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College | Story | 3/9/2017

Weekend Preview: Week 4

Patrick Ebert

Jheremy Brown

Mike Rooney

Photo: South Carolina Athletics

Perfect Game Top 25 | PG/Rawlings Player/Pitcher of the Week | PG College Player Database
Weekly Spotlights: Week 1 | Week 2 | Frisco Classic | Dodgertown Classic
Shriners Classic Spotlights: LSU | Baylor | Texas Tech | Texas A&M | TCU

The fourth weekend of the college baseball season doesn't have the impact matchups that last weekend did, but there are several intriguing, key series that could help shape the current Top 25 rankings come Monday. As with any season early in the year, there are several teams off to hot starts and as always time will provide more insight as to just how legitimate those hot starts are.

Virginia traveling to North Carolina as ACC play begins is the biggest matchup to follow, while TCU has a tough matchup at UC Irvine, South Carolina hosts Michigan State, Stanford travels to Rice and NC State plays a surging Wake Forest club. Next weekend things will be even more interesting as more and more leagues open conference play, including the SEC.

LakePoint will once again be in action as part of Perfect Game's Spring Swing with several junior college and a trio of Division I programs (Army, Bowling Green, Georgia State) taking the fields. Follow all of the action from Emerson, Ga. in the Scout Notes from PG Park at LakePoint blog.

Stay tuned to Perfect Game throughout the weekend as David Rawnsley will provide scouting insights from the Kent State at College of Charleston series, Britt Smith will do the same as he covers Stanford/Rice in Houston and Steve Fiorindo will have the TCU at UC Irvine series covered in Southern California.

Top 25 in Action

Rk.	Team	Opponent	Location
1	Texas Christian	at UC Irvine	Irvine, CA
2	Florida	home vs. Seton Hall	Gainesville, FL
3	Florida State	home vs. Boston College	Tallahassee, FL
4	Louisville	home vs. Pittsburgh	Louisville, KY
5	Oregon State	home vs. Ball State	Corvallis, OR
6	Louisiana State	home vs. Wichita State	Baton Rouge, LA
7	South Carolina	home vs. Michigan State	Columbia, SC
8	Texas Tech	home vs. UT San Antonio	Lubbock, TX
9	Louisiana	home vs. Saint Peter's	Lafayette, LA
10	East Carolina	home vs. Charlotte	Greensville, NC
11	Stanford	at Rice	Houston, TX
12	Clemson	home vs. Notre Dame	Clemson, SC
13	North Carolina	home vs. No. 21 Virginia	Chapel Hill, NC
14	Ole Miss	home vs. Furman	Oxford, MS
15	Vanderbilt	home vs. Saint Mary's	Nashville, TN
16	Cal State Fullerton	home vs. Gonzaga	Fullerton, CA
17	Arizona	home vs. Hartford	Tucson, AZ
18	Oklahoma State	home vs. South Dakota State	Stillwater, OK
19	Washington	home vs. Indiana State	Seattle, WA
20	Houston	at Baylor	Waco, TX
21	Virginia	at No. 13 North Carolina	Chapel Hill, NC
22	Texas A&M	home vs. Brown	College Station, TX
23	NC State	at Wake Forest	Winston-Salem, NC
24	Texas	home vs. UCLA	Austin, TX
25	Dallas Baptist	at Oral Roberts	Tulsa, OK

What rust?

What’s more impressive about this trio of arms: their combined statistics (1.26 ERA, 7-0 record, 56 strikeouts to just 14 walks in 53.1 innings) or the fact that all three combined to throw exactly zero pitches last spring while recovering from Tommy John surgery? The aforementioned trio consists of Auburn’s Keegan Thompson, South Carolina’s Wil Crowe and South Florida’s Shane McClanahan and all three have been lights out so far in 2017 and have been vital pieces to their team’s weekend rotations.

Unlike Thompson and Crowe, Coach Mark Kingston’s young lefthander (McClanahan) had no collegiate experience prior to 2017, though you can hardly tell with the confidence and poise he exudes on the mound. Then again, when you can work comfortably in the 93-95 mph range, pound the inner half to righthanded hitters and mix a couple of off-speed pitches for strikes, adapting to the college game becomes slightly easier. Over his first three starts the redshirt freshman has punched out 23 hitters in just 15 innings while walking just six and limited hitters to a mere .102 batting average against.

Thompson and Crowe tie in together nicely in that they are both anchor pieces in their respective rotations, were highly regarded prospects out of high school (Crowe ranked 58th, Thompson 63rd in the 2013 class), and throw under the brightest of lights in the SEC. Both have also been outstanding since recovering from Tommy John and opened the 2017 season at 100 percent. Though Thompson can bumps upwards of 93 mph with his heater and sit comfortably in the low-90s, it’s his ability and feel to mix a full four-pitch arsenal that’s helped him maintain a flawless 0.00 ERA over 21 innings while allowing just six base hits.

With Crowe everything that leaves his hand is pure power which couples well with his attack mode mentality. His four-seam fastball works comfortably in the mid-90s and can bump 97 mph while his two-seam shows solid life in the low-90s. Both the slider and changeup appear to be in midseason form and that’s a good thing as the Gamecocks open conference play shortly. On what’s arguably one of the deepest staff’s in the nation, Crowe has been able to go 2-0 with a 2.60 ERA and sports better than a 5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

These are just three examples of players who were able to come back healthy out of the gate and make an immediate contribution to their teams, beginning the 2017 season as strong as they could have ever expected. Tennessee’s Kyle Serrano is another big arm to watch for in this category and he is slated to make his debut this weekend. Serrno is expected to make one-inning stints out of the bullpen where he'll bump into the mid-90s rather routinely.

– Jheremy Brown

Top Prospect Showdowns

Below are a few College Baseball match ups that will be extremely fun for the scouting community this weekend. We’ll even chip in a few questions that our scout friends may be pondering.

Keston Hiura (UCI) vs. the TCU pitching staff

Hiura, who is ranked 24th in the Perfect Game 2017 College Top 100 draft-elgiible prospects, has major helium right now thanks to having the best pure hit tool in the draft class and a video game-like 1.561 OPS. Here are some thoughts for his weekend matchup versus the very formidable Horned Frogs pitching staff:

• How will he handle extreme angle on the fastball (Brian Howard is 6-foot-9)?
• How does he handle a vintage sinker/slider pitchability attack (Jared Janczak coached by Kirk Saarloos)?
• How does he handle huge velocity and a power breaking ball (Durbin Feltman)?
• How does he handle a lefthander who can pitch in on righthanded hitters (freshman phenom Nick Lodolo)?

Peter Solomon (Notre Dame) vs. Seth Beer (Clemson)

Solomon entered the season as Perfect Game’s ninth-ranked player in the 2017 College Top 100 draft class (as linked above). Notre Dame is off to an awful start (3-8) and Solomon has lived up to his reputation as a high risk, high reward prospect. He has a 9.86 K/9 and a .222 BAA, but also a 4.15 ERA and a 5.71 BB/9.

• How will his power arsenal play versus arguably college baseball’s best offensive force?
• Is his stuff good enough to beat Seth Beer IN the strike zone?
• Is his fastball good enough to throw Beer a fastball in a fastball count?

Griffin Canning (UCLA) vs. Morgan Cooper (Texas)

This is pitcher versus pitcher but what a fun matchup! Canning, who is ranked 28th in the Perfect Game 2017 College Top 100, may have the best feel for spin in this draft class, and Cooper, ranked 38th in the same category, would be a 1-1 candidate if not for his Tommy John surgery two years ago. And both are off to tremendous starts.

• Is Canning’s stuff good enough without pure dependency on pitch sequencing?
• How does Canning’s fastball hold up in the strike zone?
• Is Cooper’s arm action clean enough to quell injury worries?
• Does Cooper’s fastball play as hot as the 96 mph he has bumped?
• Does Cooper have good feel for his secondary stuff (he pitches off of his fastball, which is awesome)?

Fun Fact of the Week:

Nick Madrigal and Cadyn Grenier of Oregon State have combined for just ONE strikeout in 88 plate appearances. These two highly touted sophomores have a combined nine extra-base hits.

– Mike Rooney

A-OK in F-L-A

The state of Florida boasts two clubs at the very top of the Perfect Game Top 25 team rankings – second-ranked Florida and third-ranked Florida state – as the two teams represent the cream of the crop of the nation’s two most dominant conferences: the SEC and the ACC. There are a trio of mid-major clubs from the state making strong cases for Top 25 inclusion, and a couple of more making noise early in the season.

Florida Gulf Coast has made the loudest impression recently, knocking off the No. 2 Gators in a pair of midweek contests that allowed the Eagles to move to 12-2 on the year. They were coming off a weekend sweep of UNC Wilmington prior to facing Florida, and will host Ohio State this weekend before taking on the Seminoles in another challenging midweek contest next week. In fact, their midweek schedule is particularly impressive, with multiple games scheduled against Florida, Florida State, Miami, Florida Atlantic, Florida International and South Florida between now and the end of the season.

For FGCU it starts with their weekend starters Kutter Crawford and Josh Dye, both of who are 3-0 with ERAs well below 2.00. Crawford was named the Atlantic Sun Pitcher of the Week and has a gaudy 30-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his first 20 innings this year. Closer Sterling Koerner hasn’t made it any easier for opposing teams on the back end of the staff, recording four saves in six relief appearances.

UCF took one of their two midweek games against Florida last week before a sweep of Stony Brook at home, although they weren’t as fortunate this past week in their two games against Florida State, losing both contests. However, they are still 11-3 on the young season, and are playing well in all phases of the game, hitting .302 as a squad with a 2.38 team ERA.

Two-way talent Kyle Marsh, who missed all of last year due to Tommy John surgery, has shined as a hitter this season (if he takes the mound this season it likely won’t occur until later in the year) hitting .375 while leading the team in doubles (8), RBI (15) and slugging (.708) and being tied for the team lead in home runs with two. Starter Juan Pimentel has stepped up in Cre Finfrock’s absence (Tommy John), starting the year 3-0 with a 1.56 ERA as the team’s Saturday starter.

Shane McClanahan, as detailed above, is one of the early season success stories after missing all of his true freshman season in 2016 due to Tommy John surgery, as he and his weekend rotation mates have led South Florida to an early 11-1 start, including 10 wins in a row.

USF’s pitching staff as a whole has been dominant, with a 1.93 team ERA, but it is McClanahan along with Friday starter Phoenix Sanders and Sunday hurler Peter Strzelecki that have set the tone. That trio has combined to go 4-0 with a 1.57 combined ERA and a 64-to-19 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 46 innings of work. Kevin Merrell continues to pace the offense, coming off of a recent two-home run game, and is hitting .429/.541/.735 overall while being perfect in nine stolen base attempts.

And don’t look past 8-4-1 Florida Atlantic or 7-6 Florida International either. FAU shortstop Tyler Frank has fit in nicely for C.J. Chatham, who was taken by the Red Sox in the second round of last year’s draft, as Frank is hitting .450-4-19 with six doubles. FIU recently knocked off Miami, twice, in midweek contests, games that were highlighted by Robert Garcia’s seven innings of one-hit ball on Tuesday in which he fanned nine Hurricanes. Garcia now has a 24-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 17 2/3 innings of work (and he’s only allowed seven base hits), and is likely poised to see more time as a starter as the season progresses.

– Patrick Ebert

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