Season so far

[isuquinndog]

8-6 so far after losing at Hawaii last night 6-1. Three more games against them before coming home after spring break to open the home season vs. Illinois.

Appears as though we can hit the ball, but not great at stopping them. We actually lost a game vs Tennessee Tech 30-17. I heard Tech missed the extra point. :shock:

 

[cpacmel]

Gave one away last night. Up 4-1 in the 7th and 6-4 in the 9th. Gave up a bases loaded double with 2 outs to end the game.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Gave one away last night. Up 4-1 in the 7th and 6-4 in the 9th. Gave up a bases loaded double with 2 outs to end the game.

Unfortunately this trend has continued. The IWU loss was really embarrassing considering they didn’t throw their studs and were missing several key players. Throw in more blown leads and late collapses and we have to ask ourselves - have we made positive progress in these last 4 seasons?

 

[MadBird]

I was giving some credit for moving in a positive direction, but I agree, some troubling stuff. They're not that far away.

Losses to IWU, EIU (16-26), SIU-E (13-29), you get those three and the record is 17-21, closer to .500. They've lost 5 one-run games. You get a couple of those, you're at .500.

But you'd like to see "more progress faster".

 

[Reggie Redbird]

I was giving some credit for moving in a positive direction, but I agree, some troubling stuff. They're not that far away.

Losses to IWU, EIU (16-26), SIU-E (13-29), you get those three and the record is 17-21, closer to .500. They've lost 5 one-run games. You get a couple of those, you're at .500.

But you'd like to see "more progress faster".

Wouldn’t most teams have a lot better record if you take out their three most embarrassing losses and then on top of that a few close ones? Our MBB team would have surely been an NCAA or NIT team if we were 5 games better.

It was a successful team before he took over the helm. Unfortunately that success, while limited compared to our program history, did not continued. I would contend we are worse off than when he started.

 

[MadBird]

I was giving some credit for moving in a positive direction, but I agree, some troubling stuff. They're not that far away.

Losses to IWU, EIU (16-26), SIU-E (13-29), you get those three and the record is 17-21, closer to .500. They've lost 5 one-run games. You get a couple of those, you're at .500.

But you'd like to see "more progress faster".

Wouldn’t most teams have a lot better record if you take out their three most embarrassing losses and then on top of that a few close ones? Our MBB team would have surely been an NCAA or NIT team if we were 5 games better.

It was a successful team before he took over the helm. Unfortunately that success, while limited compared to our program history, did not continued. I would contend we are worse off than when he started.

First paragraph - sure, that's my point, lots of times you're not quite as good or bad as your record. If things had gone a little different, a play here or there, the record's a little better. Stuff happens, a few bad breaks, you lose some you shouldn't. Totally agree about MBB - they lost a couple games that came back to bite them. If baseball had been blown out in every game, you couldn't make the argument that a run here or there might make a difference.

Second paragraph - I'm not defending Durkac really, I was ready to pull the plug last year. Was just brainstorming as to how you could make a case that things are improving. It's hard to make that case w/o making the "leap" in the first paragraph. We're still losing, and 30+ losses again a strong possibility. Would love to see the next Coach Kingston show up.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

I was giving some credit for moving in a positive direction, but I agree, some troubling stuff. They're not that far away.

Losses to IWU, EIU (16-26), SIU-E (13-29), you get those three and the record is 17-21, closer to .500. They've lost 5 one-run games. You get a couple of those, you're at .500.

But you'd like to see "more progress faster".

Wouldn’t most teams have a lot better record if you take out their three most embarrassing losses and then on top of that a few close ones? Our MBB team would have surely been an NCAA or NIT team if we were 5 games better.

It was a successful team before he took over the helm. Unfortunately that success, while limited compared to our program history, did not continued. I would contend we are worse off than when he started.

First paragraph - sure, that's my point, lots of times you're not quite as good or bad as your record. If things had gone a little different, a play here or there, the record's a little better. Stuff happens, a few bad breaks, you lose some you shouldn't. Totally agree about MBB - they lost a couple games that came back to bite them. If baseball had been blown out in every game, you couldn't make the argument that a run here or there might make a difference.

Second paragraph - I'm not defending Durkac really, I was ready to pull the plug last year. Was just brainstorming as to how you could make a case that things are improving. It's hard to make that case w/o making the "leap" in the first paragraph. We're still losing, and 30+ losses again a strong possibility. Would love to see the next Coach Kingston show up.

Unfortunately it seems the only way we will avoid 30 losses is to have many games rained out. We are 4-8 in conference with 3 games against 8-4 Bradley, 3 against 5-7 Valpo, and 3 against 1-11 UE. My hope is we can go 5-4 or better in those last 9 games. That would still only get us to 9-15 and still under .400 in conference. Lose the series to Valpo and UE and we're either finishing 7th or 8th in an 8-team conference.

I agree, we need to find another coach like Kingston, who many only be here 3-5 years but can work to get local talent and other recruits and get back to competing.

 

[Birdswin]

I can easily say there needs to be a change made. The pitching decisions have been terrible. You have Senior who pitched the championship game last year in a 1-0 lost - voted at the Pitchers Captain by his teammates - only to told by Bo - he will not pitch his Senior year. Just a travesty. Recruiting decisions regarding pitchers have not worked out - the results speak for themselves.

There are several former Redbirds and other coaches out there who would jump at this opportunity - and take advantage of the recruiting advice of former players

Ever wonder why Brownlee and Dukac turned away recruiting leads from former players and alums who are HS baseball coaches - while Kingston embraced it. Who had success??????

 

[Reggie Redbird]

1-2 on the weekend vs Bradley. It puts us at 18-26 and 5-10 in the MVC. If we were to sweep Valpo and Evansville, we would head into the MVC tournament with a record above .500. Anything less than that and we have a losing conference record. Barring sweeps and a good run in the tourney, we will be under .500 for our overall record.

 

[MadBird]

1-2 on the weekend vs Bradley. It puts us at 18-26 and 5-10 in the MVC. If we were to sweep Valpo and Evansville, we would head into the MVC tournament with a record above .500. Anything less than that and we have a losing conference record. Barring sweeps and a good run in the tourney, we will be under .500 for our overall record.

Yeah, was looking at the schedule last week, and we have a chance, both Valpo and EU have worse records than us, under .500. Spose this is one of those things where you almost want them to skid, if that helps get a change made, but that's not being a good fan, and no guarantee a change would be made anyway. Would love to see it turn around, whoever the coach is. There's some good history in ISU baseball.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

1-2 on the weekend vs Bradley. It puts us at 18-26 and 5-10 in the MVC. If we were to sweep Valpo and Evansville, we would head into the MVC tournament with a record above .500. Anything less than that and we have a losing conference record. Barring sweeps and a good run in the tourney, we will be under .500 for our overall record.

Yeah, was looking at the schedule last week, and we have a chance, both Valpo and EU have worse records than us, under .500. Spose this is one of those things where you almost want them to skid, if that helps get a change made, but that's not being a good fan, and no guarantee a change would be made anyway. Would love to see it turn around, whoever the coach is. There's some good history in ISU baseball.

I think it all depends on the contract. After giving DM a huge raise after the regular season co-championship and paying BS off $250k at the absolute worst time to pull that trigger (really happy with Gillespie though; was just hoping they would have finished year 4 with an interim), I’m going to guess the appetite isn’t there to pay the buyout of our baseball coach. If it is a 4-year deal, this offseason would be it. I would guess it was five years though.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Dropped game 1 vs Valpo, 2-1. This was a home series we need to help rebound a very poor season as much as we can.

We are .400 overall (including games against D-3/NAIA teams) and .312 in conference (5-11). If we somehow win out, we can get to just under .500 in conference. These are the two teams in conference we would have the best shot of doing it against.

27-27, 9-12
17-37, 7-13
16-40, 2-18
Currently: 18-27, 5-11

Even if we win out in the regular season, I can't see avoiding a change. Anyone disagree?

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Won the last two vs Valpo to move to 7-11. Even a sweep of the hapless Aces would keep us under .500. I’m hoping for at least a 2-1 series win.

I still think a change is needed but it would be nice to get close to .500 in conference.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

I will give credit to a series win last week. That gave the team a chance to get back near .500 before the tourney. However, we dropped the first game to Evansville 9-2. Evansville is now 12-35 (3-16), and we fall to 20-28 (7-12).

 

[Birdswin]

Agree completely with a change - as soon are the season is over. The Redbird baseball program is in a pathetic state of affairs.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Baseball came back against UE, down 4-0 and 10-7 to win 14-11. We then won game 2, 11-7. Not a good day for the pitching ERA, but it was a necessity to win these games. Lose the series to UE, and we might as well have made a change right then and there and had an interim for the tourney.

We finished 22-28 (9-12), so it will be interesting to see how we do in the tourney and if a change is made quickly if we don’t win it. Last year we had a horrible year and somehow made the tourney finals. I don’t forecast the same thing happening this year, but I guess you can never say never if we can get our offense going on all cylinders.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Unfortunately, we suffered an embarrassing 14-2 loss to Bradley to open the MVC tournament. With Valpo up 11-6 on #2 seed DBU right now, the Bo Durkac experiment may end in a game against the Patriots tomorrow.

Another big-loss campaign with very poor conference results for the 3rd year in a row should show a change is necessary. With a loss, we would be 52 games under .500 overall and 25 games under .500 in conference in 4 years of the Durkac era.

I believe a change must happen to get this program back on track.

 

[Redbirdwarrior]

I agree that a change is in order. This is getting kinda close to that Barb Smith level of sadness where not only are we not good, we aren't even competitive. Being in the Midwest, you have access to some of the better HS baseball talent in the country. I'd hope that the recruiting picks up quick.

 

[Adunk33]

Lost to DBU and ends the season 22- 30.

I think there is some talent on the team but something has to give. Rave and Miller were outstanding this year. Both will be in the MLB soon. But the team can't continue to be the laughing stock of the league. See if Kingston wants to come back!

 

[Birdswin]

55-107 over the last three seasons - any questions on what needs to be done???? There may even be an alumnus who may be interested...……..