Yes, the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint.
For the UL baseball team, though, those opportunities to take advantage of the message behind the old cliché are shrinking rapidly.
Coming off two more ugly midweek performances with a combined 14 walks and six hit batsmen in losing to Texas-Rio Grande Valley 9-7 and Louisiana Tech 10-7, it’s critical the Ragin’ Cajuns rebound in style at ULM this weekend.
The series starts at 6 p.m. Friday in Monroe and continues at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
UL’s record may be 16-20 overall, but still just one game back in the loss column in the Sun Belt race at 7-5.
There’s currently a four-way for first place at 8-4 between Coastal Carolina, Troy, Southern Miss and Georgia State.
For the record, UL doesn’t play Coastal this season and still have road series with Georgia State and Southern Miss.
In other words, the chances to improve its lot remain, if the execution improves.
Getting an at-large berth this season don’t seem to be in the cards with UL currently sitting at a No. 106 RPI.
But winning the Sun Belt could carry some weight and naturally winning the tournament is automatic.
The first part won’t seem possible without a big weekend in Monroe.
The Cajuns are expecting to start Chase Morgan (2-1, 2.52 ERA) Friday, Andrew Herrmann (2-2, 5.29) Saturday and JR Tollett (3-2, 3.31) Sunday.
The Warhawks (16-18, 3-9) counter with right-handers Joey Cirelli (1-6, 5.80) Friday and Daniel Gonzalez (3-1, 5.25) Saturday and the infamous TBD in the finale.
UL coach Matt Deggs has been juggling lineups during the midweek games. Freshman Kasen Bellard came off the bench to go 2-for-5 with two RBIs in a 12-hit team game in Wednesday’s road loss to Louisiana Tech.
After experimenting with Casey Artigues in the DH spot last weekend, he found he prefers him as a pinch-hitter when needed.
“I would have rather been pinch-hitting Casey in that crazy inning than have had him in the game,” Deggs said. “He’s really good at that role. I like to be able to insert him when I need it.
“Few very guys are suited to that role. It’s a tough role he’s got and he plays it pretty good.”
While the hitting actually improved in the midweek losses, it was the problem in last weekend’s series loss to Texas State.
“Probably the most disappointing thing was the early weak outs – the rollovers,” Deggs said. “For our ball club to go, we’ve got to be functioning at a high level in clutch situations. It just didn’t feel like we could get that one big hit.”
For the record, many of UL’s losses are better losses than some think, but the chances of surviving any more Sun Belt series losses are pretty much gone.
For instance, Texas-Rio Grande Valley has an RPI of 30. Others are McNeese (34), Troy (26), UC Irvine (22) and Southeastern (61).
“We just have to have some guys clutch up and come through,” Deggs said.
