I wouldn't say I was shocked by Cosby's beating James River. I would have said JR was the favorite, even playing at Cosby, but no one who knows Cosby would ever be shocked by their beating anyone. The other half of that is that in their past few games, JR had been playing rather lackluster. They beat L.C. Bird largely on drawing walks, didn't hit well at all. They trailed against a Monacan team that has really struggled, then flipped the switch late to run away with it in just the last 2 innings. You just cannot do that when you play a high caliber opponent like Cosby. I said before hand that JR really needed to get that game in against Monacan to get the rust scraped off before they had to face Cosby. It just wasn't enough. They actually played a tight game pitching and defense wise, but the offense continued to be only so-so. Credit Cosby's pitching, esp. Birnbaum's tough start and also the smart strategy of using the lefty at the right time -- plus having faith in a freshman in a crunch situation.
My hope for JR would be that this would wake them up a bit and lead to them doing well down in SC this coming week.
In the end, I cannot recall anyone going undefeated around here, at least not for a very long time, so this year will be no different. The closest anyone came was when JR started 19-0 in 2007, then lost twice in 3 games before righting their ship just in time to go all the way. Sometimes a loss like this is just what the doctor ordered.
I went to the end of the Cosby-Midlo game yesterday. Cosby clearly was still on a high from the JR game and they just flat out rolled over Midlo. For Cosby to be "on" was of course no surprise, but based on their performance to date I was hoping we'd see a stiffer game from Midlothian. Instead this is one they need to just flush from memory and get back to business for the rest of the spring. They play JR the week after break, so this would be no time to go in the tank all of a sudden.