Weekend Preview: No. 1 Vs. No. 2 Showdown

Weekend Preview highlights some of the most important story lines from around the game of college baseball.

Top 25 Series

(1) Texas A&M at (2) Florida

(9) North Carolina at (3) Miami

Virginia Tech at (4) Louisville

(13) Mississippi at (5) Mississippi State

(7) South Carolina at (6) Vanderbilt

(8) Texas Christian at Wichita State

UCLA at (10) California

Washington at (11) Oregon State

(12) Florida State at Boston College

North Carolina State at (14) Virginia

(15) Houston at East Carolina

(16) Oklahoma State at West Virginia

(18) UC Santa Barbara at (17) Long Beach State

(19) Louisiana State at Auburn

(20) Michigan at Northwestern

(21) Alabama at Georgia

Missouri at (22) Arkansas

Duke at (23) Georgia Tech

(24) Kentucky at Tennessee

(25) Florida Atlantic at Old Dominion

Early-Season Showdown

For the last month, Florida and Texas A&M have been the top two ranked teams in the Top 25. The order flipped this week, after Florida, the preseason favorites, lost a weekend series at Kentucky, and Texas A&M won its sixth-straight series to begin the year.

This weekend, the newly elevated No. 1 Aggies will head to Gainesville, Fla., to take on the No. 2 Gators in the most anticipated series of the season. In the 35-year history of Baseball America’s rankings, this will be the 12th time the top-two teams have played each other during the regular season.

Both Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan and Texas A&M coach Rob Childress are wary of making too much of any one weekend, but they are excited for the challenge the series presents.

“It’s going to be a heck of a weekend, one we’re looking forward to,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s going to make us a better club, force both teams to play at a high level, which in the long term is beneficial to both teams.”

“It really is two good teams playing against each other in the best baseball conference in the country,” Childress said.

Florida (24-3) is looking to rebound after losing to Kentucky, its first series loss of the season. The Gators won the first game of the series, before losing, 7-4, Saturday and then falling, 5-4, on a walk-off wild pitch in the 10th inning Sunday.

Florida has already begun the process of bouncing back, as it defeated No. 12 Florida State, 3-2, Tuesday at The Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.

O’Sullivan said losing at Kentucky was a learning experience for his team.

“It was a dose of reality,” he said. “We’ve been playing good. But we haven’t been consistently good, in my opinion. We had the ability to rise to the occasion.

“It was a valuable lesson for our team. It was a good learning experience for our players, and they responded well (Tuesday) with a tremendous amount of focus and grit.”

Texas A&M (22-3) has not yet had a losing weekend, but traveling to Florida will be its toughest test to date. Playing on the road in the SEC is never easy, but with a veteran team, the Aggies are prepared for the challenge.

“We’ve just got to play good and be the aggressor,” Childress said. “In this league, no one is going to give you anything. (You can’t) let the external influences get to you. You’ve just got to go and play good.”

Both teams have a wealth of talent at their disposal. There will be seven Preseason All-Americans on the field this weekend, and several likely first-round picks. Both teams have been stout on the mound, with team ERAs below 3.00 (Texas A&M 2.63, Florida 2.75). And both have dynamic offenses, capable of both manufacturing runs and powering the ball out of the park.

O’Sullivan and Childress agreed that there are many similarities between the two teams.

“They have a deep lineup, we have a deep lineup,” O’Sullivan said. “They have three strike throwers on weekend with their starting pitchers, they’ve got the ability to hold runners and field their position very similar to us. They have a deep bullpen with velocity, so do we. They play defense, they catch the ball, so do we. I think there’s an emphasis on fundamentals in both programs. Players on both sides, there’s some toughness to them.”

It remains early in the season, but with the top two teams in the country facing off, there will likely be a little more buzz in the air this weekend in Gainesville. Handling that extra adrenaline will be one of the keys to the series.

But regardless of the outcome, the series promises fans a weekend of great baseball.

“I think there will be some added excitement to this weekend, no question,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s going to be fun. Regardless of the outcome, I think both teams are going to benefit from playing this weekend.”

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Heels Look To Bounce Back At Miami

When North Carolina finished off a sweep of Oklahoma State—with a third straight walk-off win—UNC coach Mike Fox joked that the season could end that day, and he’d be fine with it.

It was Feb. 28. The Tar Heels were just six games into the season, yet with series wins at UCLA and against Cowboys, no team in the country had had a louder six games. But Fox said he knew adversity was bound to come at some point for his Tar Heels. He knew the true test would come when “you’re not feeling good about yourself and you’re losing some games.”

That time is now. For the first team this season, the Tar Heels are coming off a losing series—to Georgia Tech at home—and now they’ll head to No. 3 Miami for a pivotal ACC Coastal Division battle.

How will No. 9 UNC respond?

“It’s a great opportunity for us; that’s the way we look at it,” Fox said Tuesday after a midweek win against Davidson. “I don’t know that we need to make a statement, but we can make a statement. They’re good, but they’re beatable. We’ve got to go down there with a little swagger ourselves, and I think we’ve got a good team.

“But we better go down there and play well. We certainly have to get some two-out RBIs and get some big hits.”

After a six-game stretch in which the Tar Heels scored double-digit runs five times, the young UNC offense sputtered against Georgia Tech pitchers, scoring a total of 10 runs in three games.

Fox points to speedy top-of-the-order hitters Brian Miller, a sophomore, and Adam Pate, a junior, as keys to the offense. When they go, so do the Tar Heels. For the most part, they’ve been up to the task this season. But they went 3-for-19 (with four walks) against the Yellow Jackets.

That won’t get the job done in Miami.

“What’s going on with them?” Fox said. “If you want me to get really technical and tell you what Brian Miller’s doing, he’s spinning off the ball. It’s his nemesis. And now that everybody knows how to pitch you—and Adam Pate’s kind of doing the same thing —everybody knows your hole, and they pitch to it, and you’ve got to make adjustments.

“We knew both of them were going to cool off. We just don’t want them to go from hot to ice cold. But they’ll get it back going again because they’re good players.”

For Miami this weekend, it’s the opposite story—the Hurricanes are trying to keep the train rolling. They’ve won their first three ACC series, two of which came against Top 25 opponents Louisville and Clemson, and with a 7-2 conference record, they hold a one-game lead in the Coastal Division standings over the 6-3 Tar Heels.

Coach Jim Morris’ club is coming off a sweep against what had been a hot Clemson team. Junior catcher Zack Collins has provided the thump (.418/.587/.716, six home runs) in Miami’s lineup, while sophomore outfielder Carl Chester (.371/.473/.449) has set the tone at the top of the order. Team captain Willie Abreu, meanwhile, has hit walk-off home runs on back-to-back weekends, earning the nickname “Walk-off Willie.”

With a weekend rotation that comprises three lefties—Thomas Woodrey, Michael Mediavilla and Danny Garcia—the Hurricanes could have an advantage against a UNC lineup that leans on the lefthanded-hitting Miller and leading hitter Tyler Ramirez.

But UNC returns the favor with a stout pitching staff that ranks sixth in the country with a 2.28 ERA. The expected return of sophomore closer Hansen Butler, after missing three weeks with shoulder tightness, should only fortify UNC on the mound.

The series has potentially sizeable ACC ramifications, but Fox said he doesn’t want his team to feel any extra pressure.

“Our motto, our theme, is let’s just stay the same,” Fox said. “Winning or losing, stay the same because I like how we are, I like how we work, I like how these guys interact with one another. So let’s, if we win a game or lose a game, let’s not change that baseline I think you have to have. So that’ll be important that we just keep playing.”

— Michael Lananna

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Long Beach State-UCSB Clash Highlights Big West Opening Slate

Long Beach State’s Blair Field has a slightly different look after having its fences moved in for the 2016 season. Once an all but unreachable 348-400-348 feet from left field to center to right, Blair’s walls now sit 335-395-330. Not exactly a gimme, but at least giving hitters a chance.

But new fences or not, the Dirtbags are still in the Big West Conference, and the brand of baseball that comes with that isn’t changing.

“We’re a little more physical,” Long Beach State coach Troy Buckley said. “It’s probably the most physical team I’ve had, and probably the most potential power we’ve had. But we’re certainly not sitting there and playing American League baseball—first and second, nobody out, and not moving runners. We are going to play that (small) game.”

Coming off a 28-26 season last year with a largely reconstructed lineup, Buckley’s Dirtbags are a year older, a year better and ranked 17th in the nation after getting off to a 16-8 start. They won last weekend what was officially a non-conference series with Big West rival Cal State Fullerton, but league play kicks in for real Friday when the Dirtbags host No. 18 UC Santa Barbara in a matchup of the league’s two ranked teams.

On the other side, no longer led by the one-two pitching punch of Dillon Tate and Justin Jacome, the 18-5 Gauchos have remade themselves as a more offensive group. They’re the top scoring team in the Big West at 6.8 runs per game. Veteran center fielder Andrew Calica (.282/.504/.436) consistently gives tough at-bats at the top of the lineup, setting the tone for guys like catcher Dempsey Grover (.410/.506/.557) and outfielder Josh Adams (.282/.420/.667, 4 HR) that have capably filled holes in the lineup. UCSB already has 12 home runs as a team after hitting just 17 all of last year.

“We have guys that are still young. So I think being able to have pressure put on us will be good for us to see how we deal with that,” UCSB assistant coach Neil Walton said. “We’re going to learn from how things go. There’s still a lot more season left. I think we could benefit a lot from facing Long Beach and facing the rest of our conference. I know that’ll be a good test for us.”

New fences or not, Long Beach still isn’t an offensive juggernaut, scoring 4.5 runs per game, which ranks 219th nationally. The Dirtbags’ pitching has been stout though, posting a 3.15 ERA in 24 games, and the weekend gets underway with a dynamite matchup between Long Beach’s Chris Mathewson (3-2, 3.55) and UCSB’s Shane Bieber (4-1. 2.93). And the two guys facing each other Saturday—Darren McCaughan (4-0, 1.62) for Long Beach and Noah Davis (2-0, 2.78) for Santa Barbara—figure to do so on Fridays before their careers are done. Davis, a freshman, may have louder stuff, while the sophomore McCaughan has shown a feel for three pitches and pounds the lower half of the zone.

The Dirtbags also rank fifth in the nation in fielding percentage at .982 (UCSB is 59th at .973), another reminder that even with the new baseballs and Blair Field’s shorter fences, the formula for winning in the Big West—pitch, play defense and the short game—hasn’t changed.

“The integrity of the park is there,” Buckley said. “At the same time, it is a little bit more offensive, a little bit more exciting . . .  (but) it’s definitely not a bandbox, there’s no question. Your ability to pitch and play catch, in all honesty, have been staples of this program for a long time and I think will be staples for a lot of programs that are very consistent and very successful.”

“Once we get into conference, a lot of the games seem like almost like inter-squad games,” Walton said, “where our opponents can use the bat, can bunt, move runners. The pitching’s going to be able to throw offspeed for strikes and not just throw fastballs. And it’s going to come down, like it usually does in conference, to pitching and defense and being able to not give away at-bats.”

— Jim Shonerd