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Baseball is one sport where the head coach/manager gets way too much blame when things go poorly (and too much credit when things go well). Baseball coaches are romanticized about being great tacticians or strategists. The coach can do everything “right” and it can be the “wrong” decision because of the failure of the players. It’s that way because there is so much down time during games that it gives time for every single decision to be second-guessed by the fans and media, at all levels of play. My son has been playing competitive baseball for the past 5 years. I think I have a good understanding of the game. I have been the fan/parent second guessing coach’s decisions and I have been part of the coaching staff making those decisions. Just yesterday, my son’s team was up 5-4 in a game, and we put in a pitcher who usually does a good job keeping the ball down and inducing ground balls. Yesterday, his pitches were up in the zone, he was hit hard, and before we knew it, our team was down 7-5, and we lost 8-5. Our coaching acumen had nothing to do with the win or loss of that game. It was a kid who wasn’t at the peak of his game, and other kids performed better than them. Nebraska had one pitcher who pitched the game of his life for 7+ innings, and then had one pitcher who had the worst game of his season 1 inning later. Erstad and Silva has nothing to do with the success of either player, once those pitches were being thrown and the batters were doing the hitting.

Honestly I'm not sure why everyone is so fascinated with pitching. The bats going ice cold once we got into their pen is more concerning for me. This is the type of team you have to continue putting runs on when you're up and tonight we found out why. Not really sure about the armchair quarterbacking going on. We went with our best guy against their best guy(s) and they won. Gomes is just a true freshman. Sh#t happens.

Season ended last night. Today’s results don’t surprise me at all

Overall, this is a 6 of one, half dozen of the other type deal. We don't know what would have happened in the other situations because they didn't play out. Take the starter out early and the bullpen could've imploded. Keep him in and he could have imploded. Pitch Gomes and he could've sent them down 1-2-3. Pitch Schanaman and he could have given up the 4 runs. All that is known is that Nebraska lost after being up 3 with 3 outs left. The odds of winning at that point are high and they failed. Why they failed is anyone's opinion.

More or less predictable than Nebraska baseball in the postseason?

Really nice to see the folks who haven't posted in here all season roll in to complain after some tough losses. Utterly predictable.

So if Erstad and Silva go with a different pitcher and still lose, is that dumb too? Sometimes guys get beat by players who are better.

No, but they chose to put a fastball pitcher up against the heart of one of the best power hitting lineups in the country. I don't care if Gomes is the closer, that was dumb.

Not sure if this was mentioned but Gomes is he threw 17 pitches prior to facing the best HR hitter in the Big 12... All 17 pitches were fastballs. So Boone has watch 17 pitches and seen exactly what Gomes brings to the table. He was sitting on 1st pitch fastball and was trying to crank one out. Which is exactly what happened. My issue is pitch call. I don’t care if he throws a curve or change in the dirt, you can’t let an incredible hitter see the pitch he’s sitting on right out of the gate. It was like batting practice

I'm sorry, but that's every sport.

NU was 29-0 leading after 8 innings this season. What happened tonight was an outlier against one of the best hitting teams in the country.

Had they put the team in the best position to win, no. But they didn't do that, in my opinion. That's what makes their decision making questionable. Sure, Oklahoma State is a better team than Nebraska, but for 8 and 2/3 innings, Nebraska was better, and deserved to win.

We knew OSU had those power bats and yet we still turned to a fastball-only pitcher. But that's baseball! I understand it's hard to break from roles (this is our closer he needs to close), but he was such a mismatch for them.

Yep

This. There’s no excuse for losing this game. Call it negativity if you want, I call it being a realist. I’m still going to root for the team and hope they keep doing well but this loss sucks and is mostly on the coaching staff.

Go one step back—that one run on Waldren shouldn’t have happened, but they did because Erstad mismanaged things there. That was when things went downhill. So is being an apologist for a coach that mismanaged their pitching, it appears. You can make excuses for Erstad all you want, but he ultimately mismanaged a 5-0 lead into a 6-5 loss.

And if he takes Waldren out and the reliever get shelled he gets roasted for that. And if he doesn't go to his closer and gets burned he gets roasted for that. Waldren has been our best pitcher all year. He was pitching great. He got lifted after giving up one run. Monday Morning Quarterbacking is fun.

Failing to see how going to your closer in the 9th inning is getting greedy.

we are finally respected again on the world stage

Will you please add Cal to the polls

So you don’t have to open it, it’s 2.89 is their proud accomplishment - highest semester GPA in history.

He's *only* mostly wrong. Democrats have done it in the past and there are still maps today that were gerrymandered by Democrats. But the Democrats never did anything that comes even close to comparable to what the Republicans did before the 2012 election and what they're still doing now. That was a full scale, planned assault on democracy in this country and the supreme court judges don't know enough about math or statistics to realize it wouldn't be that hard to create maps in an unbiased way, or they're so partisan they don't want to fix it.

Eh, it's baseball. Regroup, get better. Develop the talent we've got. (also, turn some of the relief guys into managers)

republicans impeached a democrat for getting a hummer....and will do everything possible to stop any investigation into a "republican" who can't function unless he is breaking the law.

Absolutely. The polar opposite of Waldron last night, who was hitting every spot perfectly until he started to fatigue in the 8th. Kid's a true freshman and he was put in an enormous pressure spot and just made one mistake (two I guess if you count the walk). Colby's still got enormous potential as a pitcher. He was hitting 96 last night. That's major league heat.

This is reasonable. Everything you said is reasonable, IMO. Somebody said Gomes missed his spot. I don't know if that's true, but that makes sense. Although he was throwing a lot of first pitch fastballs that were catching a lot of plate to get ahead in the count last night. The bolded is what we'll never know. Maybe he didn't have his curveball last night or something. I agree out of the zone or offspeed should've been the plan. But when you go out with your best relief pitcher throwing his best pitch, you've got to just tip your cap. Sh#t just didn't go our way last night. No two ways about it. Let's go score some runs today!

You’re not wrong, but especially college sports. We don’t want to blame kids, so we blame the adults (coaches).

Whats your point? Are republican prosecuters going to indict democrat presidents for purely political reasons? Thats real honorable of them.

The overriding issue here is this: Presidents who don't commit crimes wouldn't ever be indicted. If hyperpartisanship and Mitch McConnell are going to break the one mechanism that could remove a criminal president, I fail to see why adding an additional check that is less political would be a bad idea. Again, this would not affect presidents who are not criminals.

What if we made it possible for the DOJ to press charges and show the evidence to the House. Then the house will vote to proceed with impeachment (kind of like a grand jury). Then the Senate takes care of the trial? I think everyone currently is conflicted by Mueller’s lack of blatantly saying “our investigation found obstruction which is illegal.” The report obviously found obstruction, But Trump supporters are left with enough wiggle room to make a poor argument. Sadly, that’s all it takes for sides to dig in.

Bingo

That last inning best describes the Erstad Nebraska Era

What are your thoughts on walking Boone instead of pitching to him?

New day, time to do work. #GBR!

I still fail to see how giving up 4 runs by the closer (who had been very good all season) and losing on the first homer given up is the fault of the coaching staff. Are Erstad and Silva pitching in that last inning?

If I'm allowed an opinion that's not MMQBing, I'm more okay with keeping Waldren in. He was pitching well and getting out of jams when he got in them. I think they would have been better off not putting Gomes in at all. Dude can only throw a fastball and that's something I don't think you want against one of the better power hitting teams.

Also all the fake A## Husker fans coming in here calling for the team to lose tomorrow. Get that garbage out of here. It's baseball. Sometimes you lose tough games. Sometimes it breaks your heart. But my god some of you show your true colors quickly.

No. They should have won. Period. Up 5-2 with 2 outs. Losing shouldn't happen, and it takes incredible man mismanagement to happen.

Honestly, I thought about this too. But Gomes is the closer for a reason. He's got the best ERA of anyone in the bullpen. You can't fault going with him in the 9th. And it doesn't really matter if he's a fastball reliant pitcher or not. That was the first homer he's given up all year.

There's a reason this team is the 9 seed... Man all these negative comments guys. C'mon.

Sister has signed to play volleyball for the Huskers

Stayed the night with Hickman and Henrich. Hung out with them and Wan'Dale before meeting with the coaches. Says he's considering Nebraska, Notre Dame, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Iowa State. Says he doesn't have a leader. Looking for where he feels comfortable.

I eyerolled the post, but not because of the photo of the girl. What the hell does not covering the AFL have to do with liberals protesting? That said, I could be mature but I’m just gonna post my own photo instead.

He very well may go to ND but the 'CB' doesn't mean much right now. They know he isn't going to commit anywhere before his visit besides possibly ND...If he doesn't on his visit they will switch it back to Nebraska during the season.

That could make some awesome trick plays with a WR as a kicker