Halfway through the season the Cougar Baseball Team has had their ups, but they’ve also had their downs. This is generally the way the Coug’s are on the diamond, but only 1 year removed from a 37 win effort with a loss in the Regionals and a 32 win Div I Championship Round appearance the year before, the Cougs are looking to get back to competing in the Pac-12 and ultimately, nationally.
Head Coach Donnie Marbut is not thrilled with where his team is right now, and the second half will have to yield more in the way of consistency if the Cougs plan to challenge for post season play. “I’m not sure which team is going to show up. I am not sure if that is our youth or our coaching, but we need to figure it out soon” Marbut said Tuesday, after his team started hot with a 3-0 lead after their first at bat but ended up losing 9-3 against Gonzaga.
Against teams in the top 35, the Cougars are 4-6, which is not terrible and means that they are competing well. Also they are 7-2 at Bailey Brayton and with a decidedly home schedule for the second half of the season, including 6 of their next 7, all signs point to the Cougs making a solid run. But it’s gonna come down to consistency, especially in the pitching game. As with most teams, when the Cougars give up 5 or less runs they are very good, sitting at 8-3. But give up 6 or more runs and they’re only 4-8 which is consistent with baseball 101. This only means that the offense cannot be counted on to win any given slugfest, though they do produce a fair amount of runs. Again the home field advantage should help during the second half because the Cougs have scored less than 5 runs only twice in 9 tries.
So WSU begins a three game series tomorrow that could start a late season rally, but one has to think that over the next seven games, 5 of them need to be won if the Cougs want to seriously challenge for a post season spot. Hopefully baseball fans in Pullman get out to support Marbut, team leader Derek Jones and the Cougs over the next week and a half to help this become a reality. We need to get back to winning, consistently!
Go Cougs!