Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

2015 CWS Finals: Virginia wins!

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WaddellBrandon via 247sports.com

Brandon Waddell pitched the game of his life in the CWS final. Photo via 247sports.com

Here’s a recap of our CWS coverage so far for 2015:

 


Here’s how the Finals played out.

  • In Game One on 6/22/15, UVA’s Connor Jones matched Vanderbilt’s ace Carson Fulmer zero for zero for the first five innings.  However, Vanderbilt got a well-timed opposite field double down the line to plate two and then scored three more, knocking Jones from the game in the 7th to win game one 5-1.  Fulmer was outstanding, holding UVA to just 2  hits through 7 2/3rds innings, leaving with a large lead in his final collegate appearance (he was drafted 8th overall by the White Sox).  Other players of note: #1 overall pick Dansby Swanson finally had a good game, going 2-4 with a run and an RBI.  Nats 3rd rounder Rhett Wiseman struggled; going 0-4 with the hat-track of three punch-outs.
  • In Game Two on 6/23/15, UVA turned to their regular outfielder Adam Haseley in somewhat of a shock, and he threw 5 shut-out innings before handing the ball to the most dominant pitcher this post-season has seen in Josh Sborz, who threw another 4 shutout innings to shore up the win 3-0 and force a game 3.  UVA’s offense was also unexpected; they were powered by their #8 and #9 hitters, the latter of which was walk-on senior Thomas Woodruff, who had a grand total of 67 ABs in his collegiate career.  It was Woodruff’s 2-run bases loaded single that provided the game winning runs.  Amazing.
  • In Game three on 6/24/15, UVA’s Brandon Waddell threw the game of his life, giving up 2 runs early but then shutting down Vanderbilt’s offense for the next six innings en route to a 4-2 win.  Vanderbilt’s Walker Buehler struggled with his control, giving up runs early and getting unceremoniously yanked in his last collegiate appearance.  Nathan Kirby came on to relieve Waddell, who threw 105 pitches on 3 days rest, and blew away Vanderbilt’s hitters in the 8th and 9th for his first (and last) career save.  3B Kenny Towns, a lowly 20th round pick by the Angels, was the game hero, with a very good diving stop to save a run early and a crucial go-ahead RBI late.   But it was freshman 1B Pavin Smith who was the offensive star of the game, clubbing a 2-run homer early to tie the game and deflate Vanderbilt.

UVA wins the first Baseball title for the ACC since 1955, an amazing stat considering the baseball-playing pedigree of the conference.  Super reliever Josh Sborz recieved the MVP award for his CWS work; final tally:  3IP on 6/13, 2IP on 6/15, and 4ip on 6/20, and 4IP on 6/23.  All Scoreless.

UVA completes a pretty amazing season all things considered; they suffered injuries to a number of their key guys, struggled in conference all season and likely only even made the field by virtue of a sweep of UNC in their final ACC season series.  But, for those who thought the final was a fluke based on the seedings of the two teams, consider this: Vanderbilt was the consensus pre-season #1 team by every poll out there, and UVA was either 2nd, 3rd or 4th in those same polls.  So these teams were expected to return to the CWS at the very least … they just to circuitous paths there.

Your 2015 College World Series Champion: The University of Virginia

This concludes the College Baseball season and our coverage of it for 2015.  I have some draft posts about summer leagues and summer travel teams of note for high schoolers that I may dig out again, for those interested.

 


College CWS tournament references:

6 Responses to '2015 CWS Finals: Virginia wins!'

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  1. Good for them, especially since their coach is not one those people who ruins his pitchers careers for the sake of the team like a lot do.

    Mark L

    25 Jun 15 at 1:46 pm

  2. Agreed; UVA’s coach has done a fabulous job with the staff. He’s the polar opposite of certain coaches out there. On this topic, i’ve got an interesting post where i talk about the programs out there known to be arm shredders …

    Todd Boss

    25 Jun 15 at 9:46 pm

  3. Yeah, O Conner and the guy from Vandy are considered the best as far as looking after kids, so the ‘good’ guys won this year.

    Wally

    26 Jun 15 at 7:30 am

  4. Three arm-shredders I can think of are Rice, TCU, and N.C. State.

    Mark L

    26 Jun 15 at 2:18 pm

  5. MarkL: Rice and TCU are definitely there, well documented. NC State? Hadn’t heard that as much. I mention them w/r/t their treatment of Carlos Rodon for sure … but havn’t heard much since. Maybe it was just a desperate coach who couldn’t quite believe that a team with two first round picks (Rodon and Trea Turner) wasn’t making the post-season….

    I’ll post it this am since we’re talking about it…

    Todd Boss

    29 Jun 15 at 9:37 am

  6. […] part in getting UVA out of the regional his freshman year but did little else for the team as UVA surprisingly won the CWS.  As a sophomore, he had a 5.07 ERA all told as he was convered from mid-week starter to […]

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