It's a wonderful game that is built around failure.  It's not totally avoiding failure that matters, it's managing failure better than the others.  That's why people who don't follow baseball get so upset and don't especially enjoy a game.  If you can figure out that a series of failures doesn't necessarily mean the game is going badly, then you might develop an appreciation for this crazy game.

In football, it's worrisome if a team has converted on third down only twice in ten tries.  Knowing that Tucker is 0 for 3 when he bats in a late inning never bothers me, I know that he manages failure very well and there's a good chance he'll get an important hit.  That's why a sacrifice fly is valued so highly.  It's a failure!  The batter made an out!  But the value comes from the run that scores.  That's managing failure that results in a win.

SC managed failure a little better than the Gators last night and won the game.  They failed miserably against Randall, but were able to weasel out a couple of runs in the end.  The Gators didn't magage failure well enough in the 10th.  Zunino's hit to left wasn't the right ball to get Dent in.  Had it been deeper or- better, yet- to the side of the fielder, Dent would have scored.  Had they managed that failure better, the runner would have stopped at third with another chance to be driven in by Johnson.  Of course, some TV watchers would have screamed that the runner should have been sent home, especially if the next batter made out. 

The situation we have now is that we didn't manage failure well enough last night, but can we manage THAT failure?  Part of my original point is that Sully's strength as a coach has been managing failure.  The Gators have 18 losses, but only two times did a loss follow a loss and only one time did they lose consecutive times to one team.  That's a strong record of winning, but few opponents have been as strong as SC.

Part of being a Gator is living with loses, but my overriding philosophy of being a Gator is that I NEVER feel bad about a loss before it happens.