The Baseball Owls wrap up their road trip with a Tuesday night (6:30pm CT start) game vs. Lamar in Beaumont. If we are to keep the momentum from our come-back win against ECU, we best not take the Lamar lightly, as this is a vastly superior Cardinals team than we've faced the past several years...and one which is proving to be VERY difficult to beat at home. They are also an experienced, upperclass-laden team, with 7 of 8 position players, the entire weekend rotation and 3 top relievers all returning from last year's squad.
The Cardinals come into the game on a high themselves, coming off a big road series win vs. #58 Southeastern Louisiana (outscoring them 29-10 in the process). Overall, Lamar sports an impressive 24 - 9 record (19-4 at home, 4-4 vs. Top 100), which includes a big mid-week win against Houston two weeks ago. However, one has to question whether their stats are somewhat inflated as they have played to one of the weakest Strength of Schedule in the country (#243 according to Boydsworld). Their record has been padded by wins against #278 Northern Kentucky x 3, #289 Massachusetts x 3, #272 Prairie View, #236 Texas-PanAmerica x 2, #218 Houston Baptist x 2, #194 Texas Southern and #186 Columbia x 3. Here's their schedule/results over their first 33 games...
http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2013/schedule/Lamar
Offensively and defensively, Lamar ranks amongst the national leaders. As a team they're hitting .300/.383/.406, and averaging 3 extra base hits and 6.2 runs per game. Their lineup features 5 everyday players hitting above .300, with onbase percentages above .400, led by Darian Johnson (.403/.456/.511, 12 doubles/triples, 22 RBIs, 5-5 SBs).
Defensively, they've post an exceptional .988 fielding percentage, having committed just 16 errors all season (less than 0.5 errors per game) and, amazingly, no single player has committed more than 2 errors.
And it's not as if they've been sub-par on the mound either, as their pitching staff has posted very solid numbers: 3.70 ERA, .236 BAA, 1.9 strikeout:walk ratio, 7.1 Ks per game. They have three quality weekend starters and 3 quality relievers, and appear to have held back their usual Saturday starter to pitch against us on Tuesday (as he pitched just one inning of relief over the weekend)...
Eric Harrington (Sr, RHP): 7 starts, 4-1, 51.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, .255 BAA, 13 BBs, 5 HB P, 38 Ks
Certainly not a power pitcher with a lot of strikeouts, but very good stats, nonetheless.
Here are Lamar's individual/team stats year-to-date...
http://www.lamarcardinals.com/sports/m-b...mcume.html
The question with Lamar is to what extent their stats-- both offensively and on the mound-- are inflated due to their weak schedule. They did beat UH with "all staff" and knocked Aaron Garza out of the box early.
The offense needs to carry over some of the late inning mojo from Sunday, and whomever pitches (McDowell?, McCanna?, Ditman?, Spurlin?) needs to keep the free passes to a minimum and let our defense do it's thing. Let's keep the momentum and confidence building. Go Owls!
Eric Sorenson, in his preseason writeups, predicted Lamar would be the "breakout" team in the Southland Conference...
http://www.collegebaseballtoday.com/2013...onference/
Quote:BREAKTHROUGH TEAM:
- Lamar.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen ole Lamar rising to the upper crust of the Southland. Wasn’t too long ago that they were a fixture in the contending department, but last year’s 22-30 season marked the second straight losing season for coach Jim Gilligan and his crew. But it’s all hands on deck for LU this year as eight field starters and all three weekend starters are slated to come back to the squad for 2013.
- LAMAR (22-30, 14-19)
2012 ISR: 141
Starters Returning: 8
Weekend Starters: 3
Mid-Week Starters: 0
Key Relievers (15+inns.): 4
All Conference Candidates:
OF Darian Johnson (.344-4-25)
1B Brad Picha (.320)
NOTES:
- Yikes. We’re not used to seeing this from LU. The 2012 season marked the third straight campaign where the Cardinals finished below the Mendoza Line in Southland Conference play. They finished in a three-way tie for 8th place in the SLC with Texas A&M-CC and Northwestern State, but got nosed out of the post-season tournament thanks to a combined 1-5 record against those two teams.
- Seven of the eight returning starters are JC transfers who should have a better feel for the sport at the D1 level. The top four hitters all return, led by Darian Johnson, Brad Picha, Seth Dornak (.310-3-22) and Garret Autrey (.299-4-29).
- All three weekend starters are slated to come back to campus (at the time I’m writing this in mid-January, the Cardinals still hadn’t posted their 2013 roster… yes, hard to believe). Jonathan Dziedzic (5-4, 3.47), Eric Harrington (3-9, 4.46) and Carter Hahn (3-3, 4.82) combined for 36 starts and had seven complete games last season.
