It’s only Monday, and I’m not in the mood to argue all week, so we can move on to milquetoast topics and go back to burying our head’s in the sand. Mitch is not the guy. Period. Will archive the prior thread for posterity. Disappointing reactions here. I expect ABs to have higher expectations.

Moving on…Stanford is playing mediocre baseball as well, having gone 3-3 over their last 6. Should be an interesting clash of two powers playing Mike Riley style baseball. Odds are Stanford takes 2 of 3.

Those of us who were nervous about what we were seeing were told baseball would get back to dominance once Bailey was gone and we settled on a full-time manager. Then that happened, and our manager was horrible in year one. Then we were told his performance was due to the Covid shortened season. Now we have a full season in the post-Bailey, full-time manager era, and we see he’s not that good with Xs and Os; he’s not good at setting a lineup (Casey batting 5th was a red flag from game 1); and he’s not good at creating cohesion within the lineup – different lineup every game. He’s not good with pitching changes (or hiring the correct pitching coach), either.

My question is this: what exactly is he good at? Name a strength of Mitch. Just one.

Anyway, despite all this, the sentiment on Twitter seems to be: “because he is ‘one of us’ we have to give him more time.” That’s fine, but the more time you give someone who’s clearly not the right person, the more time you waste and bigger the uphill battle once you finally do cut bait. In short, Mitch can ruin the program forever just like Jimmy Anderson. I don’t know if it will be that dramatic – we might just linger in mediocrity for a while – but we definitely have a program in decline. Our recruiting even seems significantly worse, so that’s the pipeline of talent a few years from now.

The era of baseball dominance is clearly over, and people don’t want to fight for greatness. Instead they want to fight to preserve Mitch’s ego and pride and are using the “give him more time” trope to do so. This is bullish for tribalism, but it’s not what makes dominant baseball.

Tough two series to end the season. Anyone have confidence in Mitch rallying the boys? We need to at least break even vs these two top 15 programs. 4-2 would be a win. I think 2-4 is the most likely outcome.

May 21 (Fri) 6:00 PM Home Arizona Corvallis, OR

May 22 (Sat) 6:00 PM Home Arizona Corvallis, OR

May 23 (Sun) 12:00 PM Home Arizona Corvallis, OR

I’m putting this up early due to obligations later this week. Feel free to go general until the weekend.

Game times are as follows:

May 14 (Fri) 6:30 PM Away Arizona State Phoenix, AZ

May 15 (Sat) 6:30 PM Away Arizona State Phoenix, AZ

May 16 (Sun) 12:30 PM Away Arizona State Phoenix, AZ

It’s been an up and down year for Mitch, and I think poorly of him for that decision not to walk the bases loaded, but with a .667 winning percentage this year, he’s right at Casey’s career mark (though, Casey’s final teams when he left were much higher). Someone asked what OSU standards are these days. 2 out of 3, as always. Casey nailed that for decades and established it. Mitch is meeting it as of today, though he’s been more shaky than Pat.

In other news, Vidlak looked great in his early throws in the scrimmage. He looked poor later in the game. It’s hard to say why given the footage. Smooth and looked mentally ahead of where most would expect as a freshman. Anyone go to the scrimmage and have more data?

Go Beavs? A program in decline…Oregon ranked #11 and OSU now not even ranked. Need a sweep here. Minimum 2 of 3. I don’t have faith in Canham managing well enough to get that done. Hope to be wrong. To me this seems like Ralph Miller transitioning to Anderson right before our eyes.

On a side note, OSU should never hire anyone named Anderson/Andersen.

May 7 (Fri) 4:00 PM Home USC Corvallis, OR

May 8 (Sat) 6:30 PM Home USC Corvallis, OR

May 9 (Sun) 12:00 PM Home USC Corvallis, OR