Been generally off the board due to overall disgust at the broad developments in college sports. The one thing that is going to get me back here is baseball - I can't help myself. Have to say given the landscape of college athletics I am rather pleased that this team is the rather old-fashioned, natural evolution of last year’s team; essentially no new transfers in or out.
Everyone is feeling good after a four game sweep. The largest caveat is the Fullerton is likely somewhere between a mediocre and bad team. However, they were a pretty poor team last year and we lost 2 of 3 to them at our place to start out the year, being outscored 10-20. This year won 4 of 4 at Fullerton, outscoring them 42-22. That seems like progress.
The good:
- Resiliency. Twice down 5 runs and won.
- 10.5 runs per game.
- Team OPS 0.952
- The frosh offensive star was not international story Sasaki (who played well) or local top recruit Bates (who struggled a bit at the plate), but Tatum Marsh out of San Jose who had two doubles, a triple and a HR and an OPS of 1.563 playing in all 4 games, starting 3.
- Five pitchers have an ERA of 0.00.
- Six pitchers have a WHIP under 1.0 (all 0.65 and below)
- One not among the six was Matt Scott who was on the verge of a quality-start, going 5.1 innings giving up 1 run.
The not-so good:
- Five pitchers had an ERA over 7.
- Two starters couldn’t get past 4 outs.
- 5 errors in 4 games plus some rickety plays that weren’t errors. That’s worse than last year’s bad rate of over an error per game. Stanford has been an iffy to weak fielding team for some time, with the error rate increasing for four years in a row.
- A few base running messes. Another issue from last year.
Disappointments:
- Volchko hasn’t shown control yet. Seems to have a major-league live arm and was very highly regarded out of HS but needs to find the strike zone without just grooving it middle-middle.
- Dugan had a rough outing. He’s pitched a lot for us over the past two years and we’re going to need him this year.
Under the radar positive developments:
- Aidan Keenan closed out two games giving up only a walk in two high leverage innings. He’s got another very live arm, was even more highly regarded out of HS than Volchko but barely managed to play last year (5 appearances, 12 free passes in 6.2 innings).
- Ty Uber came back from an injury year with two good outings, 3.2 innings of 1 run/1 hit ball.
---------------
Coming up:
UW went 2-2 in a mini-tournament in South Carolina winning against Kansas State and St. Josephs and losing to Coastal Carolina and St. Josephs. Last year they were 9th in the Pac 12. We were 8th.
Xavier went 2-2 in a mini-tournament in Aizona; losing twice to Oregon State and beating Indiana and UNLV. Last year finished 4th in the Big East (a decent baseball conference).
Everyone is feeling good after a four game sweep. The largest caveat is the Fullerton is likely somewhere between a mediocre and bad team. However, they were a pretty poor team last year and we lost 2 of 3 to them at our place to start out the year, being outscored 10-20. This year won 4 of 4 at Fullerton, outscoring them 42-22. That seems like progress.
The good:
- Resiliency. Twice down 5 runs and won.
- 10.5 runs per game.
- Team OPS 0.952
- The frosh offensive star was not international story Sasaki (who played well) or local top recruit Bates (who struggled a bit at the plate), but Tatum Marsh out of San Jose who had two doubles, a triple and a HR and an OPS of 1.563 playing in all 4 games, starting 3.
- Five pitchers have an ERA of 0.00.
- Six pitchers have a WHIP under 1.0 (all 0.65 and below)
- One not among the six was Matt Scott who was on the verge of a quality-start, going 5.1 innings giving up 1 run.
The not-so good:
- Five pitchers had an ERA over 7.
- Two starters couldn’t get past 4 outs.
- 5 errors in 4 games plus some rickety plays that weren’t errors. That’s worse than last year’s bad rate of over an error per game. Stanford has been an iffy to weak fielding team for some time, with the error rate increasing for four years in a row.
- A few base running messes. Another issue from last year.
Disappointments:
- Volchko hasn’t shown control yet. Seems to have a major-league live arm and was very highly regarded out of HS but needs to find the strike zone without just grooving it middle-middle.
- Dugan had a rough outing. He’s pitched a lot for us over the past two years and we’re going to need him this year.
Under the radar positive developments:
- Aidan Keenan closed out two games giving up only a walk in two high leverage innings. He’s got another very live arm, was even more highly regarded out of HS than Volchko but barely managed to play last year (5 appearances, 12 free passes in 6.2 innings).
- Ty Uber came back from an injury year with two good outings, 3.2 innings of 1 run/1 hit ball.
---------------
Coming up:
UW went 2-2 in a mini-tournament in South Carolina winning against Kansas State and St. Josephs and losing to Coastal Carolina and St. Josephs. Last year they were 9th in the Pac 12. We were 8th.
Xavier went 2-2 in a mini-tournament in Aizona; losing twice to Oregon State and beating Indiana and UNLV. Last year finished 4th in the Big East (a decent baseball conference).