Rice is good; that's why they're ranked. Ironically, they seem a little insecure about playing us, as they've got a couple of mouthy types...particularly their catcher. But, we lost the opener to their pitching ace by three: 8-5.
Schnabel had a rough outing. A couple of seeing-eye liners past third, and also Ryan Aguilar charging in on a fly ball, then turning around while it went over his head (no charged error), didn't help. He also made some pitching mistakes he was able to get away with against the likes of an Eastern Michigan, but not against a Rice.
I realize Lopez likes to trot out new pitchers at the start of a new inning, with the bases clear. But, to me, Schnabel should have been pulled in the sixth when he was struggling, but the Cats were only down two runs. Instead, he was left in until the eighth, when we were down 8-4. You have to wonder a little why a pitcher is even allowed to accumulate stats like 13 hits and 8 earned runs over 7.2 innings. In the post-game interview, Andy wondered if Schnabel is a Friday starter. Well, from an ideal standpoint, he's not Kurt Heyer or Preston Guilmet. And neither is Robby Medel. So, in my opinion, we're going to have to do it by committee this year and use some of the middle inning relief depth. We seem to have a lot of Tuesday/Wednesday type guys.
Today will be interesting. Medel is pretty slight, and I would expect him to run out of gas sometime after 5 IP. If he's kept out there until the flood gates open in the quest to find an 8-inning Friday/Saturday kind of guy who may not exist, it may signal an unfortunate trend.
