OSU Baseball gets attacked

OSU Beavers Baseball has arrived. We've weathered a "rebuilding" year and made it back to the College World Series for a 3rd consecutive year. But with success comes other things. There are the groupies (love them), attackers (thanks Rachel), the copy-cats (stick to track), and even some collateral damage (sort of). I've got a few thoughts on two of these things.

1) Rachel Bachman is trying to be the Woodward and Bernstein of the OSU program (link). Give it a rest. First, why bring this up now when it happened weeks ago? Do you bring it up if the Beavs don't make the CWS? Why not during their late-season slump. I admit that I was surprised at the lack of reprecussions on Lissman, but to publish this story the morning of their first game? Lame.

2) The Ducks need to stick to what they're good at (link, reaction). In the spring, that's track. What "Pre" and "Track-Town USA" isn't a big enough hint? Stick to track. OSU will handle the baseball for this state. The chips fell this way 30 years ago and this is what you get. Just because track is down these days doesn't mean you should spend tons of money getting D1 baseball back on campus. Let us have our success.


On to Cal-State Fullerton. I don't have time for a full preview of this one, but upon looking at them over the last week I noticed a few things:

* They are OSU's twin. Light-hitting and good pitching (stats). Their .280 team batting average mirrors ours and only 3 players have a better than .300 average.

* Wes Roemer, today's stater, may be having a down year, but he's still awesome. Only 22 walks in 136 IP. Then there's the 143 K's. Anytime you see more K's than IP, thats real good. When the walks are that low, that's frickin awesome. His only knock is that he's a little hittable this year giving up 137 hits for a .262 BAA.

* The bullpen looks good, but the best relief pitchers may not be their closer (assuming its still Adam Jorgenson).

* The hitter to watch out for? Clark Hardman. He's hitting .391 with 14 2Bs and 5 HRs. Not to mention the .960 OPS. Looks like he's a free swinger though. Only 12 BBs in 261 ABs.

* No one is super fast on their team, but they like to run anyways. Their SB% is 62% which is OK, but you're suppose to be about 66% or you're actually hurting your team and scoring less.


Be there at 4pm today. ESPN or radio. I'll be radio (dang weddings!). I'm going to be like those ESPN commercials with the "MVPs" who managed to keep track of games while at ballets or weddings.

Go Beavers!