With the NFL draft having just finished with all the surprises and drama a draft should provide, toying with the lives of young men is always more fun than it should be. Unfortunately the Major League Baseball draft doesn’t pack the same punch as its football brethren, but that doesn’t mean that people like me can’t be lone voices in the dark. This is not a mock draft, just a small disclaimer, it is more like a draft profile, hopefully I will know enough by June to provide a mock draft of sorts. With their annual first pick is the Washington Nationals having used it, and $15 million, on right hander Stephen Strasburg last year and so far it looks like a great pick. He is currently 2-0 with an 0.73 ERA at AA level, where he won’t be pitching for very long. So with that and other young pieces such as Ryan Zimmerman this year’s pick is huge for the Nats, given that they seem to be building something in DC. The consensus number one pick is Junior College hitting phenom Bryce Harper. His numbers are completely eye boggling and he has already been labelled the “LeBron James of baseball” by Sports Illustrated, in case you haven’t noticed LeBron is pretty good. The trouble with the catcher is that he is only 17, digest that for a second and think what you were doing as a 17-year-old. Looking at colleges, chasing girls/boys, rebelling against society, the things normal kids aged 17 do. Most don’t leave High School as a Junior to attend JuCo with the intention of getting a professional job at 17. Almost nobody does it to get a job in which you will likely become a multi-millionaire overnight, his numbers and profile would likely mean he would get a contract similar to Strasburg’s. That would give him to the Nats for four years meaning he would be 21 when his first contract expired, which would be about the same time he got his first call from the Yankees offering the big bucks. From what I’ve seen of Harper his confidence touches arrogance more often than not, a trait that Nationals really don’t need, and his age makes it impossible for him to act as a mature adult, especially when he’s been paid.
Despite the huge upside to Harper I’m of the belief that he should not go number one in June, not because of any talent flaws and only because of a couple of character flaws, but most of all because of the Nationals needs. Having picked up Strasburg last year they have a staff ace for the next fifteen years but don’t have much behind that. The NL East, more than any other division is a pitching division, just look at the teams that have been successful the last two decades. Obviously the Atlanta Braves are the prime example after the Glavine-Smoltz-Maddux era, but now we are seeing it with the Phillies and how important the Cliff Lee trade was last year in wrapping up the division and going to the World Series. The 2010 draft class doesn’t have any exceptional arms like last year’s number one pick, but it does possess two high quality college pitchers who could easily be quality second starters for the Nationals. Anthony Ranaudo of LSU and Drew Pomeranz at Ole Miss are separating themselves at the top of this year’s pitchers class, Ranaudo has only just returned from a shoulder injury and until Saturdays game with Ole Miss looked the pitcher everyone thought I don’t think are proven enough to be the number one pick. While I don’t think the Nats will pass on Harper it seems to make more sense to me for the Nationals to build a ten year rotation before building their offense. Regardless of who they take it will be a good draft for all teams in the top five this year as all five, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City and Cleveland, will all be able to fill needs that will improve their teams.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Time Out
I will be taking a few weeks off from blogging until my thesis is wrapped up I can provide interesting opinions not formulated half way between sanity and sleep. Hopefully I will be able to write a wonderfully researched, interesting blog around April 30th. Until then Go Braves, Go Dawgs, Go Jackets and, just to shake it up, Go Hawks!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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