Riding a season-long nine game win streak, after adding the conference tournament championship to our regular season CUSA title, the Rice Baseball Owls take to the road for the regional round of the post-season (only the third time in the last decade not hosting a regional at Reckling Park). The first stop along the Road To Omaha will be Eugene, OR, where the Owls will face off in a double-elimination format against #3 seed San Francisco (Friday at 4:00pm CT), #1 seed and national seed Oregon, and #4 seed North Dakota State. Should we advance to the Super-Regionals, we are paired with the North Carolina State regional, and would likely be sent packing to either Raleigh, NC or Oxford, MS (Ole Miss). Fortunately, we have been road warriors all season long, posting an outstanding 17-6 road record, and have yet to lose a weekend series on the road. Let's keep that trend going!
First up for the Owls will be the San Francisco Dons, who finally received that covetted post-season invite after a couple years of being snubbed. They are an upperclass-laden squad, who tied for the regular season lead in the West Coast Conference with a 15-9 record, but lost the conference tournament in the championship game to a San Diego team they had beaten three previous times this year. The Dons posted an overall 34-22 record (20-12 on the road, 4-6 vs. Top 50, 10-12 vs. Top 100). After a somewhat slow start to the season, they have won 22 of their last 30 games, including 12 of their last 16 games. They have played to a much tougher Strength of Schedule than the Owls (#44 vs. #95 in SoS ranking), which has had a positive impact on their national rankings of #32 in ISR, #38 in Massey's comparative rankings, #47 in Warren Nolan's NPI and #50 in RPI (vs. #26, #21, #27 and #32 rankings, respectively, for Rice). And the Don's have posted quality wins against #3 Oregon State, #47 San Diego x 3, #54 BYU, #55 UC-Santa Barbara x 2, #58 Arizona, #65 Stanford and #87 San Diego State. This is one of the better #3 seeds in the tournament. Here's their schedule/results over their first 56 games...
http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2013/sch...-Francisco
Offensively, San Francisco is average at best, with the team hitting .267/.348/.371, with 28 HRs, and averaging 2.5 extrabase hits and 4.9 runs per game (vs. Rice at .282/.374/.373, with 24 HRs, and averaging 2.1 extrabase hits and 5.3 runs per game). They have three batters hittting over .330, but another three batters hitting .250 or lower. It is a lineup of free-swinging, contact hitters who do not walk much (averaging just 3 BBs/game), but do not strikeout at a high frequency either. Having said that, they have struck out 95 more times than they have received free passes (whereas the Owls have now collected 5 more free passes than times they've struck out). This could be another game where Austin Kubitza leads with his off-speed and breaking pitches. One thing to be wary about with the Dons-- they've been hit by the pitch a whopping 74 times, which would indicate that they not only crowd the plate, but don't make an effort to get out of the way of errant pitches. As with most West Coast teams, they do try to deploy the small ball game (with 3 guys have 8+ sac bunts on the season), but they have only two legitimate basestealing threats (Zimmer with 18 SBs, and leadoff man Maffei with 15).
Here's San Francisco's everyday lineup, featuring three left-handed hitters (Zimmer, Atkinson, Rowan), along with their YTD stats...
1. CF J.Maffei (Sr, Right-handed hitter): .293/.364/.393, 4 HRs, 12 doubles, 21 RBIs,
15-21 SBs
2. 2B J. Mahood (Sr, R): .276/.365/.330, 12 doubles, 17 RBIs,
12 HBP, 12 sac bunts
3. RF B.Zimmer (So, L): .335/.456/.543, 7 HRs, 15 doubles/triples, 36 RBIs,
11 sac flies, 16 HBP, 18-26 SBs
4. 1B Z.Turner (Jr, R): .335/.379/.516, 8 HRs, 15 doubles,
62 RBIs, 47 Ks5. LF D.Atkinson (So, L): .333/.407/.431, 2 HRs, 6 doubles, 19 RBIs
6. 3B B.Cruikshank (So, R): .285/.357/.395, 1 HR,
19 doubles, 31 RBIs
7. DH M.Rowan (Sr, L): .230/.348/.336, 9 doubles/triples, 14 RBIs
8. ss J.Miller (Jr, R): .250/.339/.347, 1 HR, 9 doubles/triples, 17 RBIs
9. C R.Matranga (Fr, R): .191/.271/.296, 3 HRs, 3 doubles, 17 RBIs, 10 sac bunts
With Zimmer, Turner and Atkinson, San Francisco has a potent middle of the lineup. However, Oregon's PK Park is an extemely pitcher-friendly park-- with field turf throughout, lots of foul territory and a very difficult place to hit HRs. If we can continue to keep the free passes to a minimum, as we've done the past 2+ weeks, our pitchers should be able to keep us in the game.
Defensively, the Dons have posted the same .973 fielding percentage as Rice; however, they have only turned 37 double plays-- 21 via ground balls (vs. 67 double plays turned by the Owls, with 56 coming on ground balls), and opposing teams have run aggressively against them, successfully stealing 78 - 100 bases. Having said that, their primary catcher (Matranga) has but one error, has allowed just 4 passed balls and 19 wild pitches; so while he may have only a 22% caught stealing rate, he does a great job blocking balls in the dirt. No position player has committed more than 9 errors on the season.
San Francisco boasts a very deep pitching staff, and one of the strongest bullpens in the country. Six different pitchers have started at least 4 games, and they have six relievers who have made 15+ appearances. They also have a very good mix of right-handers and southpaws (including one left-handed weekend starter and two upperclass left-handers out of the bullpen, each of whom have appeared in 21 games). Overall, the staff numbers are solid, but not elite level: 3.46 ERA, .258 BAA, 2.6 strikeout:walk ratio, 6.6 Ks/game. However, though the only pitcher on the entire staff with good strikeout numbers is their closer (with 56 Ks in 49.2 IP), almost everyone on the staff has outstanding control. They gave up only 2.5 walks per game and recorded only 19 wild pitches over the course of 56 games-- both of which are extremely low numbers. Consequently, I can definitely see us going back to our first pitch hitting in this one game; especially if we're getting fastballs early in the count. The Don's have such a strong bullpen that they recently moved their workhorse set-up man (Hinkle) into the Friday night starter slot, and he's 4-0 since becoming the staff ace. My guess is we'll either see Hinkle or Balog on Friday afternoon-- both veteran right-handers...
H.Hinkle (Sr, RHP): 18 app, 4 starts, 9-1, 2 saves, 73.2 IP,
1.83 ERA, .197 BAA, 17 BBs, 57 Ks
A.Balog (Jr, RHP): 13 starts, 3-3, 85.1 IP, 3.69 ERA, .278 BAA, 30 BBs, 63 Ks
A.Bobb (RS Jr, RHP): 17 app, 10 starts, 5-5, 1 save, 73.2 IP, 3.79 ERA, .285 BAA, 19 BBs, 15 HBP, 48 Ks
C.Cecilio (So, LHP): 15 starts, 3-3, 70.0 IP, 4.11 ERA, .261 BAA, 19 BBs, 13 HBP, 46 Ks
B.Graff (Jr, LHP): 21 app, 2-1, 23.2 IP, 1.52 ERA, .137 BAA, 7 BBs, 22 Ks
B.Mott (RS Sr, LHP): 21 app, 2-1, 30.0 IP, 2.40 ERA, .233 BAA, 10 BBs, 17 Ks
A.Pulido (Sr, RHP): 26 app, 6 starts, 1-0, 2 saves, 45.1 IP, 3.38 ERA, .256 BAA, 11 BBs, 27 Ks
A.Cimber (Sr, RHP): 31 app, 6-3, 9 saves, 49.2 IP, 3.81 ERA, .275 BAA, 11 BBs, 56 Ks
Here's the Dons' individual/team stats for the year...
http://www.usfdons.com/custompages/Stats...amcume.htm
We can ill-afford to take San Francisco lightly, as they have proven to be a quality team capable of beating anyone in the country. IMO, they are one of the better #3 seeds in the tournament. A couple years back, in their last post-season appearance as a #4 seed in the Los Angelos regional, they shutout national seed UCLA in the opening game....and back in 2006, their only other previous post-season appearance, they knocked off host Nebraska in the regional-opening game. We need Austin to pitch the way he's done his past two outings-- and go deep into the game to preserve our bullpen for what could be a 4 - 5 game weekend...and we need our offense to be aggressive both at the plate and on the bases. Let's get off to a good start and into the winners bracket. Let's continue to play the role of road warriors. Go Owls!
Here's the Rice game notes from riceowls.com...
http://www.riceowls.com/sports/m-basebl/...13aaa.html
Here's video interview with S.F. head coach, Nino Giarratano, talking about the Dons's season and previewing the regional...
http://www.usfdons.com/news/2013/5/29/BB...32153.aspx
Here's Kendall Rogers'/Perfect Game's Eugene Regional preview...
http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View...ticle=8526
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San Francisco Preview (Eugene Regional)-- Road Warriors Hit The Road To Omaha
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