all week is how good Jackie Traina is (from a couple pitchers). Hopefully the bats can come alive, because not unlike football, Alabama has a damn good defense.
Ala bama's offense is really good; defense not so much. They have two hitters with almost 20 HRs and 2 hitters with around 40 stolen bases.
Traina is good but she's hittable. UM actually has more trouble with "pitchers" - those that have lots of changes of speed, good location, drop balls, etc. One of their losses this year was to the University of South Florida. Everyone says WTF but USF is in the sweet 16 as an unranked team vs Hofstra, another unranked team with a great pitcher (Galati).
UM needs some offense; great defense (go KP); and good pitching.
I meant pitching (as I was reaching for a comparison to football). No disagreement on the stolen bases and whatnot, that was MGB's first comment about a M/Alabama matchup, the disparity between stolen bases.
to be patient and force Trainer to throw strikes instead of swinging at bad pitches. I will take 2 walks in the first inning to get inside her head.
If Bama scores 3 or less runs, we win. We cannot beat them in a slugfest.
Come on ladies, lets do this. Go Blue
Baseball Update:
Purdue offense teeing off on Ohio right now on BTN.
Earlier, MSU sparty noed as their bullpen gave up a two run lead and Indiana came back for a 6-4 win.
Jessica Mendoza's smile is... disturbing....
about letting Haylie bat in this situation. The heat is a M-F'er.
Any live stream?
has the stream.
early trying to get us to go after it. Be patient Blue.
Every pitch this inning has been outside except for the change to Bree. We need to be patient and hopefully the umpire has a small strike zone.
Well, scratch that last part. I guess the strike zone goes from here to the dugout tonight.
I miss the blob behind home plate. Maybe he was a good luck charm
Michigan is
- 69-33 vs the SEC
- 17-4 against alabama
- 5-4 in NCAA Tournament road games
BOOST THOSE WINS LADIES!
GO BLUE!!
SEC is our bitch in many sports, including......football
Yeah, suck it Ohio.
I like how espn advertised this match-up of these 2 schools, I guess it's a precursur for 9/1/12.
Go Blue all the way around.......damn, that was a homer she caught, good hit though
What a generic looking stadium.
Thank the lord for the Wilpons, making the Baseball & Softball complex elite facilities.
currently on the field. That is hot as hades.
The scope shows some isolated thunderheads popping up due to all that energy. May get some rain there during the game.
way to get that 1st out, let's do this
I'm trying to load that ESPN3.com website to watch the game but my AOL is very slow and is rarely capable of downloading videos. Is there anywhere else I can watch the game? I have 500 some channels on the television, but I can never find anything I want to see. I have the channel numbers for ESPN, ESPN 2, and the major networks written down on a pad, but I would appreciate an exact channel number. Can anyone help?
-Herm
No, I pay for my internet, unlike the people who download it for free and cost the rest of us! And AOL is fine for me, I don't need all the fancy additions they charge a premium for over on Comcast, bunch of customer-hating scoundrels over there. And I prefer to buy American.
-Herm
Is that you in the picture?
Yes. Did a drunk chimpanzee with no arms draw that picture of you?
-Herm
No, that's an actual photograph of me.
I'm a very interesting looking man.
this * 1000. a tip of the cap.
bad-ass
It's on ESPN2
This girl is hitting 69-71 on the gun. She's throwing fire.
that was way outside
Why can't hutch DH for Wagner or are there no DHs in softball?
called the "Flex" because she can sub for any position. For example, you could have a pitcher that hits and a SS that doesn't.
Edit: It's the Flex that doesn't hit. The DP is just called the DP. This is why the girl next to me should be writing these comments, not me.
They have a DH (which they call the Designated Player--DP--for no logical reason), and unlike baseball you can DP for anybody on the field. They choose to have pitcher Haylie Wagner bat and the DP instead hits for the catcher, Lauren Sweet.
That was a strike?
Well, if the plate stretches clear to the other batter's box tonight, we're not gonna get a hit for a month. Good grief.
Okay, that pitch was closer to the strike zone than what their pitcher was getting. It looks like they imported the crew that worked the Tigers-Indians series.
That's what she said.....
This is something I've wondered for a while. If a school has an iconic helmet (that can easily be identified with "the brand") why the hell do they not use it in softball? Shouldn't M have winged batting helmets and Alabama have crimson helmets with the A on the side along with numbers and ND have gold helmets? I do not like it one bit that no schools seem to realize this (M, Alabama, Texas, ND especially).
/rant
The catchers have winged helmets. The wings wouldn't look right on a batting helmet because of the brim on it.
And I know that the hockey goalies almost always modify their helmets to some extent, but couldn't the brim be all blue and have the top of the helmet have wings? And for ND, Alabama and Texas it would be even easier.
The blue hat/helmet with the block M on it has been a Michigan Baseball tradition (now softball too with helmets).
I do like what wisconsin does with their softball batting helmets. Brilliant.