Can we have a talk about Mark Kingston?

You do understand that we are using situational pitchers as weekend starters? It seems like everyone is blind to that fact.

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You do understand that we are using situational pitchers as weekend starters? It seems like everyone is blind to that fact.

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This is true, to a degree: one thing to always understand is that in college baseball, no pitchers are situational pitchers, to start with. No college program goes out and recruits high school situational pitchers.

Every single pitcher our program has ever brought in, were starting pitchers - and usually the better starting pitchers - for their high schools. So that means, every single pitcher our program brings in, are guys that expect to be starting pitchers in college one day, perhaps the first day. Guys that start games, and pitch for many innings, throwing many pitches.

Now, once they GET to college, they may be placed into situational roles until they can prove that they have the strength, stamina, and poise to pitch in major starting roles for the duration of seasons. If they do not develop effective pitches, or do not have the stamina to throw 70+ pitches effectively, then they are placed into relief roles that allow what they DO bring to the table, to be effective for them and the team. A medium option would be to have them pitch the less-important mid-week games as starters.

If the weekend starters falter, the mid-week starters can and often do step up and replace them. If the mid-week starters falter, then guys out of the bullpen often do step up and replace them.

If it was a case where we had a weekend starting lineup all established, and somehow someway all 3 of those guys are lost during the season, and we have to rely on guys that were preparing to be bullpen guys, then you may have a point. But in college, even bullpen guys are constantly auditioning for the chance to be starters and have bigger roles, because that's what they are used to from high school.

In our case, we were coming into the season with the understanding that we would have to rely on new guys to be starters for us. Logan Chapman had the most starters' experience with 14 of his 16 appearances last season being starts. He definitely would've been a front-runner to be a weekend starter, even the Friday Ace. But he was lost to Tommy John in September, so the team had ample time to prepare for the season without him as an option.

We lost Ridge Chapman to a forearm strain, but he was already slated to be the top option as our closer, not a starter. And then we lost Carmen Mlodzinski to a broken bone in his foot after the season began. The Mlodzinski loss was IMO the biggest hit to the starting rotation, because it wasn't prepared for.

Now, as the season is pretty much lost, we're around the time frame where Coach Kingston said back in mid-March that both Mlodzinski and R. Chapman would be expected to be returning to the team. I haven't heard anything new about those guys. We've just lost Logan obviously, but he wasn't going to help us this season anyway.

IMO, we've been bit hard by having to depend on young guys on the mound who do not have the ability to sustain themselves past 4-5 innings. Perhaps they aren't physically developed, perhaps they do not do well at pacing themselves in early innings, and try too hard for the strikeouts instead of inducing groundouts for their defense behind them to field, and they are on fumes by the 4th-5th innings.

I haven't seen the development throughout the season that I was hoping for. A young guy pitching all season long can develop that stamina on his own, if he's put into positions that require him to. If anything, it has looked like our team has been digressing, and that can make sense, as I'm sure as the season progresses, the confidence the team has in having something meaningful to play for has diminished, and their desire levels to give maximum effort are dropping.

This IMO is where the staff needs to step in, and use the rest of the season as extra scrimmaging, to coach fundamentals and get the players working on improving their techniques and skills, regardless of the outcomes. If they did this, we could see really ugly results in the final games, but it could have the team better prepared for a more successful season next season. If Kingston and his staff wants to keep their jobs, they better do something soon....

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and try too hard for the strikeouts instead of inducing groundouts for their defense behind them to field

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Can't blame them, our defense has been terrible; IMO that's a major reason why we suck so bad this year.