Tuesday 30 March 2010

Dominant Deck and the Swarming Jackets

Welcome to the ever evolving world of my college baseball blog. So far I’ve dropped Georgia State from weekly mention despite the fact they have had a solid season. The University of Georgia is now making it very hard to make a weekly analysis possible, mainly because of the Southeastern Conferences crazed money grabbing ($85.95 annually to listen to the games?!). It’s difficult to make numbers exciting for either me or you but I will continue to try in a scaled down manner. Luckily for me the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets make following NCAA baseball fun and easy and have pushed themselves to the forefront of my baseball writing. (Disclaimer: I cannot stand the Yellow Jacket football team but everything has its floors.) Anyway on to the weekend review.

The aforementioned Yellow Jackets travelled up to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to face a very solid Tar Heel team who, going into the weekend, were ranked #19 in the country. Friday night set up and elite ACC pitching match-up between UNC’s Matt Harvey and Jacket ace Deck McGuire. The game became the pitching duel it was supposed to be and McGuire came out the winner. Last week’s loss at Maryland is quickly proving an aberration with Deck now at 4-1 with 1.17 ERA with 49 strikeouts in 46 innings. While LSU’s Anthony Ranaudo has only thrown seven innings so far this year McGuire is establishing himself as the number one draft prospect this year, any MLB team that gets McGuire will be lucky and will have an incredible pitcher who impresses me more every time I see or hear anything of him. While Friday was all about the guys on the mound Saturday and Sunday became a hitting showcase. Usually this would result in fickle old me bashing Brandon Cumpton and Jed Bradley in an unfair way, instead I’m going to ignore those two outings and just try and convey how incredible the Jacket line-up is this year. From Jeff Rowland at the top through to Brandon Thomas at the bottom there is average and power but it is the middle of the order that has most impressed so far. When you start with co-ACC player of the week Derek Dietrich batting second and hitting .363 on the year with 6 home runs it makes the 3-4-5 guys jobs so much easier. Those 3 have been Tony Plagman, Cole Leonida and Matt Skole and thos 3 have been awesome. Senior first-baseman has been .333 with 27 RBI’s and a team leading 9 homers and is playing as well as any other first-baseman in the country, especially with his .1000 fielding percentage. If Plagman is playing the prototypical first base role the Leonida is going above and beyond as a clean-up hitter, his team leading 33 RBI’s goes to prove that. Behind him Matt Skole has had an incredible break-out Sophomore year, better than anyone could have expected. When you look across the board and see his .393 average, 6 dingers and 25 RBI’s Skole is fast tracking himself to MVP status when you think he could be playing in Atlanta for two more years.

On Sunday the Yellow Jackets played really bad baseball for the first eight innings with pitching and hitting deserting the team. Then game the ninth inning and the real Georgia Tech. As soon as Derek Dietrich came out of his phone box the power surged through the line-up. With Tech scoring five runs in the top of the ninth it proved an awful lot about the Yellow Jackets and quieted a lot of the doubters. With the guts they showed Tech moved to 21-2 on the season and number 2 in the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll. Tonights game with Georgia State should be a humdinger with the two offences on the field. This kind of game makes Atlanta seem a lot further away than it actually is, and that’s still a long way.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

News Flash

This blogger interrupts your week to bring you some shocking news: the University of Georgia baseball team is bad. Unfortunately Coach Perno has run out of excuses within the first month of the season. Going into this season the Dogs were relying on a lot of Freshmen and Sophomores to develop a an almost unimaginable rate, the projected infield is a perfect example. The plan was to have an infield of So Chase Davidson at first, So Levi Hyams at second, Fr Kyle Farmer at shortstop and So Colby May at third. The Diamond Dogs have played exactly ZERO games with those 4 in the team. Colby May is the only one to have played in all games and hasn’t exactly impressed hitting .221 with 3 home runs which is redeemed somewhat by his 17 RBI’s. The lack of consistency on the infield hasn’t helped the Dawg defence, currently fielding at .961 with 29 errors, not exactly how you win SEC games. While the offence is based on the production of the Sophomores and Freshmen the pitching was supposed to be able to rely on one Senior and one Junior in Jeff Walters and Justin Grimm, like most other areas of the team it hasn’t exactly worked out. Grimm is now 1-2 on the season with a 5.16 ERA this is positively outstanding in comparison to his Senior teammate Walters; 0-2 with a 9.58 ERA. Last week I wrote about how the Bulldogs played with guts in their game against Georgia Tech against Auburn at the weekend they showed none, especially on Friday and Sunday when they were completely shelled and didn’t look like they could do anything to stop it. They need to stop this scary slump before the weekend series with Mississippi State.

Despite another series win and now being ranked number 3 in the nation by USA Today the weekend series win over Maryland was still a little disappointing on account of Friday nights loss. As the guys on the Baseball America Top 25 podcast pointed out Tech should not be losing games to teams like Maryland, more to the point Deck McGuire should not lose to teams like Maryland. The sense of disappointment after a road series win highlights how far apart Tech and Georgia are at the moment. Another one of the reasons is that Tech is able to rely on the hitting of Juniors and Seniors like Cole Leonida, Derek Dieterich, Chase Burnette and Tony Plagman. That’s a strong middle order of guys all hitting over .300 and all with double figures in RBI’s which is championship calibre production. The Yellow Jackets have reached a level of play that could see them not being challenged until they visit Virginia on April 9th by which time they could believably be at 25 wins on the season. As well as team recognition two Jackets are now being recognised for their individual success, Junior pitcher Deck McGuire had been named on the initial watch list for the 2010 Pitcher of the Year award to be announced in July. Shortstop Derek Dietrich has also been nominated on the watch list for the Wallace Award for the nations best shortstop, Derek finished as a semi-finalist for the award last year. These two awards are just more evidence that this Tech team is built to succeed.

SEC Notes
The more I follow NCAA baseball the more I learn and the first weekend of SEC play taught me an awful lot. Here are just a few observations.
• Florida are quickly looking like an elite team, sweeping Mississippi State in Gainesville this week helped the Gators move to 16-3 on the season and behind an incredibly clutch line-up and solid pitching they seem to be the number one team in the nation.
• The Arkansas-LSU series this weekend provided some of the most gripping action of this young season and could easily be a dress rehearsal for the College World Series. LSU expects to have ace Anthony Ranaudo back at the weekend but even he may have been outdueled by Razorback senior Mike Bolsinger.
• The weekend series victories for Ole Miss and Alabama showed these two teams are for real and their series against Florida and Arkansas respectively will really give us an idea of where everyone stands in the SEC.

Friday 19 March 2010

Not Bad for a First Time

This rivalry throws up some crazy situations and Tuesday night was no different. Everything was pointing toward an unlikely Bulldog win, one that could have put their season back on the right track. The opportunity to knock off the number 3 team in the nation disappeared as soon as Georgia needed clutch pitching, something they haven’t had at any point in this young season. Despite the lingering disappointment for the Dogs we learnt an awful lot more about them than we did Georgia Tech. For one Coach Dave Perno of the Dogs is willing to be brave at important moments and giving Freshman Blake Dietrich his first collegiate start qualified as brave. While the gamble didn’t pay off the way Perno had hoped it showed the belief that he has in this young team that seems to get younger every game it plays. This game also showed that this Georgia team has the kind of grit and guts that I certainly didn’t think they had, rallying back from the 4-0 deficit that Tech opened early to take the lead in the seventh before their poor pitching threw the game away. For all the youth that dragged Georgia back into the game it was one of the few seniors (Alex McCree) that gave up the winning run, pitching a disastrous eighth that he started by hitting Derek Dietrich with a pitch and walking Chase Burnette and Jay Dantzler. With the bases loaded McCree proceeded to strike out the next two hitters before walking Jacob Esch and giving Tech the 6-5 lead that would hold through the ninth. Despite the disappointment there is a lot for the Diamond Dogs to take out of this game and, despite being below .500 on the season, they should feel a whole lot better about SEC play that begins with a home series against Auburn at the weekend.

As far as the Yellow Jackets go we learned nothing about this team. This is the third game in a row they needed a late rally to win and didn’t really win this one, Georgia lost it. The middle of the line-up that’s been so dangerous this year, Matt Skole, Derek Dietrich and Chase Burnette, cooled off in a hurry going a combined 0-9. The sluggish team that appeared in Gold and White Tuesday is not the team who has been ranked number 3 in the nation, they seemed fatigued both mentally and physically apparently feeling the effects of their first ACC series. The best thing to come out of Tuesday for the Jackets was the performance of Mark Pope who hadn’t seen any action for two weeks. “If I had to do it over again I would have taken him out” admitted Tech coach Danny Hall after letting Pope begin the seventh which yielded all of the Dogs 5 runs. Whilst the Jackets will have a lingering feeling of relief and disappointment about this game it keeps them rolling and moves them to 14-1 on the season, a record bettered or equalled by only 4 teams.

Clearly this win keeps momentum with Tech for the continuation of ACC play Friday against Maryland but it also gets Georgia playing somewhere near the level they need to. Whether they can keep it up through the rest of the year only time will tell but David Perno finally has seen some positives from his team. Regardless of who won or lost this game proved why college baseball is so great.

Monday 15 March 2010

Good Old Fashioned Hate starts here

College Baseball comes in a double dose this week for one extra special reason; the number 3 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets hook up with the Georgia Bulldogs for the first time in 2010. Because of this Georgia State will unfortunately not get any major words, but note they took a thrilling series at New Mexico State 2-1 to move to 8-7 on the year. Now let’s move onto Tuesday night.

Friday night saw the Bulldogs win for the first time in ten days beating Siena 9-3 and went on to win the series, however losing the finale on Sunday left a bad taste in the mouth. Tech continued rolling with a series sweep of ACC foe Wake Forest, with two comeback wins on Saturday and Sunday. The Jackets were lifted Friday when outstanding Jr Deck McGuire threw Tech’s first nine-inning complete game since 2007, striking out eight, giving up three hits and only one run. Luckily for the Diamond Dogs they will not face the Tech ace. They will most likely oppose either sophomore Mark Pope or freshman Buck Farmer, neither would be an easy task but one much easier than facing McGuire. Pope only has one appearance on the year, a six inning shutout effort against Georgia Southern way back on February 23rd, Farmers only start was the very next day against the same opposition. Following this logic Tech will send Pope to the mound hoping for a similar effort to the one he produced in Statesboro. Georgia doesn’t however have the riches to pick from that the Jackets do; the last two midweek games the Dawgs played their starters gave up 11 runs in 5.2 innings. These two starters were sophomore Chase Hawkins and junior Eric Swegman. Of the two Hawkins has the clear advantage with a 3.29 ERA compared to Swegmans 8.44, while both have two starts. The worrying thing for the Dogs is how overmatched they are on the mound, even when Tech goes to its 4 or 5 starter you feel they could match up against any Georgia pitcher.

The overmatched feeling continues at the plate where Georgia Tech is red hot and the Georgia line-up could not be much colder. After the past week Georgia now only have three everyday players with plus .300 batting averages, these are Christian Glisson (.400), Zach Cone (.381) and Johnathan Taylor (.333). This weekend saw Fr Robert Shipman picking up some of the offensive slack and raising his average to an impressive .458 while only seeing 6 starts. Finding a spot in their line-up against Tech could help alter the game and if he carries on this way their season. While UGA has struggled for any consistency on offense Tech has had no such problems. The middle of the Jackets line-up has been so impressive this season with juniors Chase Burnette and Cole Leonida being the most impressive, they are 1 and 2 for average and RBI’s on the season so far. However there is no let up for opposing pitchers with Matt Skole, Jacob Esch, Tony Plagman and Derek Dietrich all contributing, all 4 are hitting over .300 with over ten RBI’s each. When this is combined with the bench talent, especially Brandon Thomas and Thomas Nichols, the biggest challenge for anyone will be limiting the number of runs they score. This was proven by the two comeback victories at the weekend when the Yellow Jackets rallied behind big innings behind this outstanding line-up.

With everything pointing towards a Tech rout tomorrow night it could be very difficult to be a Diamond Dog fan at this point of the year. This does not mean something special can happen. This is what makes this rivalry so special in any sport and baseball is certainly no different. If Tech wins it could prove that they have something special this year, if Georgia win it could completely rejuvenate their season. On Wednesday I will take a look at which way this one goes, and what it means to both teams.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Single to Omaha

Ok so over this past weekend I have come to the depressing realisation that only one of our Georgia teams is actually good enough to go to Omaha. While this was a sobering thought for me on Saturday night I have relaxed into it and discovered a strange amount of positives. Without further ado let’s delve into the fun filled world of NCAA baseball in Georgia.

The Yellow Jackets are making a believer out of me. It’s not just the fact that they’ve been winning but the manner they’ve been doing it. Florida State are the only team right now who are combing hitting and pitching as effectively as Tech, the Jackets outscored Rutgers 33-9 over the weekend with the starting pitchers giving up only four runs combined. All four were charged to Brandon Cumpton. So after avoiding the obvious last week I’m going to get straight to it this week. Deck McGuire is sensational. LSU’s Anthony Ranaudo and Texas’ Taylor Jungmann are deservedly being given a lot of the press but McGuire is pitching at exactly the same level. He has started three games giving up 3 runs, 2 earned. Most impressive is the 25 strikeouts in 22 innings, that is exactly the kind of dominance that Tech needs from Mr Friday Night. This weekend saw the explosive offense keep exploding and was this time paced by sophomore Jacob Esch and junior Cole Leonida. Esch had multi hit games in all three weekend games helping to boost his season average to .500 while Leonida had 6 hits in 9 at bats Saturday and Sunday. They were given plenty of support by the increasingly impressive junior’s Chase Burnette and Derek Dietrich and sophomore Matt Skole. Despite both Virginia and Texas losing over the weekend it wasn’t enough to move the 10-1 Jackets above 4th in the Baseball America rankings. If they keep playing this way it will be difficult to keep them down.

After the worst possible start to the 2010 season Georgia State have set about rebuilding and with yesterdays win over UNC-Asheville have fought their way back to .500 on the season. After struggling to score runs during their 6 game losing streak someone set the State bats on fire as they proceeded to set all manner or records against North Carolina Central. This four game series never looked like being close after the Panthers 32-3 win on Friday night and it never was, GSU outscoring their opponents 103-10 (that is no typo that actually says 103!). Junior Mark Micowski provided a huge lift for team when they needed it most hitting for the cycle and going 7 for 8 at the plate with 7 RBI’s. It also provided the State pitchers with the opportunity to arrest their downward slide, which they did in emphatic fashion. Sophomore reliever Justin Malone continues to impress on the mound having not allowed a run now since April, the rest of the bullpen have supported that effort with five guys now having ERA’s of under 4.00. After the first week of the season that is really good trust me. Starter Charley Olson has also overcome his early season problems reducing his season ERA to 2.79 and now has 15 strikeouts to only 5 walks, head coach Greg Frady would have taken that when he chose Olson as the Panther ace.

I desperately wanted to get through this without having the address the Georgia Bulldogs, or the team currently imitating the Georgia Bulldogs. It all started early last week when they found out promising freshman shortstop Kyle Farmer would miss 3-6 weeks with wrist surgery. I nearly blogged on how bad this would be for the Dawgs, I never thought I’d ever be so right. It continued at Regions Park in Hoover, Alabama last Wednesday when the Dogs had their butts handed to them by an impressive Crimson Tide team and provided the first indication that the offense was drying up. Then came the ‘Turmoil in Tallahassee’ as I have named it. Unless you are Texas you cannot go to the number 6 ranked team in the nation and expect to win when you score 8 runs. The most startling thing about the weekend series against the Seminoles was how weak the Georgia pitching is, giving up 38 runs is unacceptable when you have aspirations. Friday night starter Justin Grimm capitulated against FSU going only four innings giving up 7 earned runs, 9 in total and 11 hits. Jeff Walters lasted even shorter time giving up 3 runs and 6 walks in only 1.2 innings of work and Sunday was even worse as Michael Palazzone went 1.1 innings while spotting the ‘Noles 7 runs, 6 earned. Losing to Florida State and Alabama while annoying was nothing compared to Tuesday night at Foley field. Georgia lost 11-1 to Kennesaw State!

Player of the Week; For lifting his team up when they needed it most this weeks PotW goes to Georgia State junior Mark Micowski for his outstanding performance on Friday night and solid play over the entire weekend. Credit also goes to GSU senior Bradley Logan who set a new school record for runs scored (166) on Saturday.

Big Braves Blog 4

As Spring Training had gone on the outfield seems to be answering more questions than it was asked. Last year the Braves started the season with Garrett Anderson, Jordan Schafer and Jeff Francoeur in the three outfield spots. The likely hood is none of those three will be on the teams Major League roster come April, only one will be a member of the organisation. I’ve thought about starting this blog with either left or center field but it’s impossible not to begin by looking at phenom Jason Heywood. While it’s unfair to put the future of the franchise on the shoulders of a 20-year-old he has done little by way of performance to quiet the talk. The buzz surrounding Heyward began in earnest when he made AA ball look like a weekend game of catch. In Rome he hit for a huge .352 average in 47 games, perhaps even more impressively he had 28 walks to only 19 strikeouts for a .446 on-base percentage. What all those numbers mean is that Heyward ate AA ball for breakfast as a nineteen-year-old. When the Georgia native was promoted from Rome to Gwinnett for the G-Braves playoff games he picked up exactly where he left off, would you expect anything else from the most composed teenager you were ever likely to see. In his very first playoff series he hit .364 in the three games he played, what says more about Heyward is that he actually improved his OBP to .462. For someone who would only be a sophomore in college Heyward shows discipline that can barely be comprehended and that has continued into Spring Training. Through 7 games in Florida he has compiled the mind boggling OBP of .619 with 6 walks to only 1 strikeout. Just to put the cherry on the top of the Heyward sized cake he is also hitting .429. Even in Spring Training Heyward has shown a type of dominance that we have rarely if ever seen, one that is making his inclusion on the opening day roster almost impossible to avoid. It is not just his numbers that impress about Heyward it is the extraordinary make-up of such a young man. Unfortunately numbers are the only thing readily available to SportSpot but MLB.com columnist Peter Gammons wrote a great piece on Jason and his family;

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100309&content_id=8723826&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

Even with Heyward the Braves will still need two other outfielders and as Spring’s gone on who that’s going to be has become less clear. The original plan involved Nate McClouth in center field with a platoon of Melky Cabrera and Matt Diaz in left. However no one has taken it upon themselves to solidify their position. Of the three Matt Diaz has so far giving the best showing in Spring, his average (and it really is average) currently sits at .273 he has no RBI’s, 4 strikeouts and only two walks. Melky could easily be feeling pressure this early, he has been mainly vilified since he arrived in the Vazquez deal, but he hasn’t yet tried winning over the Braves fans. His average average is .250 with 1 RBI but 3 walks to only 1 strikeout. This is the Cabrera style of game that fans will have to get used to, he has great patience at the plate, will take his walks and hit a few dingers. He will never give great average and will only be a solid everyday player. This is proven by his career .269 batting average and .331 on-base percentage. So far that’s exactly the impression he is giving. Most disappointing of all has been Nate McClouth. Having been encouraged by the improvement in vision his new contact lenses provided he felt better than any other period in his short stay in Atlanta. In the early part of Spring Training that hasn’t exactly happened. His pretty disappointing first 84 games in Atlanta was put down to mentioned eye issue, those 84 games included a miniscule .257 average which was somewhat hidden by his eleven homers. Pencilled in as the teams lead-off hitter for 2010 it would be good to see McClouth working on his OBP just as much as his average, both have dive bombed. His average is down to .077 so far this Spring and his OBP not much better at .188, only three Braves have smaller averages through the first week of Spring Training and only one of them will be playing higher than AA ball this year.

Whether McClouth, Cabrera and Diaz will improve, this early in Spring is never a good indicator, we will only know over time. Hopefully two of the three will go out and prove their worth and make the other two spots theirs. Whoever they are they will be playing the giant Heyward shadow, which may not be an awful thing for them. As for Heyward this could be his first year as part of a rejuvenated franchise, one which he is the face of.

This will be the final instalment of the Big Braves Blog, a series I have had to neglect due to school and work commitment. I hope it has satisfied some interest in the major players on the Braves 2010 roster, one that I hope has the opportunity to take Bobby Cox back to the Promised Land. I will keep writing on points of interest in the Braves spring camp looking forward to the start of the 2010 season. Keep checking back and Go Braves!

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Braves vs. Mets Spring Training Game 1

Finally we have baseball, for the first time in 2010 pitchers, catchers, hitters and fielders were together in the same place at the same time. Whilst the Braves dropped the first game of spring ball it proved to be a successful first outing on the most part. Tommy Hanson who, in my view, should be on the hills on Opening Day was there today and did exactly what everyone wanted and needed. Tommy produced two innings with only one hit and no runs including 3 strike outs, if the rest of the year goes this way he will be even better than last year. Kris Medlen, who will get a start of his own on Saturday, produced the same numbers as Hanson and provided encouragement that he could be a fifth starter or at least a shut down reliever in the mould of Phil Hughes or even Jonathan Papelbon. Unfortunately Jesse Chavez was awful in his first appearance as a Brave, at a stage when pitchers are supposed to be ahead of hitters giving up three runs in one inning looks about as bad as it can get. Braves hitters however impressed first time, especially those hitters that needed to impress. Jason Heyward was outstanding in the first stage of his major league audition going 1-1 with 2 walks, it could barely have been a better day for the young Georgian in his quest for the right field job. A player I feel incredibly sorry for is Melky Cabrera who has taken a bad rap simply because it was he that arrived in place of Javy Vazquez. If Melky can compete the way he did today, and we will see as the season goes on, then he can keep the beard and his place in left field. Wins and losses aren’t important in March in Florida performances are, the Braves didn’t get the win but they got the performances. Roll on tomorrow.

Something New

Ok, lets try something different. I’ve done college football and major league baseball, now I’ve had a brain wave to have a go at College Baseball. Languishing in the shadow of both college football and basketball it goes about its business providing scholarships for kids and incredible entertainment (just watch last years College World Series). Until the NCAA tournament I won’t look at any teams from across the nation for two reasons; 1.)That I don’t have enough time or inclination to do that yet and 2.) it’s not the easiest sport to follow from 2,000 miles away. Instead I’ll try and give a weekly breakdown on the Georgia Bulldogs, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Georgia State Panthers, hopefully I’ll still be doing three when championships get handed out.

Let’s start with the best of the bunch. Georgia Tech started the season ranked by both USA Today and Baseball America, they bounced up to number three while starting 7-0 before dropping a home game to Xavier on Sunday. Before that setback Tech had lit up Missouri State, Georgia Southern and Xavier, scoring 81 runs and conceding only 18. So far the Jackets superstar pitcher Deck McGuire has thrown 14 innings in 2 games and done exactly what is expected of him, other Tech pitchers have done way more; Mark Pope and Brandon Cumpton being the early standouts. In his one start Pope gave 6 innings of shut out ball striking out 7, Cumpton is the only pitcher to have won both his starts so far this year. While McGuire will carry the staff through the season it’s up to Cumpton and the others as to how dominant this Tech team can be. What this week proved is that the fans at Russ Chandler are in for an entire season of entertainment. Unlike McGuire the hitting has no stand out player to carry them and, apparently, the line up got that particular memo. Seven Tech hitters have started out hitting over .400 with three of them being every day players, Chase Burnette, Jacob Esch and Cole Leonida. Junior outfielder Burnette has been most impressive, playing everyday, hitting .531 with 2 home runs and 11 RBI’s, at this rate the Buford native will be one of the stars of both ACC and NCAA competition.

Georgia lacks everything Tech has; stars, national ranking, experience and a good start. Having been ranked 22nd by Baseball America preseason they proceeded to drop games to both Baylor and Duke out in Waco. When they got back to Athens home cooking apparently kick started the Dawgs season with them going 4-0 against Presbyterian and Stetson. With those wins they finished the first week of the season at 25 in Baseball America’s rankings, which is still something of a disappointment seeing some teams above them. With only four seniors on the roster it was always going to take time to build a winning atmosphere and it was important they put together a nice winning streak. Like Tech the Bulldogs production has been spread around with several players racking up high averages. Catcher Christian Glisson has impressed most of all with his Joe Mauer effort of .522 in 8 games, 6 of them starts. A perfect example of the Dawgs young talent is infielder Kyle Farmer who, in 6 games, has hit .458 with 5 doubles and 5 RBI’s. With players like Farmer and fellow freshman Todd Hankins performing so early in their college careers the Georgia offence can only improve. As a junior, Justin Grimm is the senior member of the pitching staff and integral to their potential success. In 2 games and 10.2 innings Grimm stepped up and lead by example producing a 1.69 ERA which gives Bulldog fans hope that he can provide them with the reliable starter every contender needs.

While Tech sits at 7-1 and UGA is 6-2 Georgia State is yet to experience that sweet taste of victory. Starting the season with three road games at national championship chasing Florida State always looked tough, and so it proved with the Panthers getting blown out in all three games. USC-Upstate should have given the State club a winning start at Panthersville, not so much with State going 0-2 home and away. GSU has seven games at home starting Wednesday and need to gain some serious momentum, luckily Mercer, North Carolina Central and UNC-Asheville are perfect opportunities for the reining CAA champs to rebuild their season. Junior outfielders Ryan Fleming and Mark Micowski are providing the only real spark for State with Fleming hitting .500 and Micowski .350, worryingly the teams only two hot hitters have combined for 1 RBI. Senior third baseman Bradley Logan while only hitting .273 has been the only Panther with pop, hitting the teams only 2 home runs. Sophomore reliever Justin Malone has been the only pitcher who has impressed, giving up 1 hit in 4 innings work with no runs. Charley Olson and Ben Marshall, the Panther starters have struggled so far while still being the best of a so far bad bunch. After five games the team ERA sits at the pretty ugly figure of 9.88, not exactly a championship effort so far. Unlike the Jackets and Dawgs, State has no stars and nobody standing out after the first week of the season, that will have to change this week if they are going to be successful.

Star of the Week; With both Tech and Georgia having candidates it was difficult to select one star so early with man deserving honourable mentions, however I have picked one; Georgia Techs Chase Burnette. In his first season starting everyday Burnettes .531 average and 11 RBI’s has been at the heart of the Jackets explosive offense.

Monday 1 March 2010

Big Braves Blog 3

With three out of the Braves four infielders returning from last year this seems to be where the team is most settled. However when Frank Wren entered the off season he hoped to produce something rather more spectacular than a settled infield. Let’s start with something near certainties; Martin Prado and Yunel Escobar. The middle infield is quite possibly the most impressive part of this Braves organisation, almost as impressive as the 1-2 punch of Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens. 2009 proved to be Martin Prado’s breakout party, blowing away any of his previous three years in the majors. He gradually increased both his appearances and statistics whilst always playing second fiddle to Kelly Johnson, the Baby Brave who never really grew up. When he finally got his chance to be the everyday second baseman early last year Martin did not disappoint. Whilst playing in twice as many games as he ever had done before Prado hit .307 with 11 homers and 49 RBI’s. Prado gave the Braves team so much more than just impressive numbers, he gave them an almost perfect number two hitter, with a .358 on base percentage and scored 64 runs, playing a role that proved so invaluable during Nate McLouths lead off struggles. Defensively he proved just as important as with the bat, in 2009 he played first, second and third base with his lowest fielding percentage being .975 in 266 innings at third and highest in his 182.2 innings at first with a .994 percentage. He played 513.1 innings at his everyday position with an eye opening .986 fielding percentage, turning 37 double plays, that’s 74 outs. The guy helping Prado turn a lot of those double plays is Cuban defector and ever improving shortstop Yunel Escobar. In my opinion, one that matters very little in the universe of Major League Baseball, Escobar should be ranked as one of the three or four premier shortstops in the National League. Last year Escobar began producing the numbers that can elevate an individual to that position, like Prado it was really Escobar’s coming out party as Bobby Cox and everyone realised his importance to the team. In 2009 Escobar had career highs in games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, RBI’s and homers. While falling short of his 2007 average of .326 he still hit a very respectable .299, one of those annoying averages that even a bloop single could have made .300. Perhaps just as impressive Yunel had a career high in fielding percentage, as crucial a stat for a short stop as any other. His percentage was slightly less impressive than Prado but impressive enough for a short stop with .979 in 1208.2 innings, more impressive is the fact he turned 83 double plays (that’s 166 outs for those keeping count).
There is very little point doubting the excellence of the middle infield, the questions regarding first and third base are unavoidable. Chipper Jones represents everything good about the Braves; he is a Braves lifer who has produced excellence both on and off the field for all that life. This time last year the only question about Chipper was over how many games he would be able to play, well that was answered emphatically; playing his most games since 2003. This offseason Chipper’s health is just about the only certainty the Braves have regarding the third baseman. Having been crowned the National League batting champion in 2008 a drop off was expected, nobody saw the 100 point drop off coming. Having hit .364 in the 2008 season his disastrous .264 average in 2009 sparked discussions from Chipper himself about walking away this year if he showed no improvement. The idea that Chipper could just walk away at the end of this year is almost unthinkable but 2009 was his worst year for a long time, one in which he showed his age for the first time. He also posted his lowest fielding percentage of his career at .930, for a third baseman that is bad, it is twenty points below David Wright who is widely regarded as the NL’s best at the position. When even the player can’t explain the problem it is almost impossible to know what went wrong, the only way we will know if it was just a three month blip or if the drop off is something more long term. Having Brian McCann injured for large chunks of last year Chipper had no protection allowing opposing pitchers to go after him, this year the Braves shouldn’t have the same problem. Chippers protection this year will be provided the biggest gamble of the Braves offseason, Troy Glaus. The new first baseman is a gamble on both offense and defence. 2010 will be the first time in his career that Glaus has served as an everyday first baseman having spent all his nearly all his time in the majors at third. In the 38.2 innings Glaus has played first he has the impressive fielding percentage of 1.000 which makes the defensive gamble look a lot more calculated, it will have to be for Braves fans to forget the glove of Casey Kotchman. Offensively Glaus will have to rebound in exactly the same way as Jones. Unlike Chipper, Troy knows injuries are to blame for his struggles of the last two years. So much of the teams offense depends on Glaus rediscovering his health and home run swing. With Chipper unlikely to hit more than 25 homers it’s important that Troy goes over 30 from the clean-up spot, something Braves players don’t tend to do that often anymore.
So that’s how the Braves infield will line up against the Cubs on Opening Day. Escobar and Prado could be there for the next 5-10 years depending on injuries, Glaus and Jones may not be there next year. If the gambles pay off this quartet could take Bobby Cox’s team to the promised land, if they back fire there will be no coming back from them.