Miami preseason All-America second baseman Jemile Weeks did not make the trip to Clemson this weekend, and the Hurricanes hope to have him back on the field next week. Weeks strained a leg muscle trying to leg out a bunt in the sixth inning against Virginia on Sunday and was seen on crutches after the game for added support. [...] Continue Reading »

There were a few noteworthy games last night, so let’s touch on them quickly. North Carolina scored 11 runs in the second inning against Davidson, then tacked on 12 more in the third en route to a 28-5 shellacking, the most runs the Tar Heels have scored since a 31-15 win over Jacksonville in 1981. If the season ended today, UNC first baseman Dustin Ackley would be the indisputable freshman of the year; he went 2-for-2 on Wednesday to extend his hitting streak to 19 games and raise his average to .495 through 105 at-bats. [...] Continue Reading »

What a game for Oral Roberts senior righthander Chance Chapman, who struck out 17 batters in the Golden Eagles’ 5-3 upset of No. 7 Arkansas on Tuesday. Chapman was only scheduled to pitch five or six innings, but he ended up going 8 2/3 innings and throwing 149 pitches.

“I knew going in they were going to be a very tough team, probably the toughest team we’ve faced,” Chapman told the Times Record of Fort Smith, Ark. [...] Continue Reading »

ESPN has unveiled its complete regular-season college baseball schedule for this spring, and while it doesn’t approach the 29-game bonanza that ESPN televised during the NHL labor dispute in 2005, there are a few chances to see college baseball before the postseason, especially if you’re one of the fortunate few with ESPNU. [...] Continue Reading »

Strike One: Here Come The Reinforcements

Tennessee and Arizona State both got major boosts this week as key players appeared in their first games of the season. Preseason All-American center fielder Julio Borbon returned from a fractured ankle to DH in Tennessee’s midweek win against Wright State and its weekend sweep of Georgia. [...] Continue Reading »

Wednesday was a wild day in college baseball, featuring the fall of the nation’s last unbeaten team, a near-record for hit batsmen in a game, and not one but two walk-off grand slams. [...] Continue Reading »

In its first game since the Lonnie Chisenhall/Nick Fuller bombshell became public, South Carolina rolled over UNC Asheville 9-2 last night. Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner’s news conference earlier in the day was emotional, but his players were able to channel any emotion into a 12-hit, three-homer barrage (including Justin Smoak’s seventh of the year). This unfortunate situation could wind up galvanizing the Gamecocks as a team; I wouldn’t bet against them at Mississippi State this weekend. [...] Continue Reading »

Major news out of South Carolina tonight, as two of the nation’s top four freshmen were dismissed from the nation’s No. 2 team. Outfielder/righthander Lonnie Chisenhall, who was hitting .313 out of the three-hole in the Gamecocks’ lineup, and righthander Nick Fuller, who had yet to allow a hit or a run in five innings of work this season over six relief appearances, were permanently dismissed from the club for violating athletic department policy. News reports out of South Carolina say the players face multiple counts of burglary and grand larceny. [...] Continue Reading »

Strike One: Gut Check Weekend In SEC

Kentucky coach John Cohen has it right. Cohen, who guided the Wildcats to their first-ever Southeastern Conference championship a year ago, has said multiple times over the last two weeks that everyone in the SEC is going to get punched in the nose this year. They’re all going to get bloodied, and the key will be who punches back. [...] Continue Reading »

Today’s blog is all about the Southeastern Conference. Most SEC teams were in action Tuesday, and all of them except Auburn and Georgia took care of business. The slumping Bulldogs dropped a 3-1 contest against Western Carolina, which has now beaten two ACC teams (Georgia Tech and North Carolina State) and an SEC foe. Auburn’s bullpen, which has been such a huge part of its early success, let it down yesterday, allowing five runs over the final two innings in a 7-3 loss to Virginia Military. The Keydets are now 13-3 with a series win at Florida, a tight loss to Virginia and a victory over Auburn (with another game to go this afternoon). That’s a quality VMI club that I’ll discuss in further detail next week. [...] Continue Reading »

Strike One: Tar Heels Ace First Test

Make no mistake, Miami is scuffling. As one National League scouting director put it Sunday, “They’re just not a very good club right now.” But even though the Hurricanes tumbled out of the rankings from their precarious perch at No. 11, give North Carolina credit for an impressive weekend sweep. Miami still has enormous talent on offense and one of the best infields in the nation with big-time power bats on the corners (Yonder Alonso and Mark Sobolewski), a premium defender at shortstop in freshman Ryan Jackson and one of the best all-around players in college baseball in second baseman Jemile Weeks. Weeks dazzled Sunday, crushing a home run to right field, doubling and making a sparkling defensive play where he ranged far to his left, spun around and made an accurate, quick throw to first base. Right fielder Dennis Raben has emerged from his early season funk with a pair of two-homer games over the last two weekends, giving Alonso some much-needed protection in the heart of the order. After blowing an early 4-0 lead Sunday, Miami battled back and even loaded the bases in the ninth inning before UNC closer Andrew Carignan got Jackson (the potential tying run) to ground out to second base. Miami might be struggling mightily on the mound, but it can still hit with the best of them. [...] Continue Reading »

TEMPE, Ariz–How does a baseball junkie kill time on a Friday night in Phoenix? Simple, go check out some college baseball. My trip to Arizona fortuitously collided with an Arizona State-Long Beach State matchup, so a trip to Tempe was in order.

I was not the only one with a jonesing for some Friday night lights as Long Beach State alums Troy Tulowitzki and Cesar Ramos jetted over from Rockies and Padres camp to check out the action. [...] Continue Reading »

Greenville is starting to become the place to be on Friday nights in the Carolinas. Last Friday, East Carolina faced off with Pepperdine and Barry Enright, one of the top college righthanders in this year’s draft class. The Pirates fell behind 4-1 early then before coming back against Enright to win 5-4. This week ECU hosted another of the nation’s top righties, Cal State Fullerton’s Wes Roemer, and the result was similar. Roemer, known for his impeccable command, left a few pitches over the heart of the plate and paid for it, as ECU scored three runs on a pair of homers in the fifth inning en route to a 6-1 win. [...] Continue Reading »

Before getting to this week’s mailbag, I wanted to pass along a couple of interesting nuggets from the small college ranks. Most of our coverage focuses on Division I, of course, because we lack unlimited resources and because of our general emphasis on professional prospects, who come out of D-I schools in much higher volume than smaller schools. But now and then we try to bring you interesting stories off the beaten path. This week, I heard about three former major league managers with small college connections. At provisional Division II Flagler (Fla.) College, there are two players on the roster whose fathers managed in the big leagues. Junior righthander John Goryl’s father Johnny managed the Twins in 1980-81, and junior DH Wade LaMont’s father Gene spent eight years as a big league manager for the White Sox and Pirates. Neither is a great prospect, but both are having good seasons so far; Goryl is 1-0, 2.41 through 19 innings and LaMont is batting .342/.420/.618 with a team-leading five homers through 76 at-bats. [...] Continue Reading »

You know college baseball is a big deal when Georgia Tech’s Matt Wieters and North Carolina State’s Andrew Brackman show up in a news brief in The Onion, the satirical newspaper and Website. The latest edition of the weekly publication has a faux story involving Brackman, Wieters and the world’s most famous baseball agent (and somewhat frequent Onion target), Scott Boras [...] Continue Reading »

For weeks College of Charleston fans have asked why the Cougars haven’t appeared in the top 25 rankings despite their hot start, and for weeks the answer has been the same–we want to see how they fare against quality competition. Well, the competition doesn’t get much stiffer than No. 3 South Carolina, which made the trip to Charleston yesterday and left with a 5-4 loss. CofC chased South Carolina junior righthander Jay Brown in the fourth after DH Michael Harrington’s two-run homer made it 3-0. The Gamecocks came back to force extra innings, but Cougar second baseman Chris Campbell delivered a walk-off RBI double in the 10th. Charleston’s offense is experienced and relentless, with a bona fide star in the middle in catcher Alex Garabedian (whose .333 batting average is actually the lowest of Charleston’s regulars). Beating South Carolina improved the Cougars to 12-1 on the year, but more importantly it gave them a quality win to hang their hat on. I’d still like to see how their pitching holds up in a three-game series against a good team before I truly buy in, but that offense is legit. [...] Continue Reading »

Oregon State picked up a good win yesterday to wrap up the Domino’s Pizza Aggie Baseball Classic, beating host Texas A&M 6-5. That snaps A&M’s 14-game winning streak and improves the Beavers to 14-3 on the year. The Aggies were a good matchup for Oregon State, because they pitch well, play defense well and put pressure on the defense with their aggressiveness on the basepaths, things the Beavers have done well during the past few years. And Texas A&M won Friday’s matchup, but OSU got its revenge Monday despite an eighth-inning grand slam by talented Aggies shortstop Brandon Hicks that brought A&M within a run. One significant development for the Beavers was the solid start by senior lefty Anton Maxwell, who threw three shutout innings before handing off the the bullpen. Pitching depth was a huge factor in Oregon State’s national championship (without Joe Paterson and Daniel Turpen turning in huge performances in Omaha, the Beavers wouldn’t have won it), and if Maxwell pitches well he gives coach Pat Casey a solid fourth option. [...] Continue Reading »

Strike One: War Eagle Flying High

Trailing 8-0 in the fourth inning Saturday, it looked like Auburn was on its way to being swept at home against Arizona State. The Tigers had scored just two runs in the first 13 innings of the series against a team averaging nearly 11 runs per game. But the young Tigers didn’t lose faith, starting the comeback with seven runs in the fifth inning and going on to take the series. Auburn owes some credit to a dropped pop-up by Sun Devil right fielder Ike Davis that allowed the floodgates to open in the fateful fifth, but there’s a bigger reason for the comeback, and it’s not what you might expect. Credit the Auburn bullpen for making the hitters believe they can come back. [...] Continue Reading »

Both ranked teams participating in the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville, N.C., went down Friday against frisky teams from the Tar Heel state. In the first game, Western Carolina toppled No. 24 North Carolina State 6-5, and in the nightcap East Carolina overcame an early 4-1 deficit to beat No. 17 Pepperdine. As usual, it’s a quality field assembled for the LeClair classic, and the first day of games did not disappoint. Some observations [...] Continue Reading »

Every once in a while something happens that reminds us there are things in life far more important than baseball. A bus carrying the Division III Bluffton (Ohio) baseball team plunged off a highway ramp in Atlanta this morning and slammed into the pavement below, killing at least six people and leaving several others in critical condition. Our thoughts are with the team and the families of all involved. ESPN.com has more details.