretty good on the offensive side.
Yeah, their kid, uh, Grayson Fitzwater from uh, NS River.
He's a junior.
He said he already broke the school home run record.
He plays with pilots in the summer and he's a really, I was talking to
Hera, he said he was like the last guy he recruited right before he left.
He said he never got that, have him there.
I was like, that's a bummer.
Yeah.
Pilots are gonna have some studs.
'cause we know Scotty is gonna be over there this summer.
Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a couple other ODU guys that get over that way.
Yeah.
Um,
well, Fitzwater will be back.
They have a few of the guys they've had, um, we saw Henry Garcia with um, ULM.
He'll be back with them again and got Chris Martinez, who's like,
he's like 27 years old I think now from Dominican Republic.
He had a weird, so he was, he was, um, oh, here's a little chopper.
This is gonna be trouble.
Oh, oh peasy.
Did he get him?
Oh my God.
That's one of the best plays all season.
Wow.
High chopper.
That was so, yeah.
Ooh.
Back to LP pio, bare hands and Fires in one motion.
It looks like had to go half
step to go way to his right to get it, which is not easy if you
think about he's right-handed.
So he is, he, if anything, he's falling off toward the first base side, had to
run back over to the third base side, bare hand it and then May, and the throw
was high, but it was, it was dead on.
I mean, what a play by sio.
So that's, I mean, awesome.
Is that too scoreless for him now in this game?
It is.
Talk about a guy bouncing the back in a big way.
I mean, he struggled early this season.
Yeah, it, it did not look good for him.
But the last, I think three outings for LP pio, he has looked like his old self.
'cause he has filthy stuff he can locate.
He's a great pitcher.
Just sometimes you get the yips, I think.
And yeah.
Well he was, remember,
remember first part of the year, fin was telling us he was gonna be his closer.
And then, you know, he very quickly got to be, I remember one point a few weeks
ago thinking like, I don't know if Nick's ever gonna throw another pitch for us.
And I mean, and again, Nick's an awesome kid.
I love the guy.
It's not like I'm sitting here, you know?
Oh man.
You know, it's like, it's just the reality of how things were going and,
and, but that's, it's been great to see.
And this game he's throwing.
Well, that's, that's awesome, man.
And that would be, it'd be huge.
Some of these guys that are all of a sudden, you know, going back and,
and playing, like, we kind of were hoping they were gonna play all year.
Uh, we're, we're really rolling in a good spot, uh, right now.
And sio, if he comes back in for the ninth, would be in line for, I
believe his first save of the year.
So he would get a closer roll in one of the last games of the season.
But I think that's, yeah, I mean, that's great.
You get some of these arms, some confidence going into coastal, then
obviously the Sunbelt tournament is, you're gonna need 'em.
Those innings are endless in the Sunbelt tournament.
And yeah, if you want to survive in advance, you've gotta have
guys you wouldn't expect or that.
You've underperformed for part of the year, step up in a big way and
give you a couple of good innings.
Uh, we're seeing that right here this weekend.
Uh, especially going 12 on Friday.
We burned through, I mean, that's three more innings on your bullpen right there.
They end up doing six in that, six innings in that game.
Uh, they, they did pretty well.
Dylan did pretty well yesterday, I think.
Well, you made to about the seventh when he, when he came out.
He had
seventh.
He got through seventh
and he had six scoreless before that seventh inning.
He had a great, another great outing for Dylan Brown.
Uh, but you know, bullpen had scramble a little bit, some changes
as that game got tighter later.
Uh, so love, love seeing these bullpen guys step up, but I'd be much happier
with about five more runs here.
Yeah, it'd be nice.
I mean, Luke could start it off here.
Keep that, uh, excellent weekend going.
And he put two over the fence yesterday in almost the exact same spot, like
just consistency in that swing.
Yeah, he is been killing that ball to the, uh, the, the left side.
Yeah.
That left center gap has been his friend.
Not in this situation, but
Little Chopper there.
Yeah.
Who we're seeing, we're seeing pictures of somebody with JMU football.
I'm not sure.
I'm not able to listen right now, so
I can't hear it.
I'm trying to do some math on 1989.
I
don't
know.
Is that, is no way.
That's Roger, right?
It's gotta be somebody else.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I thought he was like a linebacker.
If, if anybody watching the live stream has the audio up and knows
who they were showing there, number 15 for JMU on the 89 team.
Shoot us a message here so we know Roger.
Oh, I got live feedback.
That was Roger Waters in those pictures.
That
was Roger.
There we go.
See there My boots support
in the living room.
Just let me know.
I
was gonna say it is the real star of the show.
Yes, absolutely.
All right.
I've got a funny situation because we dealt with a light problem
Wednesday in Richmond at VCU.
Yeah.
OD won the game.
It was pretty comfortable, but the light tower in right field, there's
four light towers in the outfield.
That one was out.
Uh, they couldn't figure out how to get it back on.
They even turned all the outfield lights off and back on.
It still didn't come up.
And you could just kind of see both teams in the midweek that
not that important to 'em anymore.
They called it Game Over.
Old Dominion wins.
Well, on Monday out at Washington University, they were hosting an NIA
Division two School, Warner Pacific.
Uh, the game started during the day, uh, seventh inning and Warner
Pacific is leading Washington five to four and Warner Pacific.
So they're like 1133 this year.
They're not very good even for I think a D two NAIA and uh, all of a sudden
the lights wouldn't work at Husky Park.
They, they couldn't get the lights on.
They had to call it, and instead of.
Being a completed game or, you know, anything like that.
No contest was the official ruling on the game.
No contest.
So no loss for Washington to A-N-A-I-A Division two.
It reminded me of Major League three back to the minors.
When the minor league team comes up to play.
I think it's the Twins and Metrodome.
Oh yeah.
They turn the lights off on purpose and the manager calls and gets the
lights turned off so they don't take the loss that it had those vibes to it.
And that, uh, that happened
on Monday.
This will be the only, uh, major League three reference
you'll ever hear in your life.
It was, oh no, Walton Goggins is in that man.
Oh man.
Is Walton Kins in that?
Yes, he's downtown.
Dang.
Is he?
I gotta Oh, he is.
He's the kid.
Ah, man.
I've been re I've been watching Vice Principals, which I'd
never really watched before.
Yes.
Uh, and he is, he's something else, man.
Oh, he's awesome.
I, I think I discovered him watching The Shield way back in the day.
This is, yeah.
Oh 4 0 5 on FX something.
I
saw something the other day.
It said that, uh, Jude Law's been trying to make the, um, the receding hairline,
you know, attractive for 20 years.
Walton said Walton Goggins comes in with his big teeth and just makes it happen.
I mean, he is, he is.
Got it figured out.
He hosted Saturday Night Live last night.
He's in Righteous White boys.
Yeah.
Righteous gemstones.
Uncle Baby Billy is one of the best characters you'll ever see in your life.
Yes.
Yes, he is.
He is one of the best.
All right, well, we're headed to the bottom of the ninth here, still.
Four, two is bottom.
A fairly quick inning.
Go.
All right, I like it.
So, in true Dominion baseball fashion, this is gonna be a
sweaty, tight game because why not?
Like we, we can't just have this com We had the comfy game,
I guess Wednesday enrichment.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I don't mind us winning.
I, I like winning these games where we're ahead and have to maintain a lead.
You know, that's important.
'cause we weren't doing that the first part of the year.
We were, we'd get ahead and we weren't maintaining leads.
So if we can get wins that way, it says, it shows, we've made some,
made some growth and made some, you know, realize like, okay, this is
how you have to win a ball game.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's just the more natural way that yeah, like, you know,
you utilize your bullpen in the right way to hold the lead so you know what
you've gotta do and not just depending on the offense to bail you out each time.
Yeah.
And come from behind and win or whatever.
And yeah.
It's not, it's, it's much better to, like I said, it feels,
it feels like a baseball win.
Like, okay, we, we held lead, we kept it All right, peasy.
Let's go kid.
Pretty sure I see Craig Brown up there in the background of the broadcast right now.
Love bet.
All right.
We do have a final finally from Atlanta.
Marshall beat Georgia State, 11 to 10 Marshall's kinda warmed up now.
Think it's a 13th conference, win
all.
Well, honestly, don't get as many as we have.
That's fine.
No, I think they're, I think they're in, if we win today, I
don't know if they can catch us, but
find out.
I mean, even
they do we, we got the tiebreaker, so yes.
That is one nice thing.
Yeah.
You beat some of the teams you need to beat and.
Uh, especially with Georgia Southern, uh, doing us a favor actually by
beating Texas State yesterday in the third game of their series.
That was helpful.
Uh, app State up 11 to two on South Alabama in the ninth.
So it looks like app state's very, very long.
Losing streak is finally gonna come to an end.
I cannot believe that going into today they had lost 11 straight games.
Crazy.
That's a lot of games to lose in a row.
Yeah.
And they had, they had such a home field advantage through most of that
early part of the season like that.
Yeah.
They were just not losing games at home.
They obviously took two outta three against us.
They were in Boone.
Um, wild to see them.
I tell you, talking to other teams, man, the Coastal's pretty darn good.
I'm looking at some of their stats.
I mean, and you saw, I dunno if you saw, they, they played a complete game on
Friday against ULM then one in seven, I'm sorry, on Thursday, then one in seven
on Friday, then won in five yesterday.
They only had the, only had the pitch.
What, uh, was that 31 innings?
Uh, maybe their arms will be, uh, 21 innings.
Yeah.
Over rested maybe.
Yeah.
Uhhuh, I'm sure they're over rested.
Yeah.
I I would, I think you can make the argument they might have the best
weekend starting rotation in the country.
Their, their stats hitting in, in pitching are disgusting.
Um, it's, it's pretty gross how good coastal is.
Um, you know, they're definitely the kind of team that once you get past the
tournament, you know, and it becomes like, Hey, let's root for everyone.
Like we're gonna all be big coastal fans.
'cause they, they have a shot of doing big things nationally this year.
I mean, they're getting pretty high up there in the odds to
win the College World Series.
Um, I
know I, I saw a team, I saw something yesterday.
I had to pick them to go the, the, the Omaha.
Yeah.
I mean at, at this rate, unless we sweep 'em or something.
Um, I imagine that they're gonna, yeah, I hope be a national seed.
I hope so.
I'd love to mess up their whole year.
Make 'em feel bad.
That'd be nice.
Ruin it.
Yeah.
All right.
Jamie's got a runner on no Outs and our good friend Jackson Tone at the plate.
Jake, good old Jake.
Yeah.
Jake's having a tough year.
Jake's uh, you know, Jake's a a great hitter.
He just never really happened here at ODU U and, and unfortunately looks
like it's not really happening that, uh, at JMU either he had like about
a week where he was getting to play some games and yeah, here's a ground
out into a, it was a double play.
Yeah, so that's a, he's a, he's a great kid, great family.
His, his, uh, he had a younger brother that was a senior last year, and
he is got another younger brother.
He's a junior at Western Branch, so he is still the, the, the tone family
is still going at Western Branch, but, uh, it's just unfortunate he, he's,
uh, too good of a ball player and the results just haven't been there.
You know, maybe I'm just way off base, but I've watched all three of J MU's games.
I've watched a few of their games this season.
I know that they have improved as the season has gone on.
But just watching 'em, you know, even though we're one out away from a
sweep here, I don't feel like they're this bottom feeder Sunbelt team.
I feel like they should have more wins than they do.
That's every single Sunbelt series you play.
It is like, these guys aren't bad.
Why are they, why are they losing?
I'm sure that's how every team has felt when they play ODU and they're seeing
us being like 17 and 26 at one point.
It's like, man, these guys aren't bad.
What's happening?
It's, yeah, I don't, it's conference play is just different, man.
It doesn't matter what your record is.
You show up and the teams look good and they play hard.
It's wild to think we are ahead of where we were this time last year, after
all we've been through this season.
Yeah.
I mean, we're, we're not used to seeing that, um, that record be
upside down like that, the 20 and 26, but that 14 and 12 and, and when
we're out 15 and 12 is pretty great.
Yeah.
And you start thinking back like, all right, well the three
against Auburn, we got one there.
We got one at Southern Miss.
And you think about the games we may have.
Thrown away a little bit or had the chance to win.
Oh, there's, there's
might be 10 games you could find where it's like, man, if something,
if we just did a couple things right, we, we'd win this game and we, all
of a sudden, and then we'd have, you know, we, we'd probably be in the
top 40 in RPI and be talking about getting the, uh, oh, here we go.
Nice little ground out the third, and that's, it's your brooms first, first
sweep of the season for ODU Baseball.
Fantastic.
The series we need to sweep more than any other
Yeah.
Has happened.
We got the stanky leg.
Who's the new celebration they're doing?
I don't know what that, you know, they just do stuff.
They're just weirdos that just decide to do stuff.
We need to get a stop watch on Kainen Jorge for how quickly he's got that shirt
untucked because I mean, he, he hasn't hit infield dirt before that thing is out.
No, every day.
That was the game last Sunday where they had the replay.
They were having to tell him to tuck it back in and he was so annoyed.
Yeah.
Uh, how about Nick Sulpizio, three scoreless innings to get the save and
close out a four two win for Old Dominion?
Yeah.
How about that?
A guy who's struggled all year.
Let's see, I'm up, I'm pulling him up now to just to look at his recent games.
'cause he, he also went a long time without pitching.
Yes.
So that was another reason where it was like, is he ever gonna pitch again?
'cause it's like he just hasn't gotten in a game.
I mean, he was, uh, his, some of his biggest contributions
were the, the bat boy.
Yeah.
Uh, the
ball boy.
Um, yeah.
Let's see.
So Marshall had two, scoreless had a scoreless heading at Virginia.
Yeah.
He pitched at Marshall.
It was five two.
So the 2nd of May.
The last time he pitched before that was the 1st of April in Virginia.
So he went a month without pitching.
Oof.
And now he is got actually three games in a row with, uh, six quarter innings.
But they were also, one of those games was a month earlier.
Um,
well,
and bef and before that he had given up, uh, eight or runs and
one inning between two games.
So it's, uh, it's been a tough year for him, but I mean, man, if he all of a
sudden, you know, maybe he just needed to rest, you know, you never know.
Maybe, maybe he was a little bit injured and he just needed to rest and now it
feels better and he is back on track.
Maybe they went back and did some mechanical adjustments.
You, you never know what's going on with these guys.
Yeah.
I mean, it could have been a little pain in the shoulder, a little sprain,
a little tweak, something could have been a lot of stuff, but mm-hmm.
Uh, nothing seemed to be bothering him today.
Uh, getting three innings on the back end to slam the door.
We needed to sweep and we gotta sweep.
We are gonna at worse finish, 500 in the sunbelt, which
should put us in the top six.
Yeah.
Which is exactly where you wanna be.
And a few weeks ago, it didn't seem possible.
It seemed unlikely.
We, there was a solid chance we wouldn't end up in the top 10.
And here we are like, no, pretty much gonna be in the top six.
I mean, that's, that's crazy.
Yeah.
We're gonna have to get swept and have some very, very funky things to create
a tie for us to not be in the top six.
Now, if we go and get one game from Coastal, we are in the top six period.
Yeah.
And uh, I was actually having a conversation with Beau Cowen
yesterday about the seating and the playing times and all of that.
Uh, and, and it's interesting, like it.
Being the six seat, I'm pretty sure you played 9:00 AM on Wednesday,
and then you would always have more rest for your next game.
So if we do end up getting bumped down to six, it's not the worst thing.
Also, when you consider how hot it's going to be in Alabama next in two weeks,
um, playing, you know, before it hits 90 degrees is probably helpful for us.
So yeah,
you say that, but these guys do not like playing at nine in the morning.
One of those No, I mean, I wouldn't either.
Yeah, it sounds sounds okay in theory until you're like, tell them yeah, you
gotta be there at nine in the morning.
They're like, oh,
the only, the only advantage we have is we play a central time team will at least
be one hour closer to being a human being.
So,
Hm.
Yes.
So ODU gets the four two win, completes the sweep about a picture perfect
weekend as you can get for ODU in terms of the baseball standings.
I mean, we got help and we helped ourselves.
Yeah.
I mean, and that's, and again, we, as we just were saying, it's not
what we've been doing all year.
We have not been helping ourselves.
We've been shooting ourselves in the foot most of the season.
Um, and so to come out when you needed to have it happen and, and
do the right stuff, it is huge.
It, it really is.
Yeah.
Really important.
And just playing at the right time in baseball in general, I
think everyone knows that you want to get hot later in the year.
You don't wanna Yeah.
You know, be like app state who, they're world beaters earlier and now they're,
they're scratching and claw to just get out of the tough losing streak,
uh, which is really, really tough.
Yeah, I was saying the other day, and, and Coastal was actually a team
I mentioned, you know, if you remember when they won the, the College World
series, which was, I, that was what, 15 or 16, you know, that was, it
wasn't that they were the best team.
They really weren't, they were not the most talented at all.
I mean, you look back, most of those guys, I think one or two of 'em played
pro ball and didn't get very far.
What it was is they were hot.
They were, they were a good veteran team and they got hot at the right time.
And that's, that's what it takes in the postseason, you know, not
just the conference play, but then in the NCAA tournament is
just being hot at the right time.
All right.
I'm pulling up some stats here 'cause Sure we do have an outside
shot to get the four seat.
It's not like, yeah, the odds aren't great.
No,
we do,
but the odds get a little bit better.
Yeah.
We're 15 and 12 and did, what'd Louisiana do today?
Do we know
they are down nine to six right now in the top of the seventh.
Okay.
Southern Middle.
I mean, uh, going for their sweep of the Cajuns, which I'm sure they would love.
There's been a lot of good back and forth on social media between we would both
be 15 and 12 then, you know that then you're, you're talking about it, right?
Yeah.
You, you've got a shot now.
Um, they are going to play Arkansas State in their final series, which is, uh,
yeah.
The opposite of what we're doing.
Yeah, exactly.
So I mean, we're, we would probably need to start the conversation with
winning the series against Coastal, which, uh, I mean, that's, that's
been tough for everybody this year.
Um, but you know,
if the, the only way, you know, that's one of those things where if you want to
go into the tournament and do some stuff, you'd have to beat somebody like Coastal.
So could you, could you imagine the, the level of confidence you would
have walking into that tournament coming off a, a, a What, what?
I mean, how many, how many series in a row have we won now?
Where's our, where's our schedule?
Let me look here.
That's at least three, right?
I believe so, yeah.
Three in a row.
We had a, yeah, I mean that's ULM, Marshall and now JMU,
so we've won three in a row.
And the one being the sweep is really the, the key difference here.
Yeah.
We lost a series to occasions, so that's, I'm trying to think
how many series we played.
Nine series, how many we won, we won against George, so we
won four of the last five.
Yep.
Five and four of, we lost Troy.
5, 4, 5 and four in series.
Okay.
I mean, that's, mm-hmm.
You know, you win at least as many as you Yeah.
Finney's been kind of saying it all year.
If you.
End up 500, you'll be there.
So, you know, we're I, I said a, a a month ago, it was like, are these
guys even gonna get in the top 10 and have a chance to even play?
So this is, we, we've, you know, they have you, you gotta hand it to the guys.
They have come up and they have played exactly how you needed them to play.
Um,
yeah, they've, every, everything put forward is like, all right, if
we want a chance, we gotta do this.
And then they go and do it, and it's like, all right, well,
chance is a little bit better.
And, and we've gone on from there.
Uh, it looks like this loss for JMU is gonna eliminate them from contention
to make the Sunbelt tournament.
So,
yeah, I think they, they were saying they needed to win like the last four in a row.
Yeah, they threw everything they had at us.
I mean, they, they went to their Sunday starter, who
still started today on Friday.
I think he threw 139 pitches this weekend and was very effective for 'em.
Um, I mean, they, they emptied the tank.
They did what they could.
Uh, they've got one more series at Texas State than their season will be over.
And that was the last athletic event at JMU for the academic calendar.
So think it's weird that happens, that we get down to that.
Uh, you wanna kind of go back through the week and talk about the games?
I definitely wanna talk about, uh, getting going four Oh.
Against rivals this week.
Starting with Yeah, we did have a four
Oh rivalry week.
Dang.
Okay.
When you put it that way.
Wow.
Gotta gotta take the rivalry win so we can get 'em this.
Dang.
Alright.
Um, yeah.
Uh, diamond on Wednesday.
Feels like it was like two weeks ago now,
it feels like a hundred years ago.
It does feel like a lot of life has happened between today and Wednesday
and that game felt like in old school ODU game, like what
you expect from ODU baseball.
Yeah.
Hitting home runs, pitching well.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you would talk about the bullpen doing well they, they didn't
give up a run after the first inning.
Right.
Yeah.
Connor Schumann, uh, and he still, I still thought he pitched well.
I forgot to get with the runs of the first inning, but he, I
still thought he pitched well.
Uh, he got one in two thirds, and then after that, Frankie Wright
and a third Bailey came in.
Alex, uh, hunt came in, uh, sup, who's another guy that's
on a nice little stretch.
And, and Marco, uh, didn't get a chance to do anything.
He, he, he walked the guy and he actually was not looking great, but
then the lights went out on him.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
We had, uh, we did have the, ended up being, I guess technically
six innings of, of pitching,
and the only two runs that Schumann gave up, he threw a pitch in on the hands,
it hit right above the batter's, hands on the handle, and just dribbled up
through the middle, allowing runners from second and third to score with two outs.
So it wasn't like he gave up a big gap shot or anything like that, just
kind of, kind of got one through.
Um, but we just played a complete game.
Uh, I mean, the light going out was a funky thing.
Uh, as I found out from Eric Bohannan.
I. Uh, everything up to the point of where the game was
suspended counts in the stat book.
Mm-hmm.
It would've only changed.
It would only reverted if we had taken the lead in the top half, which we
didn't already comfortably had the lead, but that was, I think the first
time that I have seen the game at the college level, especially division
one called For the Lights Being Out.
I,
I saw, if you remember Jared Hancock that played for us for, for three,
four years, I saw a high school game he played where they didn't have lights and
the game went to like the 13th inning and they just had to stop playing,
um, and then pick it up, pick it up the next day, and then the next day
apparently played like five more innings.
Uh, but, so that's about the only way I can think of.
But yeah, I've not seen a college game that that had to stop.
And, and I, I think.
I think we, we pointed out if it was a conference game and on the weekend they
might have kept playing or they might have figured it out, but because it was a
midweek and it was like, all right, we're already losing whatever, just call it,
at this point in the year, everyone is looking to cancel their midweeks.
If somebody over waters their lawn next door to the stadium, they
are gonna call that game and save their arms for the weekend or the
tournament, whatever it may be.
Well,
yeah, they've got, they got rain, uh, scheduled on, uh,
Tuesday in, in, uh, in Richmond.
So I, I wouldn't be surprised if we're, and Richmond, you know, they're
trying to win their conference too.
They're, they're pretty good this year, so my guess is neither one
of the teams are gonna be too upset about that one not happening.
Grant Gardner, that's what he's a he is a, a a, um, the Green Lantern.
Isn't that one of the, the green lanterns is Grant Gardner.
That's pretty cool.
No,
that, that, I don't know.
I think Grant and I have been following each other on social
media since I'm pretty sure we were both in school, which I don't wanna
admit now how long ago that was.
Uh, appreciate you tuning in Grant Sky Gardner.
I'm sorry.
My
bad.
I'm sorry.
Grant.
I just can't believe, uh, you know, you remember the name of
the Green Lantern person, but
you, you, you, you know me, you know better stuff.
Uh, I mean,
yeah, you throwing the breaker.
Well, we were winning, so I didn't, I didn't need any reason to go
try and, uh, and take that thing.
Uh, it is interesting and kind of ominous with the new baseball
stadium going in right next door.
You see it as you walk through the parking lot on that, uh, third base side.
You've got that going on.
You've got lights that aren't working and I, I don't know, I heard a pop before the
light went out, so I'm guessing tripped.
Um, but I also didn't know if it was one of our guys getting a
little too loose in the bullpen down there and they hit the pad.
So I didn't really wanna broadcast that and get, then
get dunked on for a while pitch.
Um, yeah, it's the new stadium.
There's gonna be nice, I, I don't know what V C's whole arrangement
and setup and contract's gonna be.
Um, I would assume that at some point they're gonna play in the new stadium, but
I also know that the diamond itself will still be up there this time next year.
Mm-hmm.
But they've already got enough effort to just try to get that thing
rolling with the field conditions.
I mean, that's playing service is rough.
Yeah.
It was neat going up there.
'cause you know, I, I've been the diamond a ton of times.
I used to go all the time, um, when, uh, when they were the Richmond Braves
and so it's, it's always a lot of fun.
So, yeah.
What's faster is, uh, it's caans shirt untucked because my, my curtain sometimes
will wait halfway through the thing You notice today I'm, I'm in the living room.
I've, I've also, I've got, she's over here sleeping, but I got a brand new kitten
yesterday, so I'm kind of in the room.
I don't want her in the other room where all the, my, my
good, my good stuff is, but.
She's, she's on the couch here, so you'll notice I'm in a different room.
Well see.
Adding a cat is gonna change the bedding odds here.
A little bit of your curtain falling because you've introduced
something that can also tear down a
curtain,
so we might get the full, she's not allowed,
she is not allowed in that room.
You may actually see me out here in general because she, I mean, maybe
it'll change, but she now, she, she meows like crazy if she can't see me.
So, uh, I, I don't think we get through a podcast with the door closed and Yeah.
Me, yeah, me, me
from the other side of the door.
You gonna
see it on the transcript?
Cat noises in
background.
Yeah, right, exactly.
Yeah.
Uh, but no.
Yeah, so the diamond, so, and, but as you pointed out, it was, it was a great, uh,
you know, Kaan hit a homer, uh, and then, uh, Maverick caught right back up with him
with another big, I mean, just a big bomb.
Um, or there was the absolute way I missed, I can think maybe Maverick
hit his first, but it, they were both just absolute bullets out of there.
Um, and Taron Hammond got back in the lineup.
He had a couple of hits.
Uh, I. Kyle had a couple hits.
I mean, it was Tanner Shadell had another nice hit.
You know, he, again, his numbers are probably never gonna look good no matter
what he does the rest of the year.
But he's had what I think is a good year for a freshman.
It, it's, you know, he hasn't been like, it's not like a Alex Boucher
freshman season where it's like, oh man, this guy's a, a stud.
But it's, it's what a typical freshman season is.
You know, there's a lot of struggles followed by some success.
Yeah.
And we're seeing a lot of those guys that are new to the team,
that are maybe true freshmen not playing like true freshmen anymore.
They're stepping up in a big way.
They've got almost a full season under their belt.
Uh, and especially with as much as we've been on the road, I think
that kind of sharpens you up and matures you a little bit faster.
Uh, 'cause you don't have nearly as much on-campus shenanigans as you would when
you're playing at home all the time.
Yeah.
Um, and then Friday, that's probably the most intense ODU
game in, in a little while, and we've had some intense ones, but.
We go four, four, we're going to extra innings and like
we can't get anything going.
Mm-hmm.
We we're not getting guys on base.
JMU is putting ducks on the pond every inning.
Yeah.
But our bullpen shuts 'em down.
We finally get two guys on Luke rips, one really off the base of the wall
and left center scores, two runs.
We win that.
And I think that that may have taken some of the air out of the sales for JMU
'cause they, they, they shot their best bullets on, on their pitching staff that
night and we were able to get the win.
Yeah.
They don't, they don't have a lot of, of good bullets and they used them.
Yeah.
When you got Max.
Cool.
Who's, you know, uh, as we know Aiden's brother, uh,
Aiden pitched for us last year.
He is one of their best pitchers and he only got five innings.
Um, Todd Maki's been a great reliever for him last few years.
And then he said, bring out that Jackson Lo, who his stats were weird,
as they were saying you, he, he doesn't give up a lot of hits, but he hits
a lot of guys and he did that today.
Hit a few guys.
Uh, very odd that we give up almost no hits, but then you're,
you're still hitting a lot of guys.
Um, but yeah, they, they threw the kitchen sink at us and we threw the
kitchen sink right back at them.
And ours was a little bit bigger or more better marble on the sink.
I don't know how, I don't know how this analogy keeps going.
Better water flow, better disposal.
Yeah.
Either way.
Uh, either way our guys locked it down.
I mean, six scoreless from your bullpen on a Friday night game is key because
it, it almost gets that point too.
If you get, do go and lose that game, if you're ODU uh, y the momentum
swing and what's available to you for Saturday is, is really difficult
beyond Dylan, uh, who on Saturday I thought pitch exceptionally well.
Just gave up some hits, but got outta jams real fast.
Yeah.
And his line ends up not looking that great.
Right.
It's seven, seven innings, three runs.
Uh, but that home run he gave up.
It's like what?
At that point it was whatever.
I mean, we were, we were up.
So big seven.
It ended up being, yeah, it ended up being closer than, I mean, that
being what, a nine to six game?
But, you know, Dylan certainly had the best outing of the week and, and to
go, to go back to Friday, Ben Moore actually ended up with a great outing.
He had six innings, which was only the second time.
He'd gone six all year.
Uh, four runs, but only two earned.
And he only had two walks for a guy who's been, you know, throwing
way too many pitches all year, and he had 82 pitches through six.
So he really probably could have gone more.
But again, sometimes you, you, I'm sure you look at it and
you say, Hey, you know what?
He's had the success.
Let's just kind of get him outta there.
We, we don't wanna, you know, stress it out and go longer and have some something
happen that we don't need to have happen.
So, yeah.
Um, good pitch.
And, and Blake pitched well today.
I mean, what, what did he have?
Five and two thirds and, uh, two runs.
What did he have?
Yeah, that second run was, yeah, two run.
The second run.
Kellen gave it up, but it was still his run.
But yes, I mean, uh, again, uh, the strength of this team
is probably the rotation.
And the rotation showed up this weekend.
Yeah.
And it's nice to be able to rely on that 'cause it's been battle tested all year.
I mean, we've essentially used the same three starters for Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, all year long.
Um.
Bullpen starting to come around like Ezio Alex Hunt.
I, they don't, I didn't see a radar gun at VCU.
We also didn't have a pitch clock 'cause it only would reset to two
minutes instead of 20 seconds.
We didn't
have a lot of stuff at VCU.
Yeah.
They did have enough beer for us, which was a pleasant surprise if you've
been up there the last few seasons.
Uh, but I, I have to imagine based on sight and sound that
Alex Hunt was throwing 95 plus.
Mm-hmm.
He's getting it up there.
I mean that thing was popping in there.
Batters were well off their timing.
So even a guy like that who's proven to be a good bridge guy for
us to come in and with people on base and get outs, that's huge.
'cause we, he may end up with pitching three, four days in a row like he
did, uh, a couple weekends ago.
He,
well, he pitched three games this week.
He pitched on Wednesday, uh, Friday and Saturday.
Yeah.
Didn't get any outs in the Saturday game.
Uh, I think he, what he faced one guy and walked him.
Uh, yeah, that was right there.
Just that he's, you know, and, and they decided, okay, at that point, it, it
clearly, you know, when you bring a guy in for the third game of the week, you,
you know, the stuff's not gonna be there.
And I think they were smart to look at and say, okay, the stuff's not here.
Let's get Frankie and Frankie got the job done.
Yeah.
We don't have the rules in college where you have the three batter
momentum or anything, so you can plug guys in for one batter.
I think JMU did that with one of their lefties, didn't pay off for,
and brought in the lefty to face Zach late and Zach rips one down the line
on Saturday, which kind of helped blow the thing open a little bit.
Um, but no, I, I, I love Dylan going back out there for the seventh.
On Saturday, you're up seven, nothing.
You just played a 12 inning game.
He's been pitching really well.
Got a couple bad sequence of pitches there, ends up giving
up a three run home run.
But that was it.
It limited the damage, finished the inning, and we were all good.
Uh, it just, it's kind of exciting to see these guys
turning it on at the right time.
It's, you know, I said yesterday, it's, it's when I tell people all year, it's
like, Hey, if they play how they can play.
They'll be really great.
And that's what I feel like the last couple weeks is what we're seeing is
like what I, it's the team in my head that I'm telling people about all year.
It's like, you know, this is when they play and up to their
ability, they're really, really good and now you're seeing it.
So it's, it's nice for them to finally make me look like I'm not a crazy person.
Just saying like, oh, they're really good.
Try.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah, they're, they're like 12 and 38.
Yeah.
Trust me.
They're really good.
And they've taken the pressure off themselves too, because they go into
the series with Coastal, where they can still be very well positioned,
even if they lose the series.
Even honestly, if they get swept, they're still in a pretty decent spot,
although we really need to take one game.
Whereas if we were in a different situation, maybe lost one to
JMU, now you're talking about having to take two outta three.
From one of the best teams in the country against arguably the best
pitching staff in the country.
You, you lose Friday and the, those, that balloon just deflates real fast.
But in this situation, we get to be kind of the scrappy ones with nothing to lose.
'cause we just need to steal a game from these guys.
And we're, we're locked in for five or six.
So maybe, and this
isn't a team that hasn't played top 25 teams.
We played top 25 teams and we, we, we took a win off.
We beat top 25.
We, we took, yeah, we've taken, we've taken wins at big places.
We played close games another way.
We, we really haven't gotten blown out by those tough teams.
And so, uh, it's not something they're unable to do.
You know, they know it's, it's not gonna be like, oh man,
we've never beaten a team.
This like, no, we have, we absolutely have.
And it's not a, it's not a, you know, okay, cool.
Yeah.
Coastal, whatever.
Like, it's not gonna be like this, you know, big amazing, hard thing
If we can take one from Southern miss on the road with that
kind of crowd environment.
Yeah.
I think we get Oh, Auburn.
Yeah.
Oh, Auburn.
I mean, good guy State, we can take
on a, on a Saturday night at Auburn after they've just had the, the
number one and number two team in the country playing and with their biggest
rival in basketball that afternoon.
I mean, that whole campus is buzzing and we go out and just say, Hey, yeah,
we know you lost the basketball game.
Here's a little more sadness for you.
Uh, yeah, no, these, these guys can do it.
Man.
They, they've, you know, when Troy came in, they were top 25.
We took, we took one, uh, from them.
You know, it's, you know, wasn't, didn't win the series,
but they, they definitely can.
It's, it's, they're not gonna be, if they lose, it's not 'cause they're
intimidated, that's for sure.
No, they lose just because let's be real coastal.
Looks like they're a really darn good baseball team.
Yeah.
And who knows, maybe Coastal decides to just ease on back this weekend,
start sequencing their pitching.
'cause they've got a two game lead on Southern miss even
if Southern Miss wins today.
So little, little different end of the spectrum there.
But, uh.
Go, go get one next weekend.
We're in great shape.
Yeah.
Um, we have a message out to Coach Finwood.
We know a lot of you all tuning in.
Tune in pretty much exclusively to listen to Coach Finwood.
We're the ones that called this audible, so it's definitely
not on him for not being here.
As you saw, he was literally coaching when we started this.
Uh, we'll see if we can get him to pop on here for a few minutes
from the bus if they have signal going through the mountains.
Um, no idea.
You know, they gotta get their stuff together after we who, who knows?
And if, and if we can't.
It's also my fault for not telling 'em ahead of time either.
I forgot to that I was getting a kitten.
I'm sorry.
I had life things.
I'm sorry.
Uh, this is how it goes.
Yeah, I, uh, did not send that message either, so definitely not just on you.
There.
Wait,
let me see.
Wait, let me, because she's over here sleeping.
Let's see.
Can we see the, there she is.
She's adorable and tiny and sleeping.
There we go.
Oh, you made herself comfortable already.
I see.
There we go.
She loves, that's her little hole right there.
She loves that, that side of the couch already.
That's her spot.
She starts climbing on you here in about five minutes.
Oh, she's, I got
little.
Hacks all over my hand already.
Oh.
Well, one thing I did learn from the broadcast, 'cause again, the ESPN
broadcast, they, ESPN plus broadcast was really good, really knowledgeable.
Yeah, they were good.
They were great.
Uh, coastal Carolina is either first or second in the country
and being hit by a pitch.
Yeah.
And I watched some of their games now and went back and watched a couple of
s ESPN plus they're basically standing on that front line of the Baters box.
Mm-hmm.
So anything that's breaking late, I mean, yeah, they're, they're gonna get on dates.
They're gonna get some free passes and wear 'em
1 36 before today.
I mean, that's a crazy amount hit by pitches.
136 hit by pitches in 52 games.
Something's a little funky there.
Right.
That's, yeah.
I mean, they got what Mitch Walker, Mitchell's got 24 hit by pitches.
They got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 guys with double digit hit by pitches.
Well gimme those seven and Steven Meyer and, uh, we'll never get outta the plate.
Geez.
That is crazy.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, they
got like, like their top home run hitters are like the, they're having
good, you know, 2 85, 2 75, but there's like, then there's five guys
ahead of them hitting higher average.
I mean, they're, they're batting number, they're hitting 2 85
as a team, which is hard to do.
But then they're pitching, they've got a 3 38 ERA as a
team, which is insane in college.
That, that's, I don't care what level you're at.
That's ridiculous.
That's, I mean, they're going down
to, I mean, they've got, there's like, I be like, how many two was era?
A, uh, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 4.
It's about 14 or 15 guys before they have anybody with a four ER.
A.
You said their team ERA is in the threes
3 38.
Yeah.
I think our team, ERA just this weekend in this series against one
of the worst hitting teams in the conference is around 3 30, 3 38.
Yeah.
Um, and they're doing that against everyone in the Sunbelt.
Right?
It's pretty, pretty unbelievable.
But hey, wouldn't be a bad time for them to cool off because they're on, on quite
a little winning streak themselves.
Yeah.
For comparison,
our, our ERA for the season is six 17.
Yeah.
A little different.
And our batting is, uh, before today's day is two 60, which is
actually way above where it was.
I,
well, anything can happen in the tournament and, you know,
you just, you never know.
Just get in that tournament, get away from the playing game and I'll, I'll put us up
against anybody in the one game scenario.
Um, and also I think there's, there's some thought, you think you see it a
little bit like in the SEC tournament sometimes the a CC tournament, the
teams that know they're getting in.
They're not going to go over tax, their pitching staff to try to
secure a conference tournament win.
Uh, they're more likely just gonna go save their arms, rehab 'em up and get
'em ready for the regional And coastal would very, very much be in that bucket.
'cause they're, they're getting in like they're, they're hosting, I
would imagine The only argument is are they a top eight or a top 16 seed?
Yeah.
Southern Miss is getting in.
I, I would find it hard to believe that Troy doesn't get in as in, at large.
Um, and then, you know, they're still Louisiana and ODU that could
potentially go win the conference tournament in addition to that.
Yeah, I think you're right When you say those, those top three should
be going to the tournament and then anybody else has gotta be, well
you better win the, the conference.
Yeah.
And we're definitely in the, we gotta win the conference, but I
think Louisiana is too, just 'cause of the slow start they've had.
Yeah, they've definitely turned a corner similar, almost similar trajectory as us.
I think they hit theirs maybe a week before we did.
So, and that was of course the week we, we played them, but if you think remember
that series, we had the lead going into the ninth inning against them, and we lost
the lead then we lost in the 10th inning.
So it's not like we were, you know, head and shoulders worse than Louisiana.
They run rule us on Sunday.
Uh, but, you know, we could have been a spot where we had already
taken two games at that point.
You know, that was one of the last really bad game.
I mean, that's one I'm curious to go back now that we're kind of talking about.
It was, was that a turning point for us that getting run ruled where it
was like, all right, let, let me, let's see what we've done since then.
Where were we at here?
Uh, that was, we get run ruled on the, the Saturday.
Yep.
And then we go and we win, then we actually lose to ULM and then
we win the next two and then we, we lose win two, two or three.
So that's, what is that?
Uh, I can't do math.
Uh, it's uh, four outta five.
The next four outta five.
And then we win four this weekend.
So we won.
Uh.
Eight of the last nine games.
Yeah.
Uh, if you start a game after that,
yeah.
I mean, really.
So even say eight, we went eight outta 10 since we we got that run rule game.
The other difference there is one that was Easter weekend, I believe.
So they, they didn't play on Sunday, so they got the extra day
arrest and their travel drastically reduced for the rest of the season.
Pretty much after ULM, so they've been having much shorter trips.
Uh, we had two weeks there.
We didn't have midweeks, which I think did wonders for our pitching staff to
get them a little bit of a breather.
And when we went back to kind of a more normalized baseball
schedule, we start playing the way we expected the team to play.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
And now there's no school, which is huge.
Now all of a sudden everybody's just relaxed.
Yeah.
Now all the, all the, uh, you know, I mean, it's, it really is.
I mean, you think about this life of student athlete, it's, it
is just a time, it's just, it's all the amount you have to do.
I mean, I remember talking to Jack Spice last year, one of our guys,
and he was like, I don't do anything.
He's like, I see some of these guys go and hang out, get play.
He is like, I go to, I work out and I, and I go to, I do school.
That's it.
He's like, and he is like, that's all I do.
Yeah.
He says that.
Yeah.
He has a girlfriend that hangs us.
I don't know what he's, he's lying to, he's just,
oh, uh, I don't think anyone's happier to hear that school
is done than Kyle Edwards.
As we found out from interviewing him earlier this season.
I definitely check that out.
If you go back on YouTube and, and find it.
Kyle was very hilarious about his future academic endeavors.
Yep.
Uh, did you get that, uh, text I sent you with the, um, the players of the week?
I sure did.
Gimme about 10 seconds here.
That's fine.
Sure.
I think I, I, I did that kind of as thing.
I was like, well, nothing much is really gonna change
in this game to make this, uh.
Yeah, I usually, I usually, uh, Gary and I usually have a conversation,
but some weeks it's just like, nah, this is the, this is what it is.
These, these are the, these are the answers.
It's, it's not much you can really, uh, argue with.
No.
Um, pretty clear.
We'll throw 'em up here now.
There we go.
Yeah.
Shocker.
Luke Waters.
Yeah, Luke Waters.
Uh, 'cause he, he did pretty solid on the, the, the Wednesday game also.
So for the week, uh, after today's game, Luke ended up nine for 17,
had a double two home runs, which obviously both came in yesterday's game.
Had four rbis and three walks.
Um, so he, let me see if I can see this real quick.
So he is now hitting oh, and I don't know where I can Oh, right.
Go thing, make it bigger.
Um, hitting 2 77.
When I, I actually took a screenshot, uh, yesterday of his, like, stats from
like last year compared to this year.
And yeah, so before this weekend he was hitting two four, so he gained 30
points on his batting average and that I, I don't even know what he gained
in his OPS, it's through the roof.
He's over 700 something.
So he probably gained another, uh, 60, a hundred points on his OPS.
So he went from having like, I mean, he was sitting 2 47 with
a 6 72 OPS before this week.
Like he was not doing well.
'cause I was like, well, he does, he's got a little bit of a season left to,
to, you know, make up the respectable and then you know what he's doing that.
So.
Awesome.
So, way to go.
Luke.
Um, Kyle Edwards had another great week.
He was seven for 16, um, had a triple an RBI three walks, two steals.
Uh, Tahraun Hammond had a solid week.
He was six for 13.
Uh, three rbis, three walks, a couple of hit by pitches and made
some really nice plays on the field.
Um, and Kainen Jorge had a solid little week.
It wasn't, wasn't the best.
Uh, average would be five outta 19.
Had a double, had two Homers, three rbis, four walks, and a steel.
So another nice week for him.
Um, and then pitching wise, uh, you know, again, I think you could have
given it to multiple guys, but I, I think Dylan with pitching seven innings.
Yeah, he gave up the three earned runs, uh, with the, with the home run there.
But that was kind of whatever, uh, eight hits, no walks and five strikeouts.
He was up to 87 for the season, which is a really high amount.
Um, that's actually the second most of an ODU pitcher since
Finwood has been the coach.
Uh, 'cause uh, hunter Gregory had 88 in 2021,
so he needs two more to break that.
So two strikeouts against Coastal and he's gonna clear Hunter Gregory.
Yeah, he and I, I know I looked back a little while the last.
The last highest total that anybody had was, um, Kyle Hall that had 1 0 8 in 2011.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, which is actually ties for fifth all time in a season
with, uh, Jeff Ware from 92.
So, you know, Dylan's got an outside shot.
If he has a couple more of those big strikeout games, like he,
he's kind of strikeout numbers has kind of gone down a little bit.
We just, you know, he is getting tired and, but he is still pitching
effectively, so, you know, it's whatever.
Yeah.
Um, I
think there's a concerted effort there too, I think for him to
be a little bit more efficient.
Yeah.
So he is letting guys football and play, which you saw, he gave I think
seven hits on Saturday, but they were all just ground balls, little loopers.
He was not letting guys barrel things up.
He also, I mean, he is got those strikeouts and like way fewer innings
than those other guys had 'em in.
Yes.
That, that's a, that's an interesting factor.
Um, and then, you know, uh, Ben Moore did have a great, I think we said six
innings, four runs, only two earned.
Eight hits, only two walks, which has been great for him.
He had, he is walked way too many guys here in two strikeouts.
And, and also Frankie Wright will mention him.
He picked up a save, had two games, uh, two totals, no runs, three
hits, no walks, two strikeouts.
So, so some guys had some really, and, and some of the guys, you know, had, had
solid hitting and pitching performers.
Those are kind of the best standouts of the week.
It was a little harder to to, to do the math on all of them as we're sitting
here watching the end of the game.
So I, I, I only picked a few,
well, we, we could have done the cheat version and just
gone like the entire bullpen.
Congratulations.
You know, I mean, it's a whole offensive line.
No, it, it would be fair.
You would, you would not be wrong.
I think, you know, we, for, for the whole week, the, especially when you
consider the whole bullpen pitched on Friday, on, uh, Wednesday's
game, that was all the bullpen guys and they all pitched really well.
Yeah, it was, and that, and that's been it because how many times here we
said, man, the bullpen, uh, killed us.
Like how many times?
We said all year, if we, we win these games or the bullpen
wasn't giving games away and.
I, I mentioned it, you know what, half an hour ago I said this.
It's nice to see these games where we're getting ahead and keeping
the lead and grinding it down.
Yeah, you may get up a run here or there, but at the end of the day you,
you don't give up enough runs to tie the game and you hold onto the victory.
Um, and that's the thing the bullpen had not done for most of the year.
Now all of a sudden they're doing it and yeah, you're seeing in every kind
of aspect of the game is it's all the things that need to ha happen that weren't
happening now are, and that's where they said we won eight of the last nine games.
And I know Paula Ambrose was asking about, uh, lineup consistency.
We've been very consistent with our lineup with, with Tahraun at second.
Um, now Maverick going to third.
That's really been the, kinda the only change there.
But I mean, other than some left right matchups, we've seen some consistency at
the positioning where guys are hitting in the order and that's just kind of
starting to gel really, really nicely now.
And I love Kainen in that we off spot 'cause they, it having a, someone
that can hit home runs but also hit for average and get on base.
At the top, the order he steals,
he's second on the team in steals.
I mean, yeah, he's, that was a move where it's like I wasn't thinking about
it, but then as soon as Finney did it, it's like, well yeah, that's why
he's been coaching a million years.
'cause he knows kind of when to pull the trigger on those moves.
Yeah.
'cause it was, immediately I saw the lineup.
I was like, I love that.
Like, I didn't even question, it was like, yeah, why wouldn't he be there?
Um, it we're, you know, very few teams have those old style, you know,
little fast guys that don't hit for power that, you know what I mean?
It's, it's, it's really is the modern days of having a big strong
guy who can hit the ball out.
But as long as they get on base, that's what it comes down to.
Absolutely.
You were talking about stealing.
I don't know if the, the numbers are updated, but I know going into the
game today, Kyle ever was 24 for 25 at stolen base and he was leading Yeah.
And he got one
today.
Yeah, he got one today.
Uh, and that is a sneaky guy to have hitting like six or seventh down in
year lineup where they can get on.
He is got a good average, he can hit for a little bit of power.
And, but then if he gets on base, you can put pressure on the pitcher
against like 7, 8, 9 guys in the lineup where typically they can relax more.
If they're more fastballs, throw more in the middle of the plate.
But not with Kyle over there stealing second, immediately
getting, scoring, scoring position.
It's, it's nice, you know, Kyle has moved kind of all over the order and
I've always liked him hitting kind lower down because I think he's the way he,
his abilities are more in tune to like a one two hitter, but his mentality is more
at tuned to a lower the order hitter.
And so when he has 'em, he's been hitting seventh recently and that's, that's a
great spot for like, as you said, he gets on, he can steal and then, you
know, if he got Hammond and Holman or Hammond and Slater hitting after him,
well then, you know, one of 'em could bunt and then they're pretty good hitters.
And then you're coming back around to Jorge, who is more like a three, four
hitter, even though he's hitting leadoff.
So you've got, uh, it, it, it is kinda like having a, a second leadoff
hitter in the middle of the lineup, which is, I. Kind of what you want
and it's helpful when your best defensive player can also hit, get
on base and steal because he made some great plays at shortstop.
I think he loved playing on that turf at JU 'cause the
bounces were more predictable.
He was eaten over there at short.
Uh, and I don't, I. I didn't check the box score, but I know
we had no errors yesterday.
Uh, let's see.
I have it right here.
We had no errors today.
No errors for either team two days in a row, which is pretty great.
Yeah, no, he, I mean, I remember, again, I think I've said this
before, but the first time I ever saw Kyle playing, he was like 14.
And I remember thinking at the time, I was like, this was kind complaining.
Uh, defensive college right now, and he's never proven me wrong.
He could play defensive and he, he also showed he could play defense in the
outfield in college at, at a high level.
He, he's just that good.
He's as, as, as Kyle said before, he's utility guy.
He is, he is not a shortstop utility guy.
Um, he, he's, yeah, he had a phenomenal weekend.
He's been making some great plays.
He, he is just, he's just so athletically gifted and, you know, it's, it's one
of those, as someone who has never been athletically gifted in any way,
it's like, you look at it like, how do you, how do you, how does your body
and brain just all do that at once?
Like, I would, I would, Scottie made a play in the outfield yesterday where
he, uh, you know, we, we, we tend to call him, uh, my dad said he is like
a baby GI draft sometimes out there.
'cause he is so long and lanky.
He, he runs a little, he does sometimes he makes, he, he
makes some bad reads on balls.
He's a little goofy sometimes.
But he made that nice kind of leaping catch and I said, oh, the
baby draft got the top branch.
Uh, but then he immediately, as he's running back in his hat's falling off.
Just for, for no reason whatsoever.
I mean, I was like that.
There it is.
That's, you know, the guy makes an amazing play and is,
he's still a little bit goofy.
And I was like, that's, I can relate to that.
I can, I can relate to being like maybe doing, maybe accidentally doing something
and then being a little goofy afterwards.
But like someone like Kyle, it's just like, no, you're just like,
you're on a, a physical level.
I could, couldn't even imagine.
Yeah.
Uh, that play that you're talking about with Scotty out there and
left, saved us two runs as well.
That would've been a, a big swing.
So maybe a slight misread to begin with it, but he used the size to, uh,
to make the catch and save the game.
I, I, I gotta say, I wanna know Scotty's bat di dimensions 'cause I. I'm used
to watching like a Jose Altuve swings like a 37 or 38 inch bat, and it looks
hilarious because he's five foot six and swings that, and I'm sure that he's
swinging a perfectly normal sized bat.
But because Scotty's six foot six, it looks like he's swinging with a toothpick.
Yeah.
Like he should, uh, needs to upgrade there.
But I don't know.
We'll, we'll ask him about that if we have back on again.
He was another very funny guest of the
podcast.
Yes.
Yes, he was.
Um, well, any, uh, any word back from Coach Fin Wood yet?
Are they?
No.
Again, you know, probably just between getting, getting going on the road.
I'm sure he just, you know, and he is not like us.
Uh, you know, the youth and all we're on our phones constantly.
He is, he is doing whatever he is doing and taking care of business.
Then he might relax and look at the phone.
He probably has like 900 messages in his inbox too.
Yeah, I'm sure too.
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would, I would not bet on Finney being able
to join us, uh, today, which is, you know, again, that's, I'm sure he's
as sad about as anybody because he, he, he really does enjoy coming on
here, getting to talk to everybody.
Yeah.
I think he likes having the direct connection to the fans for sure.
Well, I see there's still a, let's see, a couple hundred people still tuning in
across different social platforms, so.
Uh, haven't gotten a comment in a while, so if you're
listening, shoot us a message.
Question, anything.
We'd love to start.
Yeah, we, we would definitely love to, you know, I know you hear us
babble on enough, and as I, as I said, my mom says, uh, we talk too much.
So, but if there's some things you'd like to, to bring up or like to talk
to us about, we, we would love it.
Yeah.
It's, but it is, it's, it's, it's nice to see.
Um, I got to go out and see one of our commits of the day, uh, uh, cam
Teflon's, a big first baseman here at, uh, Lance Town High, so he looked good
and his team didn't win that game.
That was, that was a tough game.
But he, he is, uh, he, he's been coming out, him and his dad been coming out
to, and his granddad, I think had been coming out to some games here and there.
And so he is, uh, the other day, I, we were getting, uh, we were getting beat
pretty bad in that one game against, I think it was Marshall the Friday.
Um, yeah.
And I was, I was, I walked by, we weren't scoring any runs.
I walked by and told him, Hey, this is why we need you next year.
I mean he, that he's a big boy and I know you've seen him play, but
I mean he's he's what, six four?
Six five.
Still growing.
Uh, big, big first base, uh, commit for us.
Yeah.
So we're, we're pump for him.
I, um,
yeah, we had a few and then Jackson o Conco is there, Greenbrier Christian,
they're going to the, um, this week is gonna be their state tournament.
They won the championship again, of course, because
they're Green Bear Christian.
That's what they do.
Uh, they won the, the, the, the regional.
Um, and so they're gonna states, um, I saw Nick Felton's
outfit that was coming to us.
His team is like 26 and one and I think the one loss they had all year was
to the IMG national team, which, you know, we all know how good they are.
Um, so he is on a really guy you can get a chance 'cause they got rained
out the day I was gonna go see him.
So I didn't get a chance to get to see him this year.
Uh, so we, yeah, some, some time I saw Will Johnson's a JUCO outfit.
He had a sixth home round the other day.
So we got some, some other guys coming to us are, are doing pretty
well as they're getting toured, you know, the end of their seasons also.
Good to see the new crop coming in.
'cause who knows what things look like next year with changes to roster
limits and yeah, general portal and new stadium and all of that.
Yeah.
But while we're waiting for some question, yeah.
We had, um, we had what, 18 returners and 22 new guys this past year.
And my guess is just, just based on the reality of the way things go, I wouldn't
be surprised if it's pretty much similar numbers to that kind of every year.
That's just how, how it is.
Yeah.
That's gonna be baseball moving forward.
I feel like baseball kind of ducked some of it for a couple years.
They made it longer than football and basketball, but it's coming for
all the sports now that it's there.
I still think for us, the NIL isn't as huge of a deal.
Um, I think now if you do have some guy who's like a.
All American standout as like a freshman or a sophomore.
Yeah.
There's a good shot of a team coming and getting him, but I think in
general, well, especially with like with basketball, what I'm noticing is you see
a lot of players moving from one team to the other in the same conference.
And again, that's just because of the money.
I don't think that's gonna happen in the baseball because how many teams in, in the
Sunbelt and baseball actually have in NIL what, like Southern Miss has one, probably
Coastal probably has one, but they're not in the millions we're talking about.
I think I hear, heard Southern miss is like 250,000.
Yeah.
So it's like, you know, maybe you can offer the guy, you know, $20,000.
Like, is that life changing enough to go and check?
Probably not.
I mean, most of the guys, they're probably not gonna be, they're,
they're trying to get other guys, um, or, or pay their own guys.
So I think
I, I would also assume that some of the 20 K may be in lieu of scholarship,
which the roster limits and scholarship limits thing is gonna limit that.
But the, I guarantee you, especially in baseball with 11.7 scholarships,
you're probably, if you can fundraise 250,000, that's what like, you know,
they're three, four full rides.
Yeah.
So I think in, in, in general right now, the NIL is still
is not really a Yeah, yeah.
Again, if you have somebody who's like an all world, like, uh, just for an
example, like Carter Trice after his freshman year, he was an All American,
he's playing team USA that and he did eventually end up leaving us.
You really ended up being kind of mutual decision at that time.
Uh, but probably if a player like that happened again, yeah, you might see an
S-E-C-A-C-C team try to steal 'em away.
Uh, but, you know, good problems to have, I guess you got a good year of a guy.
But the reality is, I don't think, I think when you see our guys moving,
there's gonna be guys who leave us because they really didn't get a chance
to play here or didn't play that well.
And we both kind of, the team and the player decided it's time for the move
on, or we're, we got guys who just didn't play and they wanna train.
You know, we're, we're probably not losing guys who we really,
really don't wanna lose.
Yeah, that's very true.
And hopefully that continues to be the case.
And I think we need to go probably attract some arms, uh, in the transfer portal
'cause we're, we're gonna lose our three weekend starters, but, uh, really inspired
by Hubble's performance on Friday.
Yeah,
MoMA doesn't get much bigger than what he had to go up against.
He comes and gives us three scoreless and wins the game.
You can tell it meant a lot to him.
He was pumped.
If you weren't on the stream earlier, uh, you need to go back and watch
that ODU baseball, uh, social media accounts have it out too, but.
Getting that last out.
He's celebrating, you see, and Kyle and Teran come together, celebrate.
Yeah.
Canaan and Scotty and I don't know some other people were doing, I don't know
what, uh, but it was just a great shot, just big moment for Hubble, but he's
got to be someone that probably steps up and starts for us on Friday or Saturday.
Yeah.
And he was the guy when they brought him in this year, that was a possibility.
You know, he was kind of making like starter type, um, appearances
all throughout the, the fall and the early spring and just decided
okay, he, he's probably better.
And, and compared to the guys we have, he's, we'd be better outta
the bullpen, but he's, yeah.
It's, it's, now you're looking at you like, okay, this is a guy who we probably
can build with and, and have him become a, a, a starter next year, which is nice
because Yeah, you know, again, about a month ago it was like, man, who is
gonna start for this team next year?
Uh, you know, which again, I don't have to figure it out.
That's, that's on them.
You know, Marin and Finwood, the guys are gonna figure it out.
I, I, I believe in them.
They haven't, they have yet to come into a season where, where I was like,
it was all these guys are terrible and no one's gonna be able to pitch.
Um, you know.
That doesn't mean that some of the guys don't perform as well as
you'd hope, but that I, again, I don't think I ever, I haven't, they
haven't started one yet where I've been like, these guys are terrible.
I'm gonna have the fall.
This guy, they can't throw, they're, no, I don't, I usually go like,
Hey, if they pitch up to their ability, we're gonna be fine.
And sometimes that doesn't happen, but, so yeah, I, I, however it happens, if
it's, if it's guys like Hubble stepping up, you know, if, if a guy like Nick
Ezio has a great strong end of the year here and then comes back out all
of a sudden next year and it's like pitches how you've been thinking he
is gonna pitch, you know, who knows.
But yeah, you definitely, they're, you're gonna see some, some arms, I'm
sure, uh, coming in either through the portal or through some more JUCO guys
and they might even have guys who are committed that were not, I'm not aware of.
Sometimes they're just, yeah, sometimes between Twitter and Instagram and
all the places, you just don't see some guy say, I was committed.
It's, it's not, it's not as, as, as hard as I search, uh, through find it sometimes
it's like, well, I didn't see that one.
I had no idea.
There's always somebody in the fall that I walk up, I'm
like, never heard of this guy.
And I, we also have a couple guys that we really haven't seen
this year because of injury.
Um, so there's, there's definitely that el element of it as well.
I don't know how this is coming in.
Hey dudes.
Excuse me.
Copy, while you prep for Mother's Day dinner.
There we go.
All right.
Yes, that's good.
We love Happy, happy Mother's Day.
To your mom and to my, my mom.
And my mom's awesome.
She makes everyone cookies and they love them and, uh, they all act like
they're the, she gets 'em from Walmart.
She's always baffled by why people love them so much.
She, she doesn't understand it, but she, she'll keep making
'em 'cause she loves everybody.
Yes.
Yeah, of course.
There.
Harry McBrien, one of the fellow Monarchists with us, and he has an
important job on Thursday, potentially the most important job that will exist.
On Thursday at 7 5 7, he is driving the team over to War Memorial for, uh,
game one of the series with Coastal.
So.
If you see the ODU bus, stay outta the way.
'cause Harry will run your ass off the road and do it with a smile on his face.
Yeah,
no, I remember I was there at the memorial and I think, and Paul
Panik was like, yeah, one of the markets guys was driving us today.
I was like, all right.
Yeah, it was Harry.
Yeah.
We've reached a new, new element of trust apparently.
There you go.
It's one thing to let, talk to us on the podcast, nothing less actually drive
you all at a bus across, uh, the worst place on the planet that, that that
tunnel from Hampton is, that is the worst spot in, in, in, in the world.
I think.
Uh,
yes.
Well, uh, Harry McBrien too, uh, you know, during, uh, basketball season,
actually got a group of kids from the community in Virginia Beach.
Uh, got 'em away from their parents for a little bit, took 'em over
to the ODU football facility.
He got the coach, Ronnie was there, the rest of the coaching staff, spoke with
him, fed him lunch, took him to a women's basketball game and dropped him off.
Uh, so it's pretty cool.
But that's, uh, part of the reason why Harry has that bus license and the ability
to drive it is community minded, things like that, which obviously our group is.
A big part of still we'll have, you know, dollars for
Dingers is a big thing for ODU.
Uh, but Toys for Tots for us in the fall is like our biggest kind
of nonprofit event that we have.
We bring in all kinds of armaments and, uh, fighter jets and all
that stuff to, to help push that.
So be on lookout for that.
Um, I have one baseball related story that I wanna tell because
I just can't believe it.
And also kind of as a Astros fan, it's kind of funny.
Uh, so Ryan Presley talking about relievers and everything had potentially
one of the biggest meltdowns as a pitcher in pro baseball history.
And it was earlier this week.
Uh, they're in extra innings.
And, uh, Ryan Presley, final stat line, no outs recorded five hits,
nine runs, eight of 'em are earned.
One walk in, technically zero innings of work.
He, uh, went into the game with an ERA of 2.08 and he walked out with 7.62.
And he, he'll he could be amazing the rest of the year and he'll still end up
being like four and a half or something.
Yeah, it's, it's tough as a reliever to get that.
Ryan Presley's been a really good reliever for years.
I think he had only given up one run since the beginning of the season or one or
two runs at the beginning of the season.
He's been good, obviously great for the Astros for a long time as a closer.
Uh, but man, the only run that wasn't earned is the imaginary runner that
starts on second base and extra innings.
Oh wow.
That's fully on a run.
Everything else was earned.
There were no errors.
Uh, yeah.
But that's how quickly the world can change on a, uh, on a reliever.
So I think of like Sulp Pio who started out rough, his total stats for the season
may not look that great, but what he's done in the past couple weeks is huge.
I think.
Same for Alex Hunt, a couple of the other guys and it's like maybe
that lulls some teams to sleep when they're going down our pitching stats.
'cause we would probably do the same thing if we saw a guy with like a seven number
next to his name coming in to pitch.
Well to tell you right now.
So I happen to have, so Ezio came into the game with a 8 53 ERA.
Two scoreless innings, knocked him down to 6 89.
So almost two runs just off of that.
'cause that's how few innings he has.
Even just pitching.
Well it drops down some.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean it's says a lot.
It's, it's wild how quickly things can turn one bad night.
And my goodness, you've gone from uh, probably a no doubter all star
2D FA, this guy send him down.
I didn't even wanna look at Lance McCuller yesterday.
Uh, he was on his second start back pitching for the Astros
after Tommy John's surgery.
And I looked, it was 10 to nothing reds in the first inning
and I just changed the channel.
So
one of the nicest human beings I think I've ever met Lance McCullers.
Like, what a dude, what a, they, the Astros have a lot of
really good, i I saw them a lot.
Um, their spring training was, was really when I was still going to spring training.
They had a really accessible spring training place and, and
they were always really nice too, so it was a good place to go.
And yeah, Lance is, is one of the nicest human beings you'd ever meet in your life.
Yeah, he was, uh, unfortunately getting some death threats
after the game yesterday, so I don't know if it's, uh, it's
crazy.
Gamblers are just really salty Astro fans, but, uh, either way
it's ridiculous.
It's just a baseball game.
Yes.
It's, it's
crazy.
All right, Gary, I don't know this, I, I think we're, we feel like we're, now
that we're just randomly talking to my Astros flares, it might be tough.
Yes.
I gotta stop that to wrap it up.
Well, there is one thing I have to, there's one thing I have to do real quick.
This episode of the Monarchist Podcast is brought to you by
the pride of ODU Collective.
Their mission is to elevate the experience of student athletes through
name, image, and likeness, while also elevating the fan experience.
If you or your business are interested in getting involved,
you can reach out to us directly or go over to the pride of odu.com.
That is the pride of odu.com.
Thank you for listening And go Monarchs.
Accurate.
We did need that.
Correct?
Yes.
We absolutely knew that.
I was stalling to see if Coach FEMA would be able to join.
Yeah, no, I know.
I'm sure when he, when he finds out, he's be like, oh man, I
wish I would've seen the message.
Yeah.
He, we, and we, we did let him know.
Like he, I remember he did ask, he said there was some week he
knew we, this was happening.
So, you know, not ideal, but how stuff goes.
Again, if you, if you want things to be perfect, make sure, you know, give
or give enough to the, to the pride.
So this is all our, our full-time job, then we can all make it out.
Perfect.
And Gary's not off traveling wherever.
'cause he is, he is fully committed to, uh, to, to, to the fandom.
Yes.
Just don't become important at work.
And you'll get to see the coastal series.
Yeah, exactly.
But, uh, I'll be down in Montgomery for the Sunbelt tournament, so I imagine
we will continue to do some live things there, coordinate that from a couple
states away, uh, especially if these guys get in there and start winning some games.
Do some good stuff.
Fun.
Yeah.
And we're on that trajectory, like, as you said it, it's really, I
mean, I, I think you'd be lying as a Monarch fan if you said like about a,
you know, three weeks, a month ago.
It wasn't like, well this is, uh, you know, this is how
the season's gone, I guess.
I mean, I've said a few times, like, I just don't think we're
that good of a baseball team.
And we kind of played enough games and it kind of has proved it.
And now they're turning around and they're showing like, Hey, we're
gonna play like we Kainen like we should have been playing all year.
And, and yeah, it, it's been a tough year and you've had all these, all
these tests and all these trials and what you're seeing I think is,
uh, I think you said it or like one, some, somebody said it the other
day, but it was like, this is what a.
Battle tested team looks like.
I think you said that.
Yeah.
There you go.
I wanna make sure you get the credit.
Yeah, I mean, and, and it's the truth, like this is, this is what a team that
has been through the Ringer looks like and, and they're coming out the other
side with some lessons and finding success that a team that has had it easy
all year wouldn't, you know, it's one thing when you, when you blow everybody
out, you know, that was, uh, that my, my buddy Pat Nichols that, uh, the coach of
Greenbrier Christian at ODU u baseball alum, he had the second most home runs
of anybody in a season up until, um, a few of the guys just obl those records.
He, he's got his, um, his eight U team is his son Max is playing on
and they kind of blow people out.
I mean, it, it's, it's funny 'cause I go out and take pictures of them and
I've taken pictures of other folks as kids and, uh, these eight year
olds are like turning double plays.
I mean, they, it does not look like eight year olds.
Like I, I've seen, I've seen.
High school teams don't play as well as they play.
Um, and they blow out kind of every game.
And so, uh, I, I, his, uh, his mom Brittany had a post about a game, uh,
Syria, a tournament they played last weekend where they actually lost the game.
And she was like, we were worried we hadn't really prepared them for failure.
Uh, and so she, it was nice, she said they, they actually, they took it great.
They weren't wanting, they were just like, okay, let's go to work.
And they win and won the rest of the game.
And so it's, yeah, it sometimes, but sometimes those teams, the,
the whole point of that Longwinded story was sometimes those teams
who win too much, they did not prepared for win the you lose.
Um, and so we don't have that.
We have a team full of guys who were like, you know, if we lose, okay, we get down.
Okay.
And now they've kind of learned those lessons of how to come back,
how to get, and, and you're seeing guys step up and have success.
And it's, it's really, it's really fun to watch, man.
It's been a, it's been a fun few weeks here watching 'em win these games.
The growth has been awesome.
They're also just so much tougher than they were at the beginning of the year.
Yeah.
We would have Coach Finwood on, he would talk about toughness and attitude
and work and taking accountability.
And you, you see that now.
You see guys, we're still gonna strike out, we're still gonna get out,
we're gonna get out in big moments, but it's just like it's done before
they even get back to the dugout.
There's so many
more foul balls than the ab bats.
There's so many more fighting off pitches.
Getting one more pitch, one more pitch.
I before it is like, whiff, whiff, whiff.
All right.
Whatever.
Go back to the dugout.
Like, no, it's, it's, it's what?
Yeah.
I, I said it to him and I said to Hera, I was like, it took, it's like
it took half the year for what you guys were telling to finally sink in.
Well, today, JMU starts a guy through 36 pitches on Friday, and
we need to get him out of the game.
Through four and a third, I think it was at 95 pitches.
Yeah.
And we were able to get 'em out.
We, we got guys on base, knocked them out of the game, and we were able to, to get
ahead and get the hits that we needed.
So it, it is, it's that toughness and war of attrition in the Sunbelt tournament.
You can get the opposing starter to a hundred pitches in the fifth inning.
You're probably gonna win that baseball game and you're probably gonna screw
them for the rest of the tournament.
So that is a, a good skill to have, and glad to see it coming together for 'em.
All right.
We love it.
I'm, I'm excited about it.
We got our final home stand.
We got the game, uh, Thursday night, Friday at three.
I made sure I was off in the afternoon so I could come over and
get, see that, that's gonna be our graduation day before the game.
Uh, Saturday is the, the home finale at one o'clock.
Uh, and now we'll have our, our senior day.
So, so make sure if you're coming at these games, try to come out early.
Uh, graduation day is always cool 'cause they, they, these guys
obviously missed walking this weekend.
Um, I have you probably all kinds of great pictures from our sports teams with all
different athletes, but they didn't get to have that, so they get to have their
own walk, uh, on, on Friday and then, and then Saturday honoring our seniors, which
I think we, I don't even know the number.
We have a ton of seniors.
We do have a ton.
I'm sad that I'm gonna be missing it, but get to War Memorial
Thursday, Friday or or Saturday.
Get there.
Go see these guys play.
Uh, and then tuned into 'em for the Sunbelt tournament because they're
gonna be a very fun team to watch.
So if you hopped off the bandwagon when they were like 15 games over 500, come on.
Plenty of room.
Hop back on.
We whoa, hop
back
on.
Let's, let's end a, the athletic season and all the positive.
No.
By supporting these
guys, we are, they're the last, uh, ODU athletic team playing right now.
Yes.
The last ones.
And they just swept JMU.
So hey.
Yes.
Hey and j and well, you said four zero rival week beat,
beat, uh, VCU and three swept.
Three against, uh, JMU
pretty much.
What else?
What else can you want from A ODU sport?
I'm just glad we're recording today before anything else can
come out for the rest of the day.
There we go.
Uh, all right, well thank you everybody for tuning in.
This was a lot of fun.
Appreciate everyone who sent their comments and messages and.
Very inappropriate text messages.
That was actually hilarious.
Oh dear.
Yes.
All right.
Well, cb, anything else?
Hey, go Monarchs.
Go Monarch.