Speaking of baseball....

So, I haven't blogged about baseball in a very long time. Honestly, I have gotten to a point where I just don't expect much from the team as far as the post-season is concerned. Even last year, when we had the best hitting team in FSU history, I just never really believed that we'd get to Omaha,(and we didn't). So, I didn't bother blogging.

At the start of this season, my feelings hadn't changed. But, over the course of the season I am slowly starting to get optimistic. This will probably come to bite me in the ass with a giant chomp of disappointment later on, but oh well. Right now this team - while flawed, especially in fielding - seems like maybe it has the mythical 'IT factor.'

They are prone to lapses and getting themselves in a hole, but it just doesn't seem to bother them...they just keep fighting. The first I saw of this was the first game against UGa. They got way down early in the game before the game was postponed because of rain, but the next day during the continuation, they just keep fighting and fighting. They were dug too deep to pull out a win, but the fight was there. This has been a recurring theme so far, vs Wake, vs UF, vs JU.

The team is again hitting well and we may have settled into having the best pitching staff I have seen in a long time. With the condensed scheduled, all teams needed to be able to find 5 true starters, and I think we have actually done that with Fairel, Parker, Villanueva, Strauss and McGee. We still probably need to get more guys as strong relief, but I think that will get settled before the end of regular season with Gast coming off injury and other guys getting work. Buster Posey is a legitimate, albeit unconventional, closer.

The glaring weakness has been in the fielding, where we're really just not very good. This month will be a real test of fire for the team as we play arguably the best teams we have on the schedule in UVa, UNC and Miami. Making fielding errors against these teams will be costly, so the fielding is going to be under a lot of pressure. I hope they respond with as much fight as they have shown so far this year.