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College | Story | 3/23/2017

Weekend Preview: Week 6

Patrick Ebert

Jheremy Brown

Mike Rooney

Photo: Dave Nishitani

Perfect Game Top 25 | PG/Rawlings Player/Pitcher of the Week
College Spotlight | PG College Player Database

There is no shortage of impact series across the country as conference play continues (and begins), with four series that includes Top 25 teams squaring off against one another, with two in the SEC (LSU at Florida, Arkansas at Missouri), one in the Big 12 (Oklahoma State at TCU) and another in the Pac-12 (Arizona at Oregon State). While all of these series will certainly be entertaining, while also likely answering some key questions surrounding each club respective to their ranking, no series, this weekend and possibly all season long, will provide as much intrigue as the Arizona and Oregon State three-game set, as detailed below.

Stay tuned to Perfect Game throughout the weekend as Jheremy Brown will provide notes from Clemson at Boston College (in Kingston, Rhode Island), Patrick Ebert will be in South Bend, Ind. for the Florida State/Notre Dame series and Brian Sakowski will see Jake Burger and Missouri State travel to Central Michigan.

Top 25 in Action

Rk.	Team	Opponent	Location
1	Louisville	at NC State	Raleigh, NC
2	Oregon State	home vs. No. 15 Arizona	Corvallis, OR
3	Texas Christian	home vs. No. 16 Oklahoma State	Fort Worth, TX
4	South Carolina	home vs. Alabama	Columbia, SC
5	Texas Tech	at Wichita State	Wichita, KS
6	Louisiana State	at No. 14 Florida	Gainesville, FL
7	Clemson	at Boston College	Boston, MA
8	North Carolina	home vs. Miami	Chapel Hill, NC
9	Cal State Fullerton	at Long Beach State	Long Beach, CA
10	Louisiana	at Troy	Troy, AL
11	Ole Miss	at Kentucky	Lexington, KY
12	Florida State	at Notre Dame	South Bend, IN
13	Stanford	home vs. Utah	Stanford, CA
14	Florida	home vs. No. 6 Louisiana State	Gainesville, FL
15	Arizona	at No. 2 Oregon State	Corvallis, OR
16	Oklahoma State	at No. 3 Texas Christian	Fort Worth, TX
17	Florida Gulf Coast	home vs. Jackson State	Fort Myers, FL
18	Vanderbilt	home vs. Texas A&M	Nashville, TN
19	East Carolina	home vs. Towson	Greenville, NC
20	Houston	at UC Irvine	Irvine, CA
21	South Florida	home vs. Florida A&M	Tampa, FL
22	Missouri	home vs. No. 24 Arkansas	Columbia, MO
23	Washington	at Oregon	Eugene, OR
24	Arkansas	at No. 22 Missouri	Columbia, MO
25	Baylor	home vs. Oklahoma	Waco, TX

Wild, Wild…(South) East?

The SEC’s 30-game gauntlet of a conference schedule is arguably the nation’s toughest and it kicked off last weekend in grand fashion. In a league that generates excitement like no other, the intrigue for this year’s slate was even higher than normal as four new head coaches began their SEC careers in the big chair. So what did we learn last weekend?

My first flinch is that we learned absolutely nothing. The fact that six of the seven series resulted in sweeps was an unpredictable occurrence in and of itself. But let’s dive deeper into a very surprising opening weekend in the SEC.

On the mound, Kentucky returned exactly zero SEC starts from a year ago. Friday night starter Sean Hjelle carried a 7.06 ERA into his start against Texas A&M ace Brigham Hill. New skipper Nick Mingione has 14 years of experience as a highly decorated assistant coach but had never been a head coach before this season. So of course, Kentucky earned a road sweep at Texas A&M.

South Carolina traveled to red-hot Tennessee but ended up limping into Knoxville without the services of ace Clarke Schmidt and dominant closer Tyler Johnson. You guessed it, the Gamecocks swept the Vols.

Dave Van Horn missed Regionals in 2016 for the first time since 1998. The Razorbacks have a new pitching coach in Wes Johnson, and on top of that, they have lost three key arms for the season. Statistically speaking, Arkansas was the worst pitching staff in the SEC last year. There was never a doubt, Arkansas swept Mississippi State in Fayetteville.

LSU entered their series with Georgia with massive question marks in the bullpen. In fact, the pitching staff ERA for pitchers not named Lange, Poche, and Walker (the weekend rotation) hovered near 4.50 going into the weekend. On top of that, trusted reliever Hunter Newman was unavailable for the series. And the weekend got off to the poorest possible beginning when Alex Lange turned in one of his worst career starts at LSU. O’ ye of little faith, the Tigers scored 22 runs in game one on their way to a sweep of the Bulldogs.

Missouri lost their opening game of the season to Eastern Michigan. That was the Tigers last loss and their winning streak now stands at 20. New skipper Steve Bieser had never coached in the SEC before and he is in his fifth season overall as a college head coach. The Tigers are the second worst defensive team in the league with a .957 fielding percentage. Bad defense on the road be damned, Missouri swept Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Florida’s rotation is the hardest throwing group in the history of college baseball and all three of these righthanders look like sure-fire first rounders. The Gators’ lineup is led by a junior class that has been to Omaha two years in a row. Skipper Kevin O’Sullivan has led Florida to the College World Series in five of the last seven seasons. Butch Thompson is leading Auburn out of the tumultuous firing of previous head coach Sunny Golloway. The Tigers missed the SEC Tournament a year ago. So it goes without saying, Auburn swept Florida last weekend.

The old proverb in power conference sports goes like this, “It’s not who you play but when you play them.” And that idiom seems to be what we really learned, or re-learned, last weekend.

In 2017’s college baseball, there are more programs than ever who take our sport seriously. So we must learn to expect the unexpected, and even enjoy it. We know what happens next: a team that started SEC play 0-3 will be crowned champion nine weeks from now.

– Mike Rooney

Loud seasons for should-be sophomores

Combined for the 2017 season Oregon State lefthander Luke Heimlich and North Carolina’s J.B. Bukauskas are a remarkable 7-0 over their first 10 starts, have struck out 95 and walked just 12. What else does the duo share in common aside from video game numbers and ridiculous ERAs (Heimlich 0.25, Bukauskas 1.09)? Both should just be entering their sophomore seasons of college but after jumping from the 2015 high school graduating class to being members of 2014, they’ve been able to contribute for an extra season and are vital pieces in their teams’ 2017 success.

A projected first-round type talent out of high school, Bukauskas held true to his intentions of stepping foot on Chapel Hill and immediately gave Coach Mike Fox a Friday night caliber arm. Once again Bukauskas finds himself towards the top of the leaderboard in terms of strikeouts thanks to a pair of plus pitches in his mid- to upper-90s fastball and a hard, late-breaking slider that elicits more than its fair share of swings and misses. He currently has 51 strikeouts on the year, good for fourth in the nation, after striking out 111 (good for a 12.75 K/9) last spring in what should have been his true freshman season.

Jump across the country and over to Luke Heimlich and the 6-foot-1 lefthander has enjoyed a breakout season after a solid sophomore campaign. Known for his command and pitchability during his high school days, and early in his career at Oregon State, Heimlich has continued to see an increase in velocity and with it has come a steady uptick in punchouts. Now routinely working in the low-90s and showing 94s and 95s in any given start, the Puyallup, Wash. native currently has 44 strikeouts and is on pace to blow past his 63 mark from a season ago. The pitchability and command are still there and if you needed further proof of just how dominating the lefthander has been considering his .141 batting average against or the fact that he’s allowed just one earned run in 36 2/3 innings this spring.

To make a long story short, two of the most dominating arms in all of collegiate baseball should technically be just five starts into their sophomore seasons but instead are solidifying themselves for this June’s draft and are doing so in style.

– Jheremy Brown

'Cats, Beavers tussle for Pac-12 supremacy

If you want a fun way to kick off your weekend as you follow all of the Week 6 college baseball action take the time to view the stats for the Arizona Wildcats offense and the Oregon State pitching staff:

Arizona
Oregon State

You don’t have to attend sabermetrics camp to realize this is a classic strength vs. strength matchup about to take the fields in Corvallis, Ore., this weekend between the second-ranked Beavers and the 15th-ranked Wildcats. Both are among the top teams in the nation according to the early RPI rankings and both have several significant, statement wins early in the year.

Oregon State at 17-1 has looked near flawless, and the starting trio of Luke Heimlich, Bryce Fehmel and Jake Thompson are a combined 12-1 with a 1.02 ERA. You can expand that to 15-1, 1.22 when you include midweek starter Sam Tweedt. The pitching staff as a whole has an ERA of 1.06 with five pitchers that have yet to allow an earned run this season, including their two go-to arms out of the ‘pen, Jake Mulholland and closer Max Engelbrekt.

While Oregon State has already faced some solid competition, the Arizona offensive attack will provide their most difficult test so far this season, and possibly the most potent offense they will face all season long. For as good as their pitching staff is their offense and defense should not be overlooked either, as they entire the weekend with a .293 team batting average (led by Nick Madrigal’s .426 mark) and a .972 fielding percentage, with only 19 errors committed in their 18 games played. They are also 26-for-31 in stolen base attempts proving they can beat you in more ways than one offensively.

Arizona is 16-4 and the lineup is hitting .352 as a unit with two players – first baseman/designated hitter Alfonso Rivas and third baseman Nick Quintana, who is an early favorite for Freshman of the Year – hitting above .400. Four more regulars are hitting on the sunny side of .350, four hitters have at least 20 RBI and those same four players have slugging percentages greater than .600. Jared Oliva’s season may be the most eye-popping with a .392/.449/.709 triple slash line to go with 17 extra-base hits (including three home runs), 31 RBI and 24 runs scored, and he is a perfect 6-for-6 in stolen base attempts.

While the pitching and defense aspects to the Wildcats aren’t as strong as Oregon State’s (4.19 team ERA, .956 team fielding percentage) it should be pointed out that they have played 12 of their 20 games so far at Hi Corbett Field, a park certainly known for influencing offensive numbers. However, those conditions haven’t effected staff ace and 2016 CWS hero J.C. Cloney, who is 5-0 with a 1.12 ERA so far this season in five starts. Cloney is as stingy as they come in allowing hits (22) and walks (5) over his first 32 innings of the year, while Cameron Ming continues to be Head Coach Jay Johnson’s go-to arm out of the bullpen, as he is 4-0 with a pair of saves in nine relief appearances.

There is a lot on the line this weekend in Corvallis, most importantly bragging rights for these two teams, as both look to make a statement during the second weekend of Pac-12 play.

– Patrick Ebert

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