Texas Loses Opener; Kirk Bohls Should Be Ashamed

by Peter Bean on May 31, 2008 12:06 AM CDT in Baseball Comment 8 comments

Despite not getting to see a single pitch of Texas' game today, a disappointing 2-1 loss to St. John's in Houston, I do have some analysis to offer:

This Kirk Bohls commentary on the game is the worst column I've read in a long time.

While Kyle Russell notes that he's focused and steady after the loss, and Augie Garrido says that the teams played pretty evenly but it didn't go our way today, Kirk Bohls - who has been writing about sports for thirty years - pens a column making sweeping conclusions based on one baseball game. Starting with the headline: "Texas' talk didn't help against better team"

Really? St. John's is "better" because they won one game? Bullsh--. If St. John's is a better team than Texas, it can't be because of one game. Not in freaking baseball, where the world champion Boston Red Sox lost 66 games last season. And where NCAA champion Oregon State dropped a 13-7 game to Virginia during last season's championship NCAA tourney run. Does that make the Cavaliers the "better" team, Kirk?

Equally maddening was Bohls' retreat to the fluff of columnist blather to make his point:

Of course, Texas can win if it begins playing more relaxedly and trusting its abilities and does the little things that win games.

If you just threw up, you're not alone.

Bohls would have been fine if he'd tried to talk about Texas' problems on a macro scale, without making so much of the particulars of this one game. As is, he's perpetuating the lazy (and boring) practice of glorifying storytelling over actual analysis. His mistake is thinking the cute theme writing makes it a good column. It's precisely what makes it so worthless.

Texas is in a terrible position now, but that's baseball. Good teams lose all the time. For that matter, so do relaxed teams. And teams which trust their abilities. And all that meaningless crap. Had Texas managed a 2-1 win over the Johnnies today, it wouldn't have made the Longhorns the "better" team either. Just the team that won today. No doubt some columnist in New York would be writing about how "St. Johns just didn't play with enough fire and urgency, depending far too much on hope that the little things would somehow add up to a win."

Personally, I'm rather glad I missed watching Texas drop this game today, frustrating as it appears to have been. But I am glad to see the post-game reaction from Kyle Russell which Kirk Bohls so flippantly dismissed:

"It's not the end of the world," Russell said. "It's over with. We lost one game. Big whoop. I think we're in good position. I'm fine."

Wait... That doesn't sound so good. Maybe Bohls has a point.

Or, maybe he butchered the quote to serve his point. Here's what Russell actually said:

It’s not the end of the world. It’s not over with. If you think about it we’re in the regional. You have to lose two games to get out of here. I think we’re in a good position because our backs are against the wall, what are we going to do about it? It’s do-or-die now, and I’m fine. I think with the team that we have and the talent we have and knowing how we can play baseball we’re going to do alright. We’re going to fight as much as we possibly can. We fought hard today, you have to tip your hat to their pitcher because he was a darn good pitcher. Tomorrow is a brand new day and that’s the great thing about baseball you can start fresh, you can start new and hopefully get a win tomorrow.

Damn straight, son. Especially in baseball, you better have a short memory.

Here's to hoping I can forget to read Bohls' next column on baseball... This one disgusts me to no end.

Now let's go win tomorrow. We need four in a row. One at a time.

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Horrible loss

But those happen. Just like the Missouri game in the XII tournament, wasted great pitching with blown opportunities. We sure don’t help ourselves by not bunting worth a damn. I swear. This team bunts like the basketball team shoots free throws. Just maddening.

--Horn Brain--

by Horn Brain on May 31, 2008 1:42 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Unfortunate, but what can you do?

I’m sorry, but I think you’re full of shit -Bissinger

Of course a team that scores a run in the 9th to win 2-1 is better. It’s not as if in baseball – a game of averages far less than chance – sometimes the better team loses.

Enough sarcasm already. Those interested enough to follow college baseball are smart enough to look at the scoreboard alone and determine this was a game that could have gone either way. A closer look at the play by play; What if Torres hadn’t made the final out on that bad CS at 3rd? What if Hernandez had managed to slide a grounder through when two runners were ISP instead of K’ing? What if that bang-bang DP in top 9 had been successful? What if the fucking wind had been blowing out instead of in? and anyone who knows the slightest bit about baseball can tell that this was one of those crapshoots. They say a game of inches for a reason.

And this one

Three Texas batters failed to put down a sacrifice bunt on all three occasions that demanded one. St. John’s had two successful tries.

I seem to remember Torres sac bunting (Horn Brains comment at 2:17 and my follow ups), and I think anyone watching/lurking in the open thread will back me up, so that is factual cherry-picking.

Here’s my favorite:

But the Longhorns (37-21) continued a perplexing pattern in these postseason tournaments, one that has seen them fail to advance to a super regional since winning the College World Series in 2005.

Yes, this is Texas baseball, expectations are high; however the empirical odds of advancing beyond the first round are 1/4, so let’s back off and look at this in a reasonable fashion. This was a coin-flip type game. Besides, how many of our starters have contributed in ‘06, ‘07, and ‘08? This is a collegiate sport with a very high turnover.

The 1998 NY Yankees opened the season with 2 losses against the Anaheim Angels. No one will say Anaheim was a better team. This is analogous to what happened today.

Peter: This is just typical, reactionary Dead Tree Press reporting. Natch, you as a blogger have a more level headed opinion.
/dripping with non-sarcastic sarcasm; head explodes

Is the season over? No, says the fat lady. Is it in limbo? Yes. Did the better team win? Who knows? St. John’s was considered as a regional host just a couple of weeks ago. Let’s let it play out first.

Why does everyone want to be the first to deliver the eulogy? Kirk Bohls needs to recite this mantra:
Baseball is the ultimate non-reactionary sport.

by amorphous on May 31, 2008 1:51 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

We did fuck up a couple of bunts

But there are about 10,000 plays (approximate) in a baseball game. This isn’t why we lost.

by amorphous on May 31, 2008 1:57 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I said it earlier on the open thread

but Torres’ screwup tryin’ to steal third with two outs and what would’ve been a full count on Russell really hurt us…..however, Bohls sounds like this douchebag that was standing behind me at the game that wouldn’t shutup. After they hit a foul ball down the left field line about 230 ft, he said, “Man, these guys can really hit.” His conclusion that they could hit b/c of a 230 ft foul ball makes as much sense as Bohl’s conclusion that St. John’s is the better team…

by SneezyBeltran on May 31, 2008 6:42 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

and yet

some of you ridiculed St John’s – (“they have a baseball team?” and something about Texas could just as well play a high school team).

Remember, on any given day…...

Did I think we would lose? Hell no, but you just can’t overlook any team. They were invited for a reason.

Let’s just hope they correct the ship and win the rest. It doesn’t help that the other Big 12 teams won – I could care less about rooting for the conference.

by UTHorns on May 31, 2008 10:16 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Not that far off

Even though baseball is, as amorphous says, a game of averages, a regional qualifying tournament is about the ability to win when it counts. Yesterday, Texas got good pitching and so did St. Johns. The difference was on offense, and simply stated, Texas did not execute. Now some people might look at averages and think of an inning as a series of dice rolls where you score if you hit your number enough times before you crap out. But there is far more to it than that—working the count to get your pitch, getting a walk, moving the runner up, laying down the sacrifice bunt, hitting to the opposite field, which are more about being able to execute on the basics. And that is where we got beat.

So the cause is not lost, though it is a sight more difficult. We can’t afford another lapse,
But tell the guys not to worry about the bunting. They can’t bunt in the big leagues either.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you're a mile away AND you have their shoes.

by Caradoc on May 31, 2008 10:37 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs