On Campus: Packing The Early-Season Schedule

The college baseball season will be 10 days old when this weekend comes to a close, a 10th of the way from Opening Day to Selection Monday. If things go according to plan this weekend, a few teams will have already played nine of their allotted 56 games. Several more will have played eight.

There are many factors coaches consider when they are making their early-season nonconference schedule: RPI, their budget, the weather, home attendance and more. One of the most important for many, however, is simply the opportunity to play a lot of games at the outset of the season.

“We’re all trying to figure out what we have and the best way to do that is to play games,” Arizona coach Jay Johnson said.

Arizona opens the season with back-to-back four-game series against Eastern Kentucky and McNeese State. Both series wrapped around the weekend, with the EKU series ending on Monday and the McNeese series opening on Thursday. That allows the Wildcats to avoid playing doubleheaders, which eases the stress on their pitching staff and helps them draw more fans.

Following Thursday’s 9-2 victory against the Cowboys, the Wildcats are 5-0. In five games, Arizona has already used 32 players, more than Johnson can ever remember using in his career.

“We’re a long way from figuring out the exact puzzle,” Johnson said. “It helps us see what we have.”

Texas Tech is one of the teams that will have played nine games by the end of the weekend. It played four games in the Mississippi State tournament on opening weekend and hosts California for four games this weekend. In between, it played New Mexico State on Tuesday.

Like Johnson, Red Raiders coach Tim Tadlock said loading up the early-season schedule allows the coaching staff to quickly learn about the team.

“We like to play four games because we get to run four starters out there and a midweek guy on Tuesday,” he said. “We played four last weekend and we still didn’t get everyone in a game. If we were playing three, we probably would still be trying to get people’s feet on the ground.”

For northern teams, playing four-game weekends at the start of the season helps lighten their midweek load once they are able to return home. Ohio State and Oregon State are both playing in the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge this weekend in Surprise, Ariz., which is the second four-game tournament in a row to start the season for both teams.

“We need to find out who can and who can’t (compete),” Ohio State head coach Greg Beals said. “These four game last weekends gave us a chance to use the entire pitching staff. It also lightens our load a little bit when we get back home in April and May, not having to play Tuesday and Wednesday a bunch of times.”

Oregon State coach Pat Casey has grown used to playing back-to-back four-game tournaments in Surprise, Ariz., to start the season. He likes the setup for a variety of reasons—the weather, the quality of opponent the Beavers are able to face and the chance to play in Surprise Stadium, the spring training home of the Rangers and Royals.

But he said playing so many games does put more strain on the pitching staff.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “It’s always a little tough. We always play four. So you’ve got a little bit of a disadvantage with the pitching thing there, the teams that play four. But I think it’s great that we have such good teams coming in.”
But the chance to load up the schedule with competitive games after a long fall and winter of practicing and playing intersquad games is an attractive option for coaches.

“We’ve always been doing it this way,” Tadlock said. “We’d play every day if they’d let us.”

News and Notes

Atlantic Coast Conference: Florida State is moving Opening Day starter Drew Carlton from the rotation to the closer’s role this weekend against Samford. The bullpen was always the biggest question mark this season for the No. 2 Seminoles, and that weakness was quickly exposed. South Florida scored four runs on one hit in the ninth inning of its 4-2 victory Tuesday at Florida State, which used six relievers in the inning. Freshman lefthander Drew Parrish will slide into the rotation this weekend, but redshirt sophomore righthander Andrew Karp could work his way into the mix if he keeps pitching like he did against South Florida. Karp struck out 10 batters in seven scoreless innings.

Big 12 Conference: Oklahoma outfielder/quarterback Kyler Murray made his debut on the diamond Sunday against Long Beach State after sitting out last season following his transfer from Texas A&M. The redshirt freshman hit leadoff in his debut and went 0-for-2. He recorded his first career hit Wednesday, as he went 1-for-2 with three walks and a run in Oklahoma’s 10-2 victory against Grambling State. As a Texas prep, Murray was the first player to appear in the Under Armour All-America Game in both baseball and football, and he went to Texas A&M with the intention of playing both sports. But he hasn’t been able to play much baseball the last two years. A shoulder injury limited him to DH duties during his senior season of high school, and he had to sit last spring following his decision to leave Texas A&M after a reported falling out with the Aggies’ football coaching staff. After not being able to play for so long, Oklahoma coach Pete Hughes said Murray was excited to finally be able to compete again. “It just tells you what kind of athlete his is that he hasn’t played organized baseball in two years and now he’s playing at the highest level of college baseball and hitting leadoff,” Hughes said. “It was fun having him at the top of the lineup.” . . . Texas Tech junior shortstop Orlando Garcia got off to a solid start to the season on opening weekend at Mississippi State’s tournament, but he broke out Tuesday at home against New Mexico State. He went 4-for-5 with two home runs, four runs and seven RBIs. Through four games, he is hitting .364/.391/.864 with three home runs and 14 RBIs. He has done a better job of tapping into his raw power after hitting six home runs and driving in 30 runs in 60 games last season. Texas Tech coach Tim Tadlock said the Garcia’s power potential was apparent in high school and is now becoming a part of his game again. “The first homer he hit Tuesday, it almost hit the lights,” Tadlock said. “He’s just putting it together. He’s a junior, he’s playing with some confidence.”

Big Ten Conference: Ohio State is replacing six regulars from the lineup of last year’s Big Ten Tournament championship team, including All-American outfielder Ronnie Dawson. With so much turnover, the Buckeyes are counting on returners such as seniors Zach Ratcliff and Jalen Washington. The duo delivered on opening weekend, leading the team in hitting at the Sunshine State Classic in Kissimmee, Fla. Ratcliff (.436/.471/.875, 2 HR) had a big return to the lineup after being sidelined most of last season due to injury. “Zach capitalized when he got some good pitches to hit,” coach Greg Beals said. “It was good to have his leadership. We need that thump in the lineup.” . . . Minnesota this weekend will play its first games in U.S. Bank Stadium, the new home of the Minnesota Vikings, as it hosts Seattle for a three-game series. The stadium replaces the Metrodome, which the Gophers used to use for early-season home games. They have had to go without an indoor stadium for the last three years while U.S. Bank Stadium was built. The dimensions inside U.S. Bank Stadium are 305 feet down the right field line, 350 to right center, 400 in center field, 375 in left center and 330 down the left field line. The wall in right field is 34 feet high. Minnesota is scheduled to play 13 games at U.S. Bank Stadium this season.

Pacific-12 Conference: UCLA lost to UC Riverside, 3-2, on Tuesday, but the most important development from the game may have been the performance of lefthander Justin Hooper. The sophomore threw 4.1 hitless innings of relief, struck out 10 and walked two. It was an important step forward for Hooper, who ranked No. 39 on the 2015 BA 500 coming out of high school, but struggled with his control as a freshman. He began to get on track over the summer in the Cape Cod League, where he ranked as the No. 5 prospect, and showed he can carry that momentum into the spring. The big lefthander throws his fastball in the low 90s, and has worked hard to improve his changeup in the last year. . . No. 23 Stanford hosts Kansas this weekend. Friday’s opening game will be broadcast on Twitter at 9 p.m. ET. The game is a part of the Pac-12 Networks’ partnership with Twitter that guarantees at least 150 games across all sports this academic year will be streamed on the social networking site.

Southeastern Conference: Louisiana State outfielder Greg Deichmann was hit in the face by a pitch in an intersquad game Feb. 10. He broke a bone in his cheek, but was back in the lineup eight days later when LSU opened its season against Army. Deichmann homered in the Tigers’ 9-0 victory Saturday. Five games into the season, the junior is 6-for-16 with three home runs. . . Outfielder Dominic Fletcher headlined Arkansas’ 12th-ranked recruiting class this fall and he made a strong first impression in his college debut. The freshman homered Friday in Arkansas’ 7-0 victory against Miami (Ohio), becoming the first Razorback freshman to hit a home run on Opening Day since Andy Wilkins did so in 2008. Fletcher, who ranked No. 209 on the 2016 BA 500, went 4-for-12 in Arkansas’ opening weekend sweep.

Congrats to Justin Dillon first NO HITTER in Sacramento State history! 13 K’s AMAZING @NCAACWS @hornetsports @espn pic.twitter.com/Vrn2JhvzM6

— Hornet Baseball (@SacStBaseball) February 24, 2017

Other conferences: Sacramento State senior righthander Justin Dillon threw a no-hitter Thursday in a 2-0 victory against Northern Kentucky. He struck out 13 batters, walked one and threw 107 pitches. It was the Hornets’ first no-hitter in the Division I era of the program and the first by a Western Athletic Conference pitcher since 2010. Dillon has gotten off to an incredible start to the season. He held Washington State to just one hit in seven innings on Opening Day and has struck out 17 batters in 16 innings. . . South Florida lefthander Shane McClanahan ranked No. 197 on the 2015 BA 500 and was a big part of the Bulls’ eighth-ranked recruiting class last year, but was sidelined last spring by Tommy John surgery. The redshirt freshman made his college debut last Saturday against Iowa and threw four scoreless innings. He struck out nine batters and held the Hawkeyes to one hit and two walks. While the Bulls (3-1) went on to lose that game, they are off to their best four-game start since 2014 when they began the year 6-0.