Let's not kid ourselves. The pitching we faced today was a walk in the park compared to Skenes and others that we may face tomorrow. A premature declaration of victory, overestimating our ability and underestimating an opponent is a fool's errand, particularly after our disastrous performance in the first game.
You make it sound like we lost 25-3 or something instead of it being a game where yes, our pitching was bad, yes we had a couple of botches fielding balls, and most definitely yes, we swung at a TON of stupid pitches... but still managed to almost have a walk off in the 9th, 2 men on with 1 out in the 10th, only lose 4-3 in 11 innings.
Then, we come back next day, and again with pretty terrible starting pitching, we improved in every other aspect of the game while simultaneously doing two other very important things: 1) our top dead bats came alive (and not with lucky, crap hits), 2) their bats died after the 3rd inning (and their top bats did whiffed).
Now, to a simple unfrozen caveman baseball fan like me, what does that mean (again, in a sport that is defined by averages over a long season)? I like where we are sitting: in a winner take all final game... one that even 24 hours ago half the people here thought wouldn't happen (and definitely did not think would happen when they tuned out after the 2nd inning of a 9 inning game that was going much the same way as the game before which wound up being a one run game in 11 innings).
Here's more worthless opinion... which of these two teams would I feel more confident about going into todays game especially using the science of statistics as applied to championship baseball (sorry, had to say it!
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- The one that I think they said last night on SECN had won 11 x 3 game series this year when losing the first game, all their elimination games, has the statistical history of teams losing Game 1 of the final heavily on their side (7 of 10, last 5 in a row), and who's bats finally just came alive probably at exactly the right moment? or...
- A team that was flying high into the 3rd inning yesterday, was getting all the clutch hits when needed, but then our bats came alive, theirs died, and they committed SIX errors (tell me that's not in someone's head coming into today).
I don't know how many innings Skenes will or won't pitch today, I don't care. People have made fun (rightly in my opinion) of a QB prospect's dad saying his son was afraid to compete/of the schedule, and yet here many are doing the same. Wanna be the best? Beat the best. I'd hate to lose either way, but if we win tonight, I'd rather Skenes be on the mound for even just one pitch so that we don't hear fukkin LSU fans bitching forever about "if we woulda had Skenes on the mound, we woulda won!" Well, you didn't, because you LOST and it f'd up your rotation and we didn't.
I'm neither declaring victory prematurely nor underestimating our opponent... that IS a fool's errand... but which team do I think will be looser/more relaxed/feeling more confident about themselves today? Gators. What does that mean going into the opening pitch today? Not a damn thing... all I know is that the Gators have taken this season to a deciding Game 3, that's all I care about... now they'll play the game and we'll see what happens.
Let's go win ANOTHER championship tonight!
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