Riley Report: Missing mojo; must find immediately if not sooner

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Sandlapper Spike

This is going to be a ramble more than a coherent essay; I’m just throwing together a few thoughts prior to the SoCon baseball tournament…

Links of interest:

Fred Jordan interview (video)

The Citadel’s tournament notes

Appalachian State’s tournament notes

Western Carolina’s tournament notes

Samford’s tournament notes

Furman’s tournament notes

Elon’s tournament notes

College of Charleston’s tournament notes

Georgia Southern’s tournament notes

SoCon release

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Tournament bracket

Quick note on the bracket: The Citadel plays the early game on Wednesday (10 am ET) versus Appalachian State. If the Bulldogs win, they will play at 5 pm on Thursday unless Furman also wins on Wednesday; if both the Bulldogs and Paladins are victorious, The Citadel would play the late game on Thursday (estimated 8:30 pm ET start).

If The Citadel loses to Appalachian State, it will again play the early game (10 am ET on Thursday).

Sunday’s title game is a winner-take-all affair; it is strictly single-elimination, regardless of whether or not the teams playing in it have one loss or no losses. I dislike this format. It should be double-elimination throughout the tournament. The league does it this way for television, but A) the process of determining an automatic bid should not be so subverted by TV; and B) the game isn’t going to be on broadcast TV, anyway.

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If you can’t make it to Greenville’s Fluor Field, a free (!) video stream of each game is available from the SoCon. The league championship game will be televised by ESPN3.com. It wouldn’t hurt to register at the league website beforehand, just in case.

Directions to Fluor Field

Ballpark layout

Basically, it’s a carbon copy of Fenway Park, complete with a monster-ish left field wall. The dimensions mirror Fenway.

Day Passes are available for each day of the Southern Conference Tournament, for the low price of just $10. The Day Pass allows you to attend every game for the day in which you purchase.

A Student Day Pass will be also available to students from each of the respective colleges and universities, for only $6. While regular Day Passes can be purchased online, over the phone at (864) 240-4528, or at the Fluor Field Box Office, the Student Day Pass must be purchased at the Box Office and proper school identification must be shown.

Link

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To say The Citadel is not riding a hot streak as it enters tournament play is an understatement. The Bulldogs are 5-5 in their last 10 games, but perhaps more pertinent is the fact that The Citadel has lost five of its last seven league games, with four of those losses coming to teams that did not even qualify for the conference tourney. Several of those losses have been brutal, none more so than the last two games of the UNCG series.

At this point the Bulldogs have major issues with the bullpen and some uncertainty about the starting rotation beyond Austin Pritcher. The defense has remained problematic, though the offense has continued to excel. Because of that offense, I expect the Bulldogs to be competitive in this tournament. There is a big difference between competing in the tourney and winning it, though, and pitching problems and defensive foibles suggest that it is unlikely The Citadel will be celebrating a championship on Sunday.

—

The Bulldogs do have a few things going for them, though.

– The main reason The Citadel is a 4 seed rather than a 1 or 2 seed is its less-than-stellar record against the three schools (Davidson, UNCG, and Wofford) that did not make the tournament. The Bulldogs were only 4-5 against those teams. On the bright side, however, The Citadel won’t have to face any of those squads in Greenville. The Bulldogs are 14-7 against the rest of the conference — 7-2 at home, 7-5 on the road. That’s very solid. Western Carolina, the 1 seed, was 15-6 against tourney teams; CofC was 12-8, and Elon was 10-10. The Citadel’s opponent on Wednesday, Appalachian State, was 7-11 against the other seven teams in the field.

– I think that three of the four teams that the Bulldogs wouldn’t want to face until the championship game are on the other side of the bracket. While Western Carolina has been the best team in the league this year and will presumably be the toughest out, The Citadel is fortunate that Elon, College of Charleston, and Furman will have to get past each other to make it to Sunday. (Things got tougher for CofC with the news that its top starting pitcher, Matt Pegler, is out for the tourney with a broken hand.)

The Paladins, in particular, are a team to watch, not as much for being the host school but because they have a much higher ceiling than a typical 6 seed. Furman has multiple quality victories out of conference this season (including two wins over Coastal Carolina and another versus South Carolina), and also won two out of three against all three schools in its bracket (Elon, College of Charleston, and Georgia Southern). Furman has been inconsistent in league play (and was 4-5 against the bottom three teams, just like The Citadel), but seems to be playing fairly well right now. The Paladins enter the tournament on a five-game winning streak.

– While The Citadel struggled down the stretch, so did several other teams in the league. Georgia Southern has lost seven straight, nine of its last ten, and nineteen of its last twenty-three games. The first three losses in that 23-game downward spiral came against the Bulldogs. Appalachian State is 7-11 in its last eighteen contests. Samford has lost seven of its last nine.

—

Fred Jordan is going to start Austin Pritcher against Appalachian State, a decision with which I completely agree. The first game in tournament play is critical, and even more so for The Citadel following its last-season slide. The Bulldogs have to get their mojo back sooner rather than later. I don’t like The Citadel’s chances of rebounding from a loss on Wednesday.

Starting the league’s Pitcher of the Year on Wednesday also gives Jordan the option of having Pritcher on the hill on Sunday, should the Bulldogs get that far. Pritcher is probably capable of giving The Citadel some decent innings on three days’ rest. If you started him on Thursday, I have my doubts he would be too effective on only two days’ rest.

The other thing that sometimes doesn’t get taken into account is that there is no guarantee which team will win the other game in The Citadel’s bracket. The idea of “holding” Pritcher to Thursday so as to have the Bulldogs’ best pitcher face Western Carolina is based on an assumption that the Catamounts will easily handle Samford on Wednesday. Maybe they will, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. WCU swept Samford in Cullowhee earlier in the season, but the score of the first matchup was 9-8.

—

I’m not overly confident that the Diamond Dogs can shake off the last two weeks and run the table in Greenville, but luckily I’m not one of the people who has to be confident. That requirement falls on the players (and coaches). It will be interesting to see if they are up to the challenge.

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Riley Report: From average to good to a championship — taking the next step

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Sandlapper Spike

When I last wrote about The Citadel’s baseball team, it had an overall record of 17-16, 6-6 in SoCon play. It now has a record of 27-18, 14-7 in the league. Clearly, the squad has played very well over the past three weeks. What has gone right for the Bulldogs?

Let’s take a look at the pitching, the defense, and the offense.

—

On April 7, the pitching staff had an ERA of 5.64 in SoCon games. That was through twelve games. Nine league contests later, and the team ERA is 4.56, a significant improvement. I think it is also worth pointing out that six of those nine league matchups were on the road.

I thought at the time that the ERA was a bit misleading, as the Bulldogs’ peripheral statistics suggested that the pitching had been a little better than that. The staff had a K/9 rate of 7.36 through twelve SoCon games, and a BB/9 rate of 3.33 in conference action. The K/9 rate is essentially unchanged after nine more league contests (7.35), but the BB/9 rate has actually dropped to 2.88, a very pleasant trend.

Another excellent downward trend has been home runs allowed. The Citadel has only allowed one homer in its last nine league games. The Bulldogs had allowed 10 in its their first 12 SoCon matchups, but now are on a homers allowed pace similar to last year’s 17 in 30 games, which is perfectly acceptable.

—

Time to talk defensive efficiency again. Defensive Efficiency (DER) is the rate in which balls put into play are converted into outs by a team’s defense. With 21 league games played, there is a little more to work with in terms of sample size.

The Citadel has a DER in SoCon play of .688, which is a little better than last season (and which has improved slightly over the past nine league contests). It is also better than the SoCon mean of .684 in 2012 (I am not able to get the current league mean DER, at least not without spending more time than I have calculating it).

You may recall that prior to its recent 10-game winning streak, The Citadel was having an issue with what I termed overaggressive fielding — in other words, errors committed while trying to throw out baserunners who were already on base (pickoffs, steal attempts, runners trying for extra bases, etc.). Through twelve league games the Bulldogs had committed twelve such errors, averaging one per game. In the past nine SoCon contests, however, The Citadel has committed only four of those types of errors.

Perhaps not coincidentally, two of them came in the only game the Bulldogs lost during that stretch.

—

The offense has kept putting crooked numbers on the board. Counting all games, not just conference matchups, The Citadel ranks in the top three among SoCon teams in OBP (leads league), homers, batting average (leads league), slugging, OPS, runs, hits, and walks. The Bulldogs put the ball in play when they aren’t walked or hit by a pitch, as they are second in the league in sacrifice bunts and have the second-fewest strikeouts.

Four Bulldogs rank in the top 7 in OBP in the Southern Conference. Each of those four players — Bo Thompson, Joe Jackson, Drew DeKerlegand, and Hughston Armstrong — also rank in the top 12 in park/schedule adjusted wOBA.

Thompson, in particular, is having a season to remember at the plate. He is currently fifth nationally in park/schedule adjusted OPS, which is an outcome of being third nationally in pk/sch/adj OBP and sixth in pk/sch/adj slugging.

He has not been getting good pitches to hit lately, but Thompson has been patient enough to take a lot of walks. He only has 20 hits in his last 22 games, but has still batted .290 over that stretch because of all those bases on balls (and occasionally HBPs).

For reasons not readily apparent, Furman decided to pitch to him in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. Thompson proceeded to go 5-5 with two homers and a double.

Thompson has twelve home runs this season while striking out only fourteen times, which is rather remarkable, but he isn’t the only Bulldog with pop who doesn’t strike out that often in SoCon action. Joe Jackson has hit seven of his eight homers in league games while only striking out nine times in conference play.

—

I don’t think there is any question that The Citadel’s offense, if it keeps up its current pace, is championship-caliber. If Tyler Griffin is able to return from his injury in time for the SoCon tournament, that will add yet another quality bat to the mix.

Another thing to watch is Bo Thompson’s ability to play first base. He played in the field last week against Charleston Southern, his first game in a role other than DH since hurting his ankle early in the season. If he can return to playing first base on a semi-regular basis, that could give Fred Jordan a bit more flexibility in his lineup options (though Calvin Orth has now cemented a role as an everyday player with his fine performance this season).

Whether or not the Bulldogs can take the “next step” from being merely a good team to a title-winning squad is clearly dependent on the pitching and defense. As far as the defense is concerned, I think it is basically a known quantity at this point.

The Citadel has an average to slightly above-average Southern Conference defense, one that can probably hold up as long as it avoids “unnecessary” errors. The team is capable of making the routine plays in the field, and its overall defensive range is adequate.

I am not entirely sure about the pitching, though there are a number of positives to consider, particularly in a tournament situation. The Citadel has the all-but-required “ace” in Austin Pritcher, who while not quite in the mold of Asher Wojciechowski or Jonathan Ellis is definitely a quality No. 1 starter.

The bullpen also has the depth the Bulldogs will need at Fluor Field in late May, provided that Zach Sherrill and David Rivera don’t wear out by then. The two pitchers have combined for 65 appearances in The Citadel’s first 45 games. Having a closer who can finish off batters (Skylar Hunter has 35 strikeouts in 26 1/3 innings) will also be helpful.

Earlier I mentioned that The Citadel has a K/9 rate of 7.35 in SoCon play, which is good but not quite at the level of some of the Bulldogs’ championship teams. For example, the 2010 pitching staff had a K/9 rate of 8.72 in league play. That is not insignificant, though it is also true that with the new BBCOR bat standards, pitching to contact tends to be rewarded now more often than it was in 2010.

—

Three quick notes:

– I don’t think the Bulldogs have much of a shot at an at-large bid this season. Jeff Hartsell summarized The Citadel’s case; it’s just not good enough, not in a slightly down year in the Southern Conference. Now, if the Bulldogs were to beat UNC on Wednesday and win all but one or two of their remaining league games, then maybe this subject can be revisited.

It would also help if Western Carolina went into a tailspin and opened up the league title race, though that doesn’t look likely. The Catamounts are hot and only have six conference games remaining, three of which are against Wofford and all of which are in Cullowhee.

– The Citadel doubled up on last week’s SoCon awards, claiming both Pitcher of the Week (Austin Pritcher) and Player of the Week (Johnathan Stokes). Pritcher is finishing a fine career at the military college in style. He also is one of three Bulldog starting pitchers named Austin, which probably leads the nation.

Stokes has a respectable 22 hits in 21 league games — but in those 21 games, the shortstop also has 18 runs batted in. He makes his hits count. When runners get on base, Stokes is ready to bring them home.

– I tweeted about this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to mention it again. Appalachian State’s last scheduled appearance in Riley Park will come at the 2014 Southern Conference tournament, much to the Mountaineers’ relief. Counting the league tourney, The Citadel has an alltime record of 29-2 against Appalachian State at Riley Park. No, that’s not a typo.

29-2. Just incredible. App hasn’t always been that strong in baseball, but it has usually been decent. Fred Jordan’s combined College Park/Riley Park record against the Mountaineers is a staggering 37-3. Appalachian State’s only series win against the Bulldogs in Charleston came in 1973, when Chal Port was still an assistant on the football team (in addition to his duties as head baseball coach).

—

It’s stretch time for the Diamond Dogs. There are eleven regular season games remaining, including nine league games, a game at Charleston Southern, and the aforementioned contest in Chapel Hill this week versus North Carolina. After the final league series, the action moves to the league tournament in Greenville.

It’s time for the team to make its case as a championship outfit. The potential is there.

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Riley Report: midway through the SoCon campaign

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel has now played fifteen Southern Conference baseball games so far this season, with fifteen more still to come. It’s a good time to take stock in where the team stands at this point. I’m going to discuss the team’s play as it relates to the league as a whole, and also some peripheral statistics associated with the action on the field.

First, though, let’s revisit Game 15 of the league campaign, which is almost certainly the most absurd comeback victory by any team this season in the entire country. For those who have been living under a rock for the past few days, the situation was as follows:

UNC- Greensboro 7, The Citadel 2. Bottom of the ninth inning at Riley Park, Bulldogs down to their last out. No one on base.

With two outs, Fred Jordan elected to give Ryne Hardwick a pinch-hit appearance. The native of Conway entered the game with only one base hit as a Bulldog, but he promptly doubled down the left field line off of UNCG pitcher Dylan Hathcock. This probably didn’t cause much concern for UNCG, although perhaps the Spartans should have been worried, as Hardwick had actually played a role in last year’s wild 17-14 victory over the College of Charleston, scoring a run in that contest.

It seems extreme baseball craziness can happen when Ryne Hardwick enters the fray…

After Nick Orvin legged out an infield single, Mason Davis doubled down the left field line, scoring Hardwick. At this point in the contest, UNCG coach Mike Gaski summoned Brennen James from the bullpen to replace Hathcock. James then proceeded to walk Justin Mackert on five pitches, loading the bases.

Joe Jackson came to the plate, representing the tying run. Jackson grounded to first, but UNCG first baseman Lloyd Enzor’s throw to a covering James was low and wide, and the pitcher couldn’t handle it.

Grant Richards was the next Bulldog to stride to the plate, and like Mackert he would walk on five pitches. Then Drew DeKerlegand would also walk on five pitches. That was it for UNCG’s James, who was replaced by Zach Furl.

After DeKerlegand reached, The Citadel trailed 7-6 and had the tying run at third base and the winning run on second. Hayden Hendry entered the game to pinch-run for Grant Richards. The batter was Calvin Orth, who had started the inning by grounding out to shortstop. Orth would again ground to shortstop — but this time UNCG shortstop Kris Richards bobbled the ball while moving to the second base bag. All hands were safe, and the game was tied.

Johnathan Stokes’ first at bat in the inning had resulted in a fly ball to left field. So would his second. Instead of being caught, though, the ball sailed over left fielder Zach Leach’s head. Hendry scored, and the Bulldogs had somehow won the game.

“You have got to be kidding me!” screamed Danny Reed over the radio.

I couldn’t believe it either. It was a great comeback for the Bulldogs, helped by UNCG’s decidedly unclutch pitching and defense. The Spartans could have ended the game several times, but were unable to make routine plays or consistently throw strikes. Credit The Citadel’s players for not giving in or giving up, though. Three other thoughts:

1) Why was the UNCG outfield playing so far in for Stokes? A left fielder at normal depth probably would have caught the eventual game-winning hit. It’s as if the Spartans thought there were less than two outs. I haven’t seen an outfielder as close to the infield in that situation since the days of Rafael Belliard.

2) The odds of winning a game when down five runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth are…not good. You can get an idea of the mathematics involved using a win probability calculator. Of course, something designed for MLB isn’t ideal for analyzing college baseball, but it’s probably a reasonable approximation. A 0.0006 win probability for The Citadel sounds about right.

3) You can bet that Mike Gaski will support an offer from Yemen to host the Southern Conference Baseball Tournament before he does a bid from the City of Charleston.

—

The three-game sweep of UNC-Greensboro improved the Bulldogs’ record in SoCon play to 7-8, which is currently good enough for seventh place in the league standings. The top eight teams in the conference will advance to the league tournament, which this year (and next) is being played at Fluor Field in Greenville instead of Charleston. (Actually, the tournament may not return to Charleston, but that’s a subject for another post.)

Longtime observers of The Citadel’s baseball program may be disappointed in being in seventh place, but to be honest I think a reasonable goal for this year’s team is to simply qualify for the league tournament. My reasoning for this is as follows:

– Last year The Citadel finished last in the conference for the first time. This happened the year after a championship season, so it came as a bit of a shock. It may be almost as shocking to realize that this last-place finish came in a year in which the league was down.

In 2010, the SoCon had a conference RPI that ranked as 9th-best nationally among all leagues. In 2011, though, that ranking dropped to 15th overall. This season, the league has had a good deal of success in non-conference play, and as a result the SoCon is currently ranked 8th in RPI.

In other words, The Citadel is trying to move up in the standings from one year to the next while the league as a whole is much improved from last year. The seventh-best team this year is probably considerably better than the seventh-best team from last season — and of course, the Bulldogs weren’t seventh last year. They were eleventh.

– Jeff Hartsell wrote recently about the team’s struggles (this came prior to the sweep of UNCG). I think the key point he made was about attrition. For any varsity sport at The Citadel, keeping attrition low is critical. The baseball program has had a tough run over the last couple of years when it comes to losing players, particularly pitchers, and it was a factor (though not the only factor) in last season’s collapse.

This year’s team is quite young, with three true freshmen manning the middle infield spots and a host of frosh hurlers making contributions. There are actually more freshmen (redshirt and “true”) listed on the roster in The Citadel’s game notes (18) than sophomores, juniors, and seniors combined (17).

Everyone associated with The Citadel knows the difficulty freshmen face in adjusting to life at the military college, both on the field and off. They are not likely to be consistently excellent on the diamond.

The one thing that has to happen, though, is that this year’s crop of freshmen needs to return in force next season. When a program at The Citadel starts turning over freshmen year after year, that’s when it gets in trouble. Retention is all-important, not just for the school’s mission, but for the success of its varsity teams.

– There is one other issue that might have an impact on The Citadel’s overall record (not necessarily its record in league play). The relatively recent compression of the college baseball schedule puts The Citadel at a bit of a disadvantage, even in good years for the Bulldogs. Having to play 56 games in a 13-week period means that more midweek games are being played, and that can test a team’s overall depth, particularly in regards to pitching.

The Citadel has never really been known as a team with a great deal of pitching depth. The Bulldogs have generally had good pitching staffs, but those staffs were built for conference games played on the weekends.

In 2010, The Citadel won the Southern Conference with a league record of 24-6. The Bulldogs wound up losing fewer conference games that year than they did games played on Tuesday. The Citadel was 1-7 on Tuesday.

I remember arguing a little that season with Baseball America college baseball writer Aaron Fitt about The Citadel’s viability as an at-large candidate. He pointed to the Bulldogs’ less-than-stellar non-league record as a reason for doubt. My argument in response was that The Citadel was winning a top-10 league. I could have also noted that regional matchups are not played on Tuesdays.

Basically, what I’m saying is that given the “tighter” college baseball schedule of today, The Citadel may drop an occasional midweek game that it shouldn’t. That won’t be a problem for conference play, and will only matter in years when the team is a legitimate at-large candidate for an NCAA bid.

—

I think the league can be broken into two distinct groupings this season. There are six teams that will be in the league tournament unless something strange happens (Appalachian State, Elon, Western Carolina, Georgia Southern, Samford, and the College of Charleston). Then there is another group of five teams, with likely two of them making the tourney. Right now The Citadel leads that group, which also includes Furman, Davidson, UNC-Greensboro, and Wofford.

The Citadel has already played UNCG and Wofford, both at home. The Bulldogs won five of those six games, which is important. The Citadel will play Furman later in the season at Riley Park, and will play Davidson on the road.

The Bulldogs’ only other home conference series remaining is against Georgia Southern. The Citadel faces a short trip to Patriots Point for a series against the College of Charleston, and a longer trip to Elon.

—

In my baseball preview a couple of months ago, I noted that The Citadel’s team defense was awful last season, regressing from a respectable defensive efficiency of 66.8% in league play in 2010 (slightly better than average) to 63.2% in 2011 (worst in the league by far). That differential is even worse when you consider that the new bat standards that went into effect for the 2011 season resulted in generally higher DER across the board.

The Citadel’s defensive efficiency in 2012 stands at 67.2% through 15 conference games, a significant improvement from 2011. It is probably not quite as good as the 2010 number once the changed bat standards are taken into account, but is still respectable.

There isn’t enough readily available statistical information yet to compare The Citadel’s DER to that of its conference brethren this year, but I will hazard a guess that the Bulldogs have been an average defensive team in league action. The fielding percentage stats would indicate The Citadel is actually nearer the bottom of the pack than the top, but I think that’s slightly misleading. There is definitely still room for improvement in this area, however.

—

Comparing pitching ERA from 2010, 2011, and 2012 (league play only):

Year    Dogs  SoCon avg.
2010    4.26       6.15
2011    5.44       4.69
2012    5.70       4.72

As you can see, the development of the mound staff by new pitching coach Britt Reames is still a work in progress. (The conference ERA over the last two seasons reflects the impact the new bat standards have had on the formerly hitter-friendly league.)

You have to be careful with sample sizes, of course. For 2012, keep in mind that nine of The Citadel’s fifteen games have been at home, at a “pitcher’s park”. On the other hand, three of the six road games took place at Smith Stadium in Boone, which per Boyd Nation had a park factor rating of 124 for the previous four seasons.

Freshmen are responsible for more than 42% of the innings pitched by Bulldog hurlers (that’s for all games, not just league contests), so there is a reasonable likelihood of improvement as the season continues. Reames has not been afraid to use a quick hook, but he has also not hesitated to give pitchers multiple opportunities (five of the frosh pitchers have appeared in at least twelve games so far).

My own sense of Reames’ approach, which may be completely off base, is that he is being careful with the young pitchers, not just from a physical standpoint, but a psychological one. He isn’t inclined to let someone hang around on the hill too long and get absolutely crushed.

I do have one concern with the pitching going forward, and that is the K rate. The Citadel’s pitching staff averaged 8.7 strikeouts per nine innings in 2010, and had a still solid 7.8 K/9 ratio in 2011. This season, however, that number has dropped to 5.5/9 in SoCon play. That’s too low.

The Citadel’s pitching staff has traditionally had strong strikeout rates, though it is also true that one pitcher (i.e., Asher Wojciechowski) can make a big difference in the overall numbers. Ultimately, the Bulldogs’ pitchers are going to have to miss more bats in order to reach their desired level of success.

I do want to highlight two pitchers who are getting the job done this year, but neither is a freshman. Friday starter Austin Pritcher has thrown at least 5 1/3 innings in each of his nine starts, with a solid 3.42 ERA. He has been a much-needed constant in the starting rotation.

Senior sidearmer Ryan Hines has appeared in 25 of The Citadel’s 37 games, all out of the bullpen, and has proven to be the kind of reliable setup man/closer type that any good team needs. If the Bulldogs qualify for the SoCon tourney, though, Hines is going to need some help in the ‘pen if The Citadel hopes to do more than its fair share of post-season damage.

—

The Bulldogs are still waiting for their bats to awaken, particularly in conference action. In 2011, the team batting average of .280 was a tad subpar, but it looks great when compared to the current .250 BA that The Citadel is sporting in SoCon play. The Bulldogs had an OPS of 741 last season in league games, which tied for 7th-best in the conference. This season, that number has fallen to 701, which is somehow still better than three other league teams (UNCG, Davidson, and Wofford, with the Terriers having an anemic 600 OPS).

I think the hitting will improve, which may be an optimistic viewpoint, but one that I believe is grounded in reality. Nick Orvin is not a .266 hitter; he’s better than that, and there is still plenty of time this season to prove it.

It may be that he has been the victim of some excellent pitching. Earlier in the season, Orvin was getting in some tough counts while at the plate. I took a lot at his plate appearances through March 11, and found that he was batting .500 when the first pitch of the AB was a ball but only .063 when it was a strike (or if he put the first pitch into play). At that time, he was seeing a lot of first-pitch strikes.

Orvin is going to get his hits, eventually. So will Joe Jackson, who I am hoping will also develop some more power. Another guy who should be about ready to break out is Drew DeKerlegand, who is only batting .250 after hitting .317 in his freshman campaign.

Those players are all proven commodities with a bat in their hands. It may be that opposing pitchers are working around them, not giving them good pitches to hit, and taking their chances with the bottom of the order. One of those batters in the lower part of the lineup needs to get hot. If so, it could prove contagious (to borrow one of Fred Jordan’s pet expressions).

—

It’s been a bumpy road at times this season for the baseball team. There are signs, however, that the path ahead may be a bit smoother. Don’t be surprised if there are still a few potholes to navigate, though. After all, we’re talking about The Citadel.

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The SoCon baseball tourney moves to Greenville

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s SoCon baseball tourney time, live from Riley Park in beautiful downtown Charl…

Oh.  They moved the tournament this year.

That’s right.  After 19 consecutive years in Charleston, the powers that be in the Southern Conference wilted from the non-stop complaints of a select few and moved the tournament (for at least one year) to Greenville, where it will be held at Fluor Field.  (The tourney returns to Riley Park next year.)

The tournament regularly made money (!) when it was held in Charleston.  Don’t expect it to do so in Greenville, where it will lack the kind of community support that has made it successful in the Holy City.  Of course, the conference doesn’t realy need the money.  Wait, what’s that you say?  The economic climate in the country has hit the SoCon hard?  The league is cutting costs, including not holding media days for football and basketball?  It’s going to reduce the number of teams that qualify for conference tournaments in sports like women’s soccer, men’s soccer, women’s tennis, men’s tennis, volleyball, and softball?  It’s going to force conference baseball series next year to be held over two days rather than three, with Saturday doubleheaders, to save on travel expenses?  It’s going to do all those things and then cut off its nose to spite its face by moving its baseball tourney just to please a small group of whiners?

Yes, it is.  (The league is also not printing media guides next year, although that strikes me as a good permanent move, what with being able to publish the guides online.  It would be nice if the conference updated its historical records information in hoops and baseball, which hasn’t been done in several years.)

The complaints came over a perceived home field advantage for The Citadel (and for the College of Charleston to a lesser extent).  The loudest of the voices was that of UNC Greensboro coach Mike Gaski, who campaigned to move the tournament for about a decade, or not too long after his 1998 squad had been defeated by The Citadel in the tournament championship game.  That was UNCG’s first year in the league after having lots of success in the Big South.  Gaski’s crew had won the regular season in the SoCon by a half-game over The Citadel, and by one game over Western Carolina, in a very tight three-way race.  Then the tournament rolled around.  The Spartans had actually swept the Bulldogs in Charleston earlier that season, but when the games really mattered, The Citadel prevailed twice over UNCG by a combined score of 21-1.

There really should not have been much to complain about — 21-1 strikes me as being rather decisive — but that was just the start of the drumbeat for moving the tourney.  The thing is, though, UNCG hasn’t won the league regular season title since then.  The Spartans did make it to the tourney title game in 2001, as the 5 seed, when they lost to (of course) The Citadel, which probably rankled Gaski even more.

As everyone knows, home field advantage in baseball isn’t nearly as important as it is in football or basketball.  There is no comparison between The Citadel playing tournament games at Riley Park and UT-Chattanooga getting to host the SoCon men’s hoops tourney on its home court.  That is borne out by the numbers.  While UTC has won the basketball tournament both times it has hosted it, I think some people would be surprised if they took a look at the baseball tournament history since the SoCon set up shop in Charleston.  There have been 19 tournaments held in Chucktown, and here is the breakdown over that time span:

The Citadel — 5 regular season titles, 7 tournament titles
College of Charleston — 3 regular season titles, 1 tournament title
Western Carolina — 3 regular season titles, 4 tournament titles
Georgia Southern — 5 regular season titles, 3 tournament titles
Elon — 2 regular season titles, 1 tournament title
UNC Greensboro — 1 regular season title, 0 tournament titles
Furman — 0 regular season titles, 2 tournament titles
Wofford — 0 regular season titles, 1 tournament title

The Citadel is +2 overall in 19 years of hosting the event (in terms of tourney versus regular season titles).  Meanwhile, the other local school reputed to have at least something of an edge by the tournament being held in Charleston, the CofC, is -2.  So much for a huge local advantage.

After Gaski and UNCG, the school with the most fans critical of the tournament being held in Charleston is probably Western Carolina — but the Catamounts have had their fair share of success there, and are +1.  Really, it’s Georgia Southern that logically would have the biggest complaint (-2), but its fans don’t seem to have had nearly as much of an issue with the tournament being held in the port city (it’s not an inconvenient location for them, for one thing).

The school that appears to have had the biggest benefit to playing in Charleston, as far as tourney vs. regular season success goes, is Furman, with no league regular season titles but two tourney titles since 1990.  Thus, the conference in its infinite wisdom is moving the tournament so the Paladins can be the host team…

You know what this is really about?  It’s about programs not being as successful as they once were, and not getting in the NCAA tournament, and looking for an excuse.  Western Carolina dominated the league in the mid-to-late 1980s, winning five straight tournament titles from 1985-89, all of which were held either in Cullowhee, Boone, or Asheville.  In those five years, WCU also happened to win the league regular season (or division) title four times.  The Catamounts also won a division title in 1984, but didn’t win the tournament that season.

UNC Greensboro won the Big South in 1994 and 1997, winning that conference’s tournament title both years as well.  It entered the Southern Conference following the ’97 campaign.

Western Carolina fans remember the glory days of winning the league every year.  The Catamounts have generally still been competitive, and among the better teams in the league, but they don’t win the conference title every year, and that is reflected in WCU’s tournament results.  The same can be said for UNCG, which has usually been good, but hasn’t enjoyed as much success as it had in the Big South immediately prior to joining the SoCon.

Unfortunately for Gaski and the Spartans, the year the tournament finally moves to Greenville has coincided with that of one of his worst squads, and UNCG has not qualified for this year’s tournament.  I suspect the coach finds that particularly galling.

I hope that Greenville does a decent job hosting the event.  I think it’s safe to assume that there will be a tarp at Fluor Field.  As some of us remember, that wasn’t the case when the tournament was held in Asheville.  The league can’t afford to repeat the 1989 debacle, which just screamed “Mickey Mouse conference” (and which led directly to the tournament moving to Charleston).

I suppose any of the eight teams in the tournament could win it, but I would rank them like this:

Elon — clearly the best team in the league; NCAA lock
Georgia Southern, The Citadel, Western Carolina, College of Charleston — all think they can win the tourney
Appalachian State, Davidson — dangerous, but probably not dangerous enough to win the tournament
Furman — happy to be the host

The latest projections from Baseball America, SEBaseball.com, etc., suggest that as many as three teams from the SoCon can make the NCAAs.  I am a little dubious about that.  Elon is definitely in, but if the Phoenix win the league tournament I don’t know what other team, if any, will join them as a regional participant.  That will depend on how the other teams fare in Greenville.  My best guess is that Georgia Southern is best positioned to get a bid from among the other schools.  I think The Citadel and the College of Charleston have to win the tournament (that’s probably a given for the CofC at this point), and that Western Carolina may have to at least reach the championship game.

The seedings were thus very important for the contenders, and the short straw was drawn by WCU and the CofC.  Not only do those two squads have to play each other in the first round, but the winner likely has to face Elon in the next game.  Georgia Southern’s second-place league finish means that the Eagles avoid all three of those teams until at least Friday (the same is true for The Citadel).  That said, this tournament has a history of early-round upsets, and neither Appalachian State nor Davidson are easy outs.  Even Furman has to be given a puncher’s chance.

As for The Citadel, I would like the Bulldogs’ chances a lot more if the relief pitching were a little better.  Drew Mahaffey is a quality closer, but the setup corps has left a lot to be desired.  Fred Jordan only appears to have faith in one other reliever, Raymond Copenhaver, but Copenhaver has had his ups and downs this year.

Of course, one solution to the problem with the relief pitching is to have the starters all throw complete games, similar to what happened in 2004 (when The Citadel had a tournament-record five complete games, two by Jonathan Ellis).  If a particular starter is effective, then Jordan is likely to leave him in the game as long as he possibly can.

The Bulldogs appear to be playing better defensively, and the offense is close to its peak level entering the tournament, which is good.  If the bottom of the order can be at least somewhat productive, The Citadel should score a lot of runs, because batters 1-6 have been getting the job done.

I favor Elon to win the tournament, but I am hoping the Bulldogs can have a special week.  I would also find it a bit amusing if The Citadel wins the tournament in a year when it’s not held in Charleston.

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