It’s a beautiful morning at Goodwin Field

No kidding.

Middle of the Sixth

It’s a beautiful night at Goodwin Field – it took me a while to find wi-fi in Fullerton.

USC looks amazing once again – the Trojans bats seem pretty difficult to stop. Chili Buss and Mike Roskopf have homers for the Trojans, and USC pounded Michael Morrison, chasing him after a rocky 2 1/3 innings. 

Preview: Cal State Fullerton, Pt. 2: April 15

Happy tax day, everybody!

I’ve been trying to decide how to preview this rematch between the Titans and Trojans. It’s pretty much the same game played over again: The Titans, as usual, will pitch a random player, and the Trojans will pitch Kevin Couture. Everything stays the same, really.

If you really need some new information, look at the stats page – we now have advanced stats for the Trojans!!!

Baseball America Poll

More polling! More ranking! WHEEE!!!!!

Rank/Team/Record/Previous Ran

1. Miami 30-3 1

2. Arizona State 30-4 2

3. Florida State 31-3 3

4. North Carolina 29-7 4

5. UC Irvine 23-6 7

6. Missouri 25-9 8

7. Wichita State 27-5 9

8. California 23-9 5

9. Nebraska 25-6 6

10. Stanford 17-11 10

11. Rice 27-10 11

12. San Diego 27-11 13

13. Georgia 23-12 14

14. South Carolina 25-10 15

15. Cal State Fullerton 20-12 16

16. Mississippi 24-12 18

17. Vanderbilt 24-10 19

18. Oklahoma State 23-10 21

19. Texas A&M 30-6 NR

20. Texas 23-12 12

21. Michigan 22-8 23

22. Coastal Carolina 28-7 24

23. Pepperdine 23-11 NR

24. East Carolina 26-9 NR

25. Kentucky 26-8 17

Once again, USC isn’t getting much respect, probably due to the 18-16 record. The strength of schedule isn’t weighing too much on voter’s minds, I guess. Interestingly, Cal only slid three spots after being completely shellacked, while Texas slid 8 spots after being similarly trounced.

Once again, only three Pac-10 teams in the top 25. Interestingly, all three are in the top 10 in this poll.

However, all this is from the same source that picked UCLA number one at the beginning of the season. So… not a great track record.

Trojans fall to Bears 13-11

The Trojans started off hot, but slowly lost the lead. Cal had to rally twice from a six-run deficit, finally outscoring USC in the top of the ninth. It was a disappointing end to what was a very good series for USC, taking two out of three from the number 8 team in the nation. Not too bad.

Let’s see how the Trojans performed:

Starting pitching: C+

Ryan Cook had his worst start of the season, giving up a stunning 12 hits in 5 innings. He was able to find the strike zone, though, only walking one. He left a lot of pitches over the plate, and the Cal batters looked like they were taking batting practice. Most of Cook’s pitches had little movement, and his curve ball hung more often than not. However, he was able to keep his pitch count low by throwing almost all strikes and getting hit early in the count. His low pitch count (and the fact he was spotted 11 runs) was the only reason why Cook was able eat up five innings. All in all, Cook will want to forget this start. 

Relief pitching: C-

Cabral spelled Cook in the sixth, going 2 1/3 and giving up eight hits. He, too, was throwing almost nothing but strikes and was absolutely tattooed. Hector Robago came in from third to take the mound, and was hit hard as well, giving up 3 hits in only 1 1/3. Robert Stock was called on to get the last out of the game, but also ceded the game winning hit to David Cooper. The relievers walked three and only struck out two in four innings.

Hitting: A+, then F

Trojans hitting was a tale of two games. When Chris Petrini and Daniel Wolford were pitching, the Trojans scored 11 runs in 3 1/3 innings on 11 hits and 2 walks. While Matt Gorgen and Blake Smith were on the mound, the Trojans scored no runs in 5 2/3 innings, with only 4 hits and 2 walks. The performance should have been enough, but the pitching didn’t hold up. The game finished off a series in which the Trojans scored 39 runs in three games, a nice awakening for the previously dormant Trojan bats. We’ll see if the SC offense can keep scoring runs against Cal State Fullerton and UC Santa Barbara.

Fielding: C-

There were some excellent plays in the field, like Anthony Vasquez’s leaping catch to rob a home run, but they were overshadowed by Hector Robago’s troubles at third, where he committed two errors, leading to two unearned runs. The third base position has caused concern for us throughout the year, with three different players taking multiple starts at the position.

Random thoughts:

The heat once again played a factor. Both teams looked sluggish and tired, probably due to the 95 degree heat and the 13 hours of baseball played in only 3 games.

Bunting is becoming a huge bane for USC. We tried to bunt Grant Green twice: Once with runners on first and second with nobody out, and once with a runner on second and nobody out. Taking the bat out of Green’s hands, especially while he’s on a hot streak, doesn’t seem like a wise managerial move. One of these days, I’ll get around to a full-size post on why bunting is bad.

Sometimes I feel like Tim Kurkjian – in watching baseball, every day I see something I’ve never seen before. In Sunday’s game, that moment was provided by Hector Robago and Grant Green. Grant Green came out for warmups between innings with an extra ball for Hector Robago. Robago took some warmup tosses as a pitcher with Green squatting as the catcher. Robago came in to pitch later in the inning.

Bottom Line:

USC played well and won the series. However, the team has to learn how to sweep a series.

New Polls

It’s Monday – new college baseball polls. They don’t do a very good job of predicting games, but they are good… well, lets just say they might be good at something. They are entertaining, to say the least.

USA Today/ESPN

1. Miami (Fla)  30-3  1

2. Florida State  31-3  2

3. Arizona State  30-4  3

4. North Carolina  29-7  4

5. UC Irvine  23-6  7

6. Wichita State  27-5  5

7. Rice  27-10  9

8. Texas A&M  30-6  11

9. Nebraska  25-6-1  6

10. South Carolina  25-10  14

11. Missouri  25-9  12

12. California  23-9-2  8

13. Georgia  23-12  23

14. Vanderbilt  24-10  17

15. Texas  23-12  10

16. Stanford  17-11-1  15

17. Mississippi  24-12  18

18. Oklahoma State  23-10  25

19. Virginia  29-9  24

20. Coastal Carolina  28-7  22

21. San Diego  27-11  NR

22. Cal State Fullerton  20-12  20

23. Kentucky  26-8  13

24. Florida  24-12  21

25. Long Beach State  19-14  16

Baseball America hasn’t released new polls yet, but when they do, they’ll show up here. No shocker – Miami retains the top spot. They didn’t have much trouble – the Canes didn’t play against Georgia Tech this weekend due to the death of a Yellowjacket reliever.

Only three Pac-10 teams remain in the top 25, far down from the conference’s high of 6 earlier in the season. The difficulty of the conference certainly makes it tough to maintain a good record, as Arizona and UCLA can attest.

Cal, thanks to their shellacking at the hands of the Trojans, fell four spots to number 12.

USC still hasn’t garnered even a single vote. If they can continue to beat top 25 teams (6-2 in last 8 games, all against ranked opponents), they should start getting some votes. The question, of course, is when.

Bottom of the Ninth

Cal up 13-11

USC is in trouble. Our pitching has been highly suspect – in the 8th, Cabral started having problems, so we brought in Hector Robago from second, replacing him with Billy Pinkerton. Robago got the Trojans out of the eighth and started pitching the ninth with the score tied, but loaded up the bases. Then, Kreuter brought in Robert Stock, replacing him with Sebastian Salinas and putting Robago back on third. However, Stock hadn’t warmed up much and wound up leaving a pitch over the plate to David Cooper, who roped a single into right to score two. Stock then got out of the inning.

Meanwhile, the Trojans offense has gone terribly cold. We haven’t scored a run since the fourth, and Cal pitching is cruising. 

Top of the Sixth

Ryan Cook just got yanked for Ryan Cabral. Cook had already given up one run and had runners on first and second with nobody out in the fifth, so Kreuter decided to make the move. Matt Gorgen looks good for the Bears – he shut down the Trojans in the fifth. We’ll see if Cabral can put out the fire – he’s been looking better every appearance so far this year.

Middle of the Fifth

Trojans up 11 – 7

Ryan Cook is looking… passable. His run support makes him look like Walter Johnson. He’s missing his spots and leaving pitches up in the zone. Even worse, his breaking pitches aren’t moving. However, he’s loads better than the Cal pitchers, so it’s all good. The heart of the lineup is giving us fits – David Cooper and Josh Satin have combined to get on base 5 out of 6 plate appearances, with a double and a homer to boot.

The Cal pitching has been suspect. Danny Wolford shut down the Trojans in the third, but was chased in the fourth after giving up four runs. The Bears brought in Matt Gorgen, their closer. He’s pitching well, but we can’t expect him to go very far – he’s only pitched 21 innings in 16 appearances.

Hector Robago is having troubles at third – he had two errors last inning. One wasn’t officially scored as an error, but it was pretty clearly an error – he was set up to field the ball and it went underneath his glove. The first ball had the potential to be a double play ball that would have ended the inning and saved a run. However, he redeemed himself to close the inning, catching a ball in foul territory.

Top of the Third

Trojans up 7-1.

Ryan Cook is pitching for the Trojans and looking suspect. He’s thrown only 24 pitches in 2 innings and has been throwing lots of strikes, but he’s also been hit hard. 5 of the 6 outs have been long flies to left or right center field, and all but one were hit very solidly. The only run came off a home run by the Bears’ best hitter, second baseman Josh Satin. The last hitter of the second inning hit a long fly ball to Anthony Vasquez, who made leaping catch at the wall to save what could have been a home run.

I expected Alex Rollin to take the mound for the Bears, but Chris Petrini got the start. He gave up three runs in the first inning and didn’t come out to pitch the second. Instead, Danny Wolford pitched the second, giving up four runs and looking extremely hittable. He only got out of the inning because Hector Robago hit a line drive to right that was caught by a diving Bears right fielder, who doubled up Roberto Lopez, who thought the ball was going to drop.

Bunting update: We had runners on first and second with nobody out, so Kreuter (I presume) decided to have Grant Green bunt. Grant Green – the guy who just became our best hitter yesterday. He was bunting. There is absolutely no excuse for giving up an out when we are raining hits on the Bears. I disagree strongly with our strategy and I hope that Trojan coaches examine the preponderance of statistical evidence indicating that bunting, in most situations, is a terrible strategy.