After the UTSA game Mont's average was .389. It is undeniable that this last month has been bad for him, as he has gone .228 total and .250 in SEC play. (All stats are preRice) You can say its a small sample size, but I dont think 15 games is a small sample. Something is up and its statistically significant. You dont lose 150 points from your average if everything is alright.

Vandy
2-4
0-4
1-3

Air Force
1-3

Bama
1-1
2-5
0-3

UofH
1-5

Georgia
0-3
3-3
2-5

Tarleton
0-5

LSU
0-5
0-3
0-5

Total
57-13 or .228

SEC
11-44 or .250

OOC
2-13 or .154

Something is up. Whether its mental or he just isnt seeing the ball. Spare me the "average go down when you start getting into conference play and see more elite arms". He is doing worse with OOC pitchers than "elite SEC" pitchers.

Interestingly on those 13 hits, 6 of them are HRs. But also in that span of 13 hits, he has 22Ks. Is it normal to have 2x the Ks to hits? Lets look at the top of our order (strikeout-to-hit ratio in parenthesis)

GG - 69 hits & 64 Ks (.93)
Jace - 62 hits & 58 Ks (.94)

Pretty balanced. You want to be under 1.00. So when a player has nearly 2x'd K's to hits, something isnt quite right.

To be fair to Braden, his season totals are still pretty amazing
Total - 62 hits & 46 Ks (.74) (thats real good)
Slump - 13 hits & 22 Ks (1.69) (thats real bad)
PreSlump - 49 hits & 26 Ks (.45) (insanely great)


If he continues to bat at .250, how long do you keep him in the 3 spot? He went 0fer the series in Baton Rouge. 0-13. If you add the Tuesday game before he went 0-18 that entire week!

Im hoping the HR and Double vs Rice is him coming out of it. I truly am.




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PS. Looked at the team stats and got curious so I ran the numbers

Appel - 55 hits & 20 Ks (.36) (WTF amazing!) He has 8-9 games fewer starts than the other guys, but damn hes been productive AF. 80-85% the hits but 1/3rd the Ks of GG or Jace.

Appreciate your efforts but you keep him in the 3 hole until he's holding up the CWS trophy or we're eliminated from the tournament.

In reply to TheBonifaceOption

Quote:

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If he continues to bat at .250, how long do you keep him in the 3 spot?

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For the rest of the season.

I know Rice is not good, but he was scalding the ball last night from sitting in the stands. I hope you're right that he's getting it figured out.

It's the Ks that worried me, and primarily to me looked to be pitch selection (or recognition). A few really wild flails at breaking balls that almost hit him, and then a few high Mracna fastballs above the letters.

0-15 tells A story, but it doesn't tell the entire story. He absolutely barreled a few balls that just happened to be right at people 300 feet away. I mean, smashed on a line. That's still an 0-1 but very different than an 0-1 that was a weak roll over.

My take (knowing I only watched highlights and saw the "out" pitches) - when he had good pitch recognition he really go the barrel to the ball. That tells me his swing is fine, but something between the ears was off. If you listened to his post-game interview last night he more or less confirmed that. Watched tape, talked to the coaches and decided it was not something mechanical in the swing. It was something in the head. Noted they had pulled out a few keys for him to focus on. ...a different level of competition for sure, but I'd say the Game 1 results after those keys was pretty good overall. Guess we'll see if it carries over to the Fighting Biancos.

In reply to powerbelly

powerbelly said:

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Quote:

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If he continues to bat at .250, how long do you keep him in the 3 spot?

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For the rest of the season.

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also, this.

In reply to powerbelly

powerbelly said:

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Quote:

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If he continues to bat at .250, how long do you keep him in the 3 spot?

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For the rest of the season.

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You keep a .250 hitter batting third when you have Appel at .344 and Schott and Ali over .320?

I get that Jace usually usually runs himself in, but it wouldnt be a mistake to move Mont to 5th if he stays cold.

In reply to TheBonifaceOption

TheBonifaceOption said:

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powerbelly said:

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Quote:

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If he continues to bat at .250, how long do you keep him in the 3 spot?

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For the rest of the season.

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You keep a .250 hitter batting third when you have Appel at .344 and Schott and Ali over .320?

I get that Jace usually usually runs himself in, but it wouldnt be a mistake to move Mont to 5th if he stays cold.

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100%. Zero question.

Thank you for your well researched and thought out post OP, but no….just no.

And by the way, the batting order doesn't have to be in order of highest batting average 1-9. There are so many other factors that come into play when making a lineup and I trust Schloss and this team at 41-8 to keep mashing the ball

41-8 and someone wants to change the lineup because the 3 hole with a 1.298 OPS is in a bit of a lull?

Good lord

Vandy - 3 for 11 = .273

Bama - 3 for 9 = .333

Georgia - 5 for 11 = .455

LSU - 0 for 13 = ouch

In his last 4 SEC series he has had 1 great weekend, 1 very good weekend, 1 average weekend, and 1 disaster weekend. Not sure I would call that a slump. And yeah the K's are concerning but I'm not moving one of my most dangerous hitters over one bad weekend at this point.

Does anyone think Schloss will change the batting order?

I'm not asking if he should. Only if he would.

And even with his 0-13 LSU weekend and the K's he's still first on the team in OPS in SEC play. Moving your best hitter after one bad weekend is great way to have your team playing tighter than a frogs a**.

In reply to TheBonifaceOption

TheBonifaceOption said:

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AggieCrew44 said:

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41-8 and someone wants to change the lineup because the 3 hole with a 1.298 OPS is in a bit of a lull?

Good lord

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He went 0-18 in a week against two teams that are struggling to make the post-season. Its not like he was facing Arkansas' pitchers.

Most of the relievers we saw at LSU had 8-12 range ERAs, and BMont couldnt get one hit.

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That is a crazy short sample size for baseball.

He's batting .333 if you take out last week so it's not like he's been hitting sub .250 for the entirety of last month like your post indicates. The 4 game 0-fer stretch really skews it.

It's more like he was scorching hot for a long stretch, came down a little (to .333) and then hit a bad slump during last week's 4 game stretch. If he gets back up in the .330 range he's more than fine.

Major league guys go through slumps too. I think it is a good thing, we are in great shape for a national seed in spite of our best player struggling at the plate. He will break out of it and hopefully has a great postseason.

In reply to TheBonifaceOption

TheBonifaceOption said:

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AggieCrew44 said:

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41-8 and someone wants to change the lineup because the 3 hole with a 1.298 OPS is in a bit of a lull?

Good lord

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He went 0-18 in a week against two teams that are struggling to make the post-season. Its not like he was facing Arkansas' pitchers.

Most of the relievers we saw at LSU had 8-12 range ERAs, and BMont couldnt get one hit.

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He's tied for 3rd in the NCAA currently with 76 RBIs. You leave the order alone at this point.

In reply to TheBonifaceOption Yes but it's already a small sample size so the hitless week skews his BA a ton. The other 3 weeks he's been fine.

In reply to Fairview20

Fairview20 said:

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He's batting .333 if you take out last week so it's not like he's been hitting sub .250 for the entirety of last month like your post indicates. The 4 game 0-fer stretch really skews it.

It's more like he was scorching hot for a long stretch, came down a little (to .333) and then hit a bad slump during last week's 4 game stretch. If he gets back up in the .330 range he's more than fine.

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Exactly it's really just one bad week, this is baseball for crying out loud. I get that we are highly ranked so a lot of non baseball fans are sniffing around here now, but it's comical this is even a serious debate

Even after a hitless week I'm pretty sure he still leads the SEC in RBIs

In reply to TheBonifaceOption

TheBonifaceOption said:

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AggieCrew44 said:

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41-8 and someone wants to change the lineup because the 3 hole with a 1.298 OPS is in a bit of a lull?

Good lord

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He went 0-18 in a week against two teams that are struggling to make the post-season. Its not like he was facing Arkansas' pitchers.

Most of the relievers we saw at LSU had 8-12 range ERAs, and BMont couldnt get one hit.

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This is not how you manage baseball

I hope this gets mentioned on the radio show so Schloss can have a good laugh

In reply to TheBonifaceOption Using the stats you brought up, he is 13-57 in the last month+. Not great. But you are acting like that .228 average is evenly dispersed over the course of the whole month. It's not. Take out his 0-18 week and he is batting 13-39 during the previous 3 weeks which is .333.

His bad week is what is skewing everything. If he had 4 straight weeks where he was going 2-10, 3-12, etc you might have a point.

He'll be fine and there's no way you move him out of the 3 hole this late in the game.

As the previous poster pointed out, your own numbers, including midweeks, shows he hit .333 Vandy through Georgia. Off his elite self certainly but still really good.

Then 0 for 18 last week against Tarleton and LSU. 4 games. Bad mini slump.

Last night, he went 2 for 4 and had a walk, a double, a homer, 3 RBI and 2 runs. And no strikeouts. Sh*tty pitching sure but so was Tarleton. We'll see this weekend but I think he will be stroking again.