The expectations surrounding this team heading into year two of the Schlossnagle era (a bit of an underrated era amongst Swifties, I’m told) were extremely high basically anywhere you looked (including from yours truly! what a dummy I am). Suffice it to say, the sky has definitely felt like it was falling pretty quickly for almost two months now. Inconsistent starting pitching, which is putting it very nicely, an overtaxed and inconsistent bullpen (there’s that word again), and an extremely slow-start for the offense pretty much halted any hope for a repeat of 2022’s resounding success. Couple all that with how the 2023 conference schedule laid out, and more often than not, just about anyone would find themselves in a deep hole.