| 25 February 2011
Ben Johnson is a former three-time All-PAC-10 shortstop at Oregon State University and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1990 MLB Draft. A four-time conference Coach of the Year in the Midwestern and Mt Hood Conferences while leading Sheldon High School and Hood River High School to conference championships, Johnson also coached at Willamette University and served as an Associate Scout with the Kansas City Royals. A featured baseball writer with Beyond the Beat, Johnson is also the creator of College Baseball Stars.com.
The Oregon Ducks are undoubtedly going to experience some turbulence before the youth and inexperience factor settles into a confident playing rhythm. Eight freshmen made their collegiate debuts for Oregon last weekend with three (OF Connor Hofmann, 1B Tyler Kuresa and OF Aaron Jones) starting all four games of the series.
The bats have continued to be somewhat of a sore spot and liability given that there are not going to be a lot of 4 or five run innings with this offense, which places a tremendous burden on the starting pitching in general and the bullpen in particular.
The general rule at the upper levels in baseball is that the majority of the time, the winning team has scored more in one inning than the losing team has scored the entire ball game, but with the Ducks inability to string big innings together, they have to grind through some tough situations and winning consistency is threatened.
Thus, we witnessed Oregon's 2-2 start to the beginning of the 2011 campaign. Oregon had the lead early and into the middle innings in the first two games of the series, but lost both when the starting pitching exited the ball game.
If there is a weakness in the Oregon pitching department it would have to be in the bullpen. Although Junior Scott McGough had a strong summer pitching with Team USA, he promptly came into the game with a one-run lead on Saturday night after inheriting a runner on first with two outs, but pinch-hitter Sean Montplaisir lined a double into right field, putting the game-tying run at third and the game-winning run on second.
Breland Almadova then dropped a walk-off RBI single into center field as the Rainbows came from behind for the second night in row to upset Oregon.
Oregon struggled a bit with their bullpen last year when expected ace Drew Gagnier struggled with his command and by seasons end had lost his closer role to McGough and Madison Boer.
This year, the struggles continue, but its far too early to note if its a trend or just a poor weekend performance overall.
The easiest barometer to use when judging the bullpen is to look at the score by innings.
Typically, programs take a win the inning approach in college baseball, but they break the game up into three stanza's with the first nine outs (innings 1 through three) being the start, the middle nine outs (innings 4 through six) being what is termed the "lull or dead calm," and the last nine outs (innings 7 through nine) being what we call "winning time."
When looking at the Ducks opening weekend, they started well, winning the first nine outs 8-4, and managed the dead calm or lull portion of the game (the middle innings) 9-6, but when it came down to the all important final nine outs - winning time - the Ducks were outscored 8-4.
This is a direct reflection on the bullpen and its inability to hold the lead as witnessed by Oregon's opening two losses.
Biggest Surprise of the Hawaii Series:
The biggest surprise of the weekend had to be the play of Aaron Jones, who batted in the leadoff position in every game of the four game set with Hawaii. Jones was 8-for-18 with a double, two home runs, three runs scored and a stolen base. It was quite the debut considering he wanted to place kick and punt for the Oregon Football team, before deciding on baseball as his college sport of choice.
As fate would have it, it turned out to be a great decision for Horton and crew.
Although much was expected of Madison Boer entering the year, few expected him to provide 8 full innings of work throwing a one hit shutout to give the Ducks their initial victory after two gut wrenching losses, but with a fast ball in the mid-90 range with a plus slider, Boer's performance was one of the better pitching performances in all of college baseball to start the season.
He was named the PAC-10 Conference Pitcher of the Week and won the KSI Index National Spotlight Sunday-Starter Award over at CollegeBaseballStars.com.
Largest Area of Concern:
It is true that the bullpen failed to protect the lead in games one and two in Hawaii, but for Oregon, the largest area of concern can be found in the hitting department. The Ducks are hitting .252 as a team with a team ERA of 3.48. If the Ducks can raise that number above the .300 threshold throughout the year, expect them to be in the hunt for a trip to Omaha. If they fail to raise that number above the .300 threshold, expect another season where quality pitching performances will be wasted due to the lack of offensive production.
In 2010, the Ducks hit .292 as a team last year and one of the top Team ERA's in the country at 3.29. Those numbers sound great, but if Oregon expects to be a team that manages the 22 week challenge course on the road to Omaha, the hitting statistics will have to climb.
After working the College World Series last year, the biggest thing I was struck by was the balance of the teams who made the Elite-8 in Omaha. Pitching is obviously the area you want to hang your hat on as a program, but there has to be some offensive balance there as well. Of the teams who earned the trip to Omaha, all could score runs in bunches when the opportunity presented itself.
Of course Oregon would be a full strength with K.C. Serna in the line-up at shortstop, but George Horton has continued the suspension for another week but left the door open for the potential to reevaluate things sometime next week. The bottom line is the Ducks need Serna in the line-up if they expect to contend for the conference championship.
Serna had the best overall Sabermetrics numbers coming into the season of the returning PAC-10 shortstops and he ignites the Oregon offense from the lead off position in the batting order. He was the Ducks leading hitter (.348 Ave, 45 runs, 81 hits, 13 doubles, 1 triple, 5 home runs and 37 RBI) a year ago, and you just don't replace those numbers with a freshman in the batting order, although we do recognize Aaron Jones performance of the past weekend. The Ducks are better with both Jones and Serna together at the top of the order.
Look for Serna to ignite the offense if and when he makes it back into the line-up. The Ducks desperately need his offensive production and overall athletic ability to ignite that offense.
St. Mary's - Things To Know:
The Gaels possess a strong pitching staff that can situation match-up (righty-righty, lefty-lefty) with the best of them in college baseball. Martin Agosta, the Friday-starter was impressive in his season debut last Saturday giving up a single solo home run in the second inning in a 2-0 loss to San Jose State at home. Agosta threw five innings of work giving up one run on five hits, no walks with five strikeouts.
The Gales are led by Junior Infielder Troy Channing and Junior Pitcher Mark Anderson who were named to the 2011 Preseason All-West Coast Conference team to start the year. Channing hits for average, works the count, draws walks and overall has a very balanced approach while Anderson is a fearless and gutsy competitor who uses all of his pitches well in attacking opponents.
In two seasons, Channing has become the all-time home run leader at Saint Mary's with 35 home runs and ranks third all-time with 129 career RBI's.
The Gaels (1-2) picked up their first win of the year on Tuesday with a 2-1 victory over Sacramento State University after dropping two games to San Jose State University (2-0, 5-1) to start the year.
Saint Mary's is hitting .200 as a team in the young 2011 season, but sports an impressive 1.93 Team ERA after one week of action.
photo: oregonlive
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