Nationals Arm Race

Kirby Jones leads the highly regarded UVA baseball team in 2015. Photo via unk

Believe it or not, its time to start thinking about College Baseball again.  Most teams’ schedules start on the 2/13/15 weekend and all the major outlets covering the sport have released pre-season rankings lists.

College pre-season top-25 lists with local interests noted:

• Baseball America.  Defending champ Vanderbilt #1, UVA #4, Maryland #16, and Liberty #25.
• USA Today Coaches poll pre-season top 25: Vandy #1, UVA #2, Maryland #20
• Collegiate Baseball’s pre-season top 25: Vandy #1, UVA #3, Liberty #23, Maryland #37
• D1 Baseball.com’s pre-season top 25: Vandy #1, UVA #3, Maryland #14.

This BA link has capsules to all the top 25 teams.  And BA has released their pre-season All-American list, with local players of note Nathan Kirby and Mike Matuella (Duke’s #1 starter hailing from Great Falls) earning first team honors.  This pre-season All-American list comes from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and is littered with UVA players.

Vanderbilt returns its entire weekend rotation, including two lock 1st round picks in Walker Buehler and Carson Fuller as well as another presumed 1st round pick in shortstop Dansby Swanson and is inarguably the best returning team in the land.  UVA’s Joe McCarthy earned pre-season 2nd team honors but just went down with injury (back injury, out 12 weeks ugh), which seems like its going to really hurt that team.

Interesting development for 2015: d1baseball.com has apparently been acquired, or has undergone a mass change in direction.  Gone is the 1990-esque interface; now they have graphics and professional writers associated with it (namely, Aaron Fitt, formerly of Baseball America, who left BA in Nov 2014 and is now focused entirely on the d1 site.  Most importantly, the site is now a pay-for site.   I visit this site constantly during the college and CWS seasons; we’ll see how much you can see w/o paying for this season.

2/10/15 post publish update: Great preview of College season from Chris Slade at minorleagueball.com

The publication Collegiate Baseball Newspaper recently announced its Top 40 college baseball recruiting classes, and 2014 CWS runner-up UVA was ranked 9th.  LSU, Wichita State, Florida, San Diego and Oklahoma State comprise the surprising top 5, though the rest of the top 10 contains some of the expected collegiate powerhouse programs.  In late October, Baseball America ranked UVA’s class even higher, at #2 in the country behind only LSU.

(Also: UVA announced their 2015 schedule on 9/25/14, schedule here).

UVA published their own press release, which detailed the names in their recruiting class.  A good friend (UVA alumni who has taken a big interest in the squad with their recent success) asked me to react to the class with what I knew.  Here’s what I wrote:

(Here’s what I wrote about UVA-committed players after the 2014 draft, and some of these guys were covered in my “pre-2014 season draft prospects” piece).

– Derek Casey: he’s the player I’d be most happy about coming to school, were I a UVA fan.  He was a 3rd round talent, undefeated in his HS pitching career, 93-94 on the gun.  He should go far towards replacing the arms UVA stands to lose after next season to the draft (basically, all three of their projected weekend starters are Juniors in 2015).
– Pavin Smith probably replaces Mike Papi like-for-like in the lineup; big lefty 1B/OF type.  Well regarded nationally.
– Charlie Cody was more highly ranked on prospect boards before his Senior year; he’s a good bat addition.  At one point early in 2014 he was ranked as high as #34 for all HS prospects nation-wide by one ranking service.
– Bennett Sousa is another guy who got a lot of national recognition even if he wasn’t drafted.  93mph from the left hand side, another future starter.
– Tommy Doyle: its hard to say just how good he is: yes he got drafted (by the Nats in the 34th round) but his drafting seemed to be one of those “draft a local kid to appease a part-owner’s buddy” kind of things.  He pitched at a small high school (Flint Hill Prep in Oakton) with almost no competition, making it really tough to gauge how good he is.  He also played for a no-name travel team instead of someone like the Evoshield Canes.  What he does have going for him is his size: he’s 6’6″ and hitting 91, which probably comes out of his hand about a foot closer to the plate than a guy who is 6′ even, making it look that much faster.  If he can add a few mph, he’ll be a beast.
– Jack Gerstenmaier, like Cody, had his stock drop in 2014 for whatever reason.  He was a 1st team PerfectGame All-American for the region at one point.  But Gerstenmaier-Cody could be UVA’s double play combo for years.

Of the rest of UVA’s announced class, I don’t know anything about them, even the local guys.  I’d guess that a couple of them are good talents … but most of them might be on minimal-to-no scholarship.

UVA lost a big-time recruit last minute in Devon Fisher (no relation to 2014 supp-1st round pick Derek Fisher); he was a catcher from Portsmouth who got drafted and then signed with Boston.  20th rounder so probably not for a lot of cash, which makes it that much more of a surprise.  He would have pushed this class up the rankings for sure.

With the new draft rules in place, its likely that guys like Cody, Casey and Gerstenmaier let it be known they had strong college commitments and thus that hampered their draft status.  Same thing happened to Conner Jones last year.  Good for UVA that they draw so well.

It seems UVA is quite setup for the future in terms of arms:

• 2015 rotation: Kirby, Waddel, Sborz on weekends, one of the freshman/sophomores (Jones?) mid-week.
• 2016 rotation: Choosing from Jones, Bettinger, Sousa, Doyle and Casey.  not bad.

Vanderbilt’s ace Fuller helped Vanderbilt win the deciding game 3 in the CWS. Photo unk via anchorofgold.com

Congrats to #13 seed Vanderbilt, your 2014 College World Series champ (following UCLA, who won the 2013 CWS as covered here last year).  This is our final College post of the year.

Here’s a review of our CWS coverage for 2014:

• We started with the Field of 64 announcement in late May
• Here’s a review of the sixteen regional tournaments.
• Then we recapped the super Regionals as the CWS field in Omaha was set.
• Lastly we reviewed the group play in the CWS itself prior to the final being set.

Here’s how the CWS final played out:

• In Game One on 6/23/14, UVA’s All-American starter Nathan Kirby blew up in the third inning, walking in three runs en route to a NINE run inning, which held up for Vanderbilt as they won 9-8.  Kirby said that he just lost his release point, leading to a pretty uncharacteristic outing.  This is not good news for UVA, who thought for sure they’d win a matchup of their #1 All-American versus Vanderbilt’s 3rd starter Walker Buehler.  Sure enough, UVA got to Buehler for 2 runs in the first and 5 runs before knocking him out, but they just couldn’t overcome the large deficit.   Buehler’s no slouch; the sophomore went 12-2 on the season and throws an easy 95 and likely is a top draft pick next year, so it isn’t as if UVA faced the scrubs.  But their work is cut out for them now.
• In Game two on 6/24/14, UVA got a bounce-back performance from #2 starter Brandon Waddell, who pitched a complete game giving up 2 runs on 5 hits to lead the Cavaliers to a 7-2 victory to force the deciding game.   Vanderbilt’s #2 starter, supplanted Ace and 2014 first rounder Tyler Beede pitched well for 5 innings, but got knocked around in the 7th to give up what turned out to be the go ahead runs and took the loss.  UVA continued to show why Baseball America pundits thought they were the “most complete” team in the college post season, coming at teams with both superior pitching AND superior hitting.
• In the deciding Game 3 on 6/25/14, UVA’s Josh Sborz (of McLean HS, where he had a stellar prep career and collected every available “player of the year” award his senior year) faced off against Vanderbilt’s ace Carson Fuller, going on short rest after pitching the play-in game for Vanderbilt just 4 days ago.  Sborz was wild early and got yanked in the first, leaving mid-week starter Artie Lewicki with the ball.  All Lewicki did was throw 6 innings of 4 hit ball, giving up one unearned run (Lewikie didn’t give up an earned run in 23 IP this CWS; wow).  UVA got the ball into their closer’s hand in a tie ball game in the 8th (first rounder Nick Howard) and he gave up an unlikely homer (just the third of the entire CWS) to prove to be the game winner for Vanderbilt 3-2.  UVA loaded the bases in the 8th but couldn’t push a run across against Vandy’s bullpen, and they closed it out.  Heartbreak for UVA, who may not have a better combination of hitting (6 hitters drafted) and pitching (led by an All-American sophomore) for quite a while.

Congrats to Vanderbilt for coming out on top.

Resources:

• d1baseball.com is the best source for anyone following the game.
• NCAA Baseball stats for individual and team stats (though its hard to find the team stats)

Here’s a look at our CWS coverage so far in 2014:

• We started with the Field of 64 announcement in late May
• Here’s a review of the sixteen regional tournaments.
• Then we recapped the super Regionals as the CWS field in Omaha was set.

Now lets review the group play in Omaha.  Compared to the blitz of games during regionals (100+ games in four days) and super-regionals (where there were nearly 40 games in a long weekend), covering the CWS is pedestrian; there’s just a couple of games a day for nearly two weeks.

My pre-CWS predictions are with Vanderbilt from the top and UVA from the bottom, but UVA’s path through to the CWS finals is a lot tougher.  Lets see how things played out.

In the Top Bracket (UC Irvine, Vanderbilt, Louisville, and Texas):

UC Irvine continued their surprising run this post-season by getting 3 runs late on Texas’ starter Nathan Thornhill and taking the first game 3-1.  Meanwhile, Vanderbilt got to wild Louisville starter Kyle Funkhowser behind their flame-throwing converted closer Carson Fulmer and took their first game 5-3. 

In the first elimination game, Texas handed Louisville’s Anthony Kidston his first loss of the year and put the Cardinals 2-and-out 4-1.  In the winner’s bracket game, UC Irvine tagged Vanderbilt’s stud Tyler Beede for four runs early and knocked him out in the 4th, but Walker Buehler relieved and threw 5+ innings of no-hit ball as Vanderbilt’s offense stormed back to take the winner’s bracket game 6-4.  This sets up Vanderbilt nicely for the rest of the tournament and confirms them as the early favorite to advance to the final.  In an elimination game, Texas got a solo homer from C.J. Hinojosa and 8+ shutout innings from middle-reliever Chad Hollingsworth to eliminate UC Irvine 1-0 in a matchup of two of the games most tenured and respected coaches Augie Garido and Mike Gillespie, with nearly 3,000 combined wins between them.  Texas must now beat Vanderbilt twice over the 6/20/14 weekend to advance to the CWS final.  Texas did their part in the first game, knocking Vanderbilt’s starter out before the first inning was complete and winning 4-0 to force a doe-or-die 6/21/14 game.  In that do-or-die game, Vanderbilt outlasted Texas with a walk-off infield single in the bottom of the 10th to advance 4-3.

In the Bottom Bracket (Texas Tech,Virginia, Ole Miss and TCU):

TCU saved their #1 starter and got by Texas Tech 3-2 in the opener, scoring 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th after not being able to touch TTU starter Chris Sadberry.  Texas Tech’s coach is probably kicking himself right now; Sadberry had given up just 3 hits through 7 innings and sat on 101 pitches; his reliever immediately coughed up the game.  Meanwhile, UVA’s Nathan Kirby pitched a gem in their opener, holding Ole Miss to just one hit over 7 innings and supp-1st rounder Mike Papi drove in the walk-off run as UVA won 2-1.  UVA’s work is cut out for them though, having to face first rounder Brandon Finnegan in the winner’s bracket game.  In that marquee TCU-UVA matchup, UVA couldn’t do much against Finnegan (8ip, 1 ER) but their own co-ace Brandon Waddell also held the Horned Frogs in check (7ip, 1ER).  The game went into extras .. many extra innings, finally won by UVA in the 15th 3-2 (tying the longest CWS game ever).  UVA’s closer Nick Howard threw 4 innings and 60 pitches, which makes me wonder if we’ll be hearing complaints about his usage (perhaps not; he was a starter his first two years at UVA).  Then, In the loser’s bracket, Ole Miss put Texas Tech out in a close 2-1 game, then similarly eliminated TCU 6-4.  Ole Miss must now beat UVA twice over the 6/20/14 weekend to advance to the CWS final.  And they couldn’t do it: behind 8 innings from their #3 and #4 starters (Josh Sborz and Artie Lewicki UVA topped Ole Miss 4-1 to advance to the CWS finals.

CWS finals: #13 Vanderbilt versus #3 UVA.

Game 1 on June 23rd, Game 2 on June 24th and (if necessary) Game 3 on June 25th.

Kirby versus Beede in game 1; Kirby sits on 8 days of rest after throwing just 85 pitches on June 15th.  Vanderbilt burned their ace Fulmer in the bracket final, leaving Vanderbilt at a definite disadvantage in the pitching matchup.  In game 2, UVA has Waddell set to go with 6 days rest while Vanderbilt has to go with their #3.  Sborz/Lewicki could tandem pitch a deciding game 3 for UVA with four full days rest if neither guy is used in the first two games, while Vanderbilt could bring back Fulmer on 3 days rest (to the likely ire of pitch count scouts, despite the fact that he only threw 90 pitches on 6/21).  UVA’s pitching is setup just about as good as you could hope for and have the bats to match; you have to think they’re the favorites.

Resources: d1baseball.com has all the CWS results in easy-to-consume fashion.  Their live scoreboard is great and is up-to-the-minute all throughout the weekend with links to the ESPN box scores.  Collegesplits.com has a ton of great data on college players.  And the Washington Post is providing great coverage of UVA’s trek through the college playoffs.

We’re through the initial field of 64, through the regional play, and now we’re through the super regionals.  Here’s a review of the action from the 6/6/14 weekend and a look at our CWS field of eight for 2014.

From a draft perspective, the super-regionals feature a number of high profile guys, as noted by MLB.com’s Joey Nowalk here.  Tyler Beede, Max Pentecost, Brandon Finnegan, UVA’s trio of 1st-2nd rounders (Derek Fisher, Mike Papi and Nick Howard) and Maryland’s ace/2nd rounder Jake Stinnett are all names to watch.  Lots of good pitching in this super-regional.

Here’s how the super-regionals went down: we’ll look at these regionals in the original order of the top 8 national seeds.  Blue identifies the super-regional winners.

• UC Irvine at #16 Oklahoma State: In Stillwater UC Irvine once again proved doubters wrong, sweeping two games quickly on the road to qualify for Omaha.
• College of Charleston at Texas Tech: Texas Tech squeaked by Charleston 1-0 in the opener despite a stellar performance from local kid Taylor Clarke (8ip, 5 hits, 1 run).  Texas Tech won the 2nd game of the regional by the same score; Charleston’s pitching staff gave up 2 runs in 18 innings and lost both games.  Texas Tech to Omaha.
• #3 Virginia hosting Maryland: Maryland (behind 2nd round pick Stinnett) shocked UVA in the opener 5-4, putting 5 runs on Virginia’s ace Nathan Kirby and knocking him out in the 5th.  Does Maryland have the pitching though to hold off the consensus CWS favorites?  Not in the 2nd game; Uva roared back to win 7-3 and force the tiebreaking game.  There UVA continued to batter the Maryland pitching staff and advanced to Omaha 11-2.
• Stanford at #13 Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt destroyed Stanford in the opener (they were up 10-0 by the end of the 3rd) but Stanford took game 2 to force a super-regional tie-breaker.  In game 3 Vanderbilt jumped all over Stanford’s starter en route to 5 first inning runs and an eventual easy win.
• Kennessaw State at #12 Louisville: Louisville outmatched the upstart Kennessaw State team and won two straight to return to Omaha.
• #6 Louisiana-Lafayette hosting #11 Ole Miss: In game one Louisiana-Lafayette’s offense put 9 runs up in the first 3 innings and held on for a 9-5 win.  But Ole Miss fought back to win game 2 and force the tiebreaker.  In the deciding game, Ole Miss broke open a close, rainy game with 4 in the ninth to advance 10-4.
• #7 TCU hosting Pepperdine: TCU got 6 decent innings out of its ace (and first round pick) Finnegan and held on for a 3-2 opening win.  Pepperdine forced the tiebreaker with its own 3-2 win in game 2.  In the decider, TCU won a back-and-forth affair by taking the lead with 2 runs in the top of the 9th and survived a rally to advance.
• Texas hosting Houston: Texas took both games from Houston 4-2 and then 4-0 to qualify for Omaha.

CWS Field: UC Irvine, Vanderbilt, Louisville, and Texas on one side, Texas Tech,Virginia, Ole Miss and TCU on the other.

Interesting field; There’s just 2 national seeds left in this field (and just four overall), the lowest number of advancing seeds in the history of the tournament.  Its very much tilted to the lower side, with the two remaining national seeds in one bracket.

Quick predictions: Vanderbilt on one side, UVA on the other with Virginia as national champs.  Why not, eh?

College Baseball’s Field fo 64 was winnowed to just 16 over the 5/30/14 weekend, setting up Super Regionals to be played the weekend of 6/13/14.  Here’s a recap of the action.  There were a TON of upsets all throughout the weekend.

MLB.com/Cash Kruth posted a nice summary of top100 draft prospects in action over the past weekend; using that as a guide as well as focusing on some other big time names and local teams here’s a recap of the weekend’s action.

We’ll review the 16 regionals in order of the national seeds.  Blue is the host city and Red is the winner.

1. In the Corvalis regional (host/seed: Oregon State) the #1 overall seed survived a nail-biter against North Dakota State in a game where they threw their 3rd string arm (Andrew Moore, who struck out 14 in his 8 innings).  They will be tough to beat with their two aces (Jace Fry and Ben Wetzler, who both sport 11-1 records with sterling ERAs on the season) going in the next to games, irrespective of who they play.  However day 2 featured a shocker: UC Irvine destroyed the #1 overall seed 14-2, getting to Fry for 6 runs in 6 innings.  Huge upset there.  Oregon State now will need to advance out of the loser’s bracket and stretch their pitching staff to advance.  On 6/1/14 Oregon State got by UNLV behind Wetzler’s complete game 4-hit, 1-run, 10-K outing and then blanked UC Irvine in the first game of the regional final behind a nifty 2-hit shutout from long-man/4th starter Scott Schultz.  In the do-or-die game on 6/2/14, the #1 seed’s luck ran out as UC Irvine cobbled together innings and held off Oregon State’s offense 4-2.
   
2. In the Gainesville regional (host/seed: Florida): Long Beach State beat UNC behind sophomore Andrew Rohrbach‘s 8 shut out inning effort; he allowed a run in the 9th before getting pulled.  UNC sophomore Trent Thornton gave up 6 runs in less than four innings and UNC couldn’t come back.  And in the night cap perhaps the biggest upset of day one occurred when dangerous 4th seed College of Charleston beat the #2 overall seed/host Florida 3-2.  Local kid Taylor Clarke started for Charleston but was removed mid-way in the 5th thanks to uncharacteristic wildness; he had walked five and put 12 guys on-base but survived with only 1 run allowed.  The shocks continued in day 2 as UNC neatly dispatched Florida 5-2, eliminating the #2 overall seed.  College of Charleston took care of business over Long Beach State to take control of the regional, and ended up advancing on 6/1/14 when they beat Long Beach a second time.  Huge upset of Florida, even if Charleston was badly under-seeded.
3. In the Charlottesville regional (host/seed: Virginia): UVA blitzed Bucknell to open the tournament behind 7 shutout innings from mid-week starter Artie Lewicki, a strategic move leaving UVA’s ace All-American Nathan Kirby to pitch in the winner’s bracket game on 5/31/14.  There they face Arkansas, who squeaked out a win over local favorite Liberty.  In day 2, Liberty went two-and-out while UVA shut out Arkansas behind Kirby’s 8-inning 1-hit gem 3-0.   Arkansas worked their way to the final of the regional, but there they ran into UVA’s saturday starter Brandon Waddell, who threw 6 2/3rd mostly clean innings while UVA exploded for 6 in the third to put the regional away 9-2.
4. In the Bloomington regional (host/seed: Indiana): Stanford opened with an upset win over Indiana State behind a complete game 4-hit, 1-run performance from freshman Cal Quatrill while host Indiana cruised to a win.  In the winner’s bracket game Indiana took control of the regional with a win over Stanford.  Stanford stormed back from the loser’s bracket and took out Indiana in the first game of the regional final, forcing one extra game on 6/2/14.  Indiana ended up losing the winner-take-all game in pretty heartbreaking fashion, losing 5-4 to the Pac-12 team when Stanford scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th to advance.
5. In the Tallahasse regional (host/seed: Florida State), Kennesaw got the first win of the tournament when sophomore Travis Bergen threw 8 2/3 shutout innings over Alabama and beating their Ace Spencer Turnbull.  Then the most surprising result of the day occurred in the night-cap when Georgia Southern embarrassed Florida State 7-0 in a game where they outhit the national seed 16-2 and their hurler (junior lefty Sam Howard) threw a 2-hit shutout.  Howard is a relative unknown, not even on MinorLeagueBall’s top 350-list of draft prospects; he made himself some money today.  On day 2, Alabama put Florida State two-and-out in a shock 6-5 win, while little known Kennesaw State scored 8 runs in the 11th inning to out-last Georgia Southern in a weird-looking box score 13-5.  Kennesaw’s big-time prospect (and likely upper-first round pick) Max Pentecost went 4-5 in the game with two walks to power his team.  On Sunday Alabama stormed back, blanking Georgia Southern and then beating Kennesaw State to force the extra do-or-die game.  However in the winner-take-all match Kennesaw State advanced over their SEC rival
6. In the Lafayette regional (host/seed: Louisiana-Lafayette): Mississippi State beat San Diego State to open the regional and then in a huge upset Lafayette and their huge offense was shutout by little-known Jackson State 1-0.  Louisiana-Lafayette faces an up-hill climb now.  Louisiana took care of business over Stephen Strasburg‘s alma-mater in the elimination game and gets another shot at Jackson State, who couldn’t match up with their SEC opponent in the winner’s game.  Lafayette stormed through the elimination games, showing the offense they’re known for, beating Jackson State 11-1 and then Mississippi State 14-8 to force the extra 6/1/14 game.  Louisiana-Lafayette made up for their earlier mis-steps by taking an early 4-0 lead and holding on for a 5-3 victory to advance.
7. In the Fort Worth regional (host/seed: TCU), hosts TCU had to go to 11 to get their opening win (with 1st round talent Brandon Finnegan striking out 12 in 7+ innings), after which they’ll face upstart Sam Houston State.  In the winner’s bracket game, TCU advanced 3-2 over Sam Houston in a TWENTY-TWO inning game, the 2nd longest game in NCAA  history.  On 6/1/14, Sam Houston got back to the regional final but TCU held on to win the regional and advance.
8. In the Baton Rouge regional (host/seed: LSU) the seeds held to form on day one, with Houston and LSU advancing.  On day 2, LSU took charge with an 5-1 defeat over Houston.  Meanwhile, Houston worked its way back through the loser’s bracket and outlasted LSU in extra inning to force the extra winner-take-all game on 6/2/14.  There, Houston blitzed LSU 12-2 to get the upset regional win.
9. In the Houston regional (host/seed: Rice): local team George Mason held the lead over Rice in the 8th inning but senior lefty starter Jared Gaynor fell apart in the 8th, let in 6 runs and Rice won 7-2.  Rice moves on to play powerhouse Texas while George Mason will have to contend with SEC team Texas A&M to survive.  There GMU didn’t have the horses and was eliminated 7-3 by TAMU, while Texas handled Rice in extras.   On 6/1/14, Rice was eliminated in extras, and then TAMU forced an elimination game on 6/1 over Texas, but that was as close as TAMU got, as Texas took the winner-take-all game 4-1.
10. In the San Luis Obispo regional (host/seed: Cal Poly): Cal Poly (behind Matt Imhof) and Pepperdine advanced to setup an all-California mid-major winner’s bracket game.  There, Pepperdine’s ace LHP Aaron Brown (a likely 4th-5th rounder) pitched a gem to upset Cal Poly 2-1.   Sacramento State embarrassed Pac-12 power Arizona State in the loser’s bracket final, setting up a rematch with the host for the right to go after Pepperdine.  Cal Poly made its way back to the regional final and a rematch with the Waves, but were handled 10-6 late sunday night and Pepperdine advances.
11. In the Oxford regional (host/seed: Ole Miss): Ole Miss’s starting shortstop has some DC roots: Errol Robinson was featured over the weekend.  the 5/30/14 games were rained out, forcing a delayed start.  On Saturday 5/31/14 the two top seeds easily advanced to the winner’s bracket game.  There Ole Miss held on for a 2-1 victory and will face Washington again in the regional final on 6/1/14.  There, Ole Miss took another low-scoring/extra innings game to win the regional 3-2.
12. In the Louisville regional (host/seed: Louisville): Louisville and Kansas advanced on day one.  Louisville took care of business over Kansas in day 2, setting up a re-match between Kansas and Kentucky to try to oust Louisville out of the loser’s bracket.  Kansas got the better of Kentucky in their elimination game, but was handled 4-1 by Louisville in the regional final.
13. In the Nashville regional (host/seed: Vanderbilt): Oregon just destroyed Clemson to open the regional 18-1 and then host Vanderbilt similarly destroyed Xavier 11-0 (with 1st round talent Tyler Beede throwing 8 shutout innings and striking out 14) to setup an intriguing winner’s bracket game.   Vanderbilt controlled Oregon on day two while Xavier surprised Clemson.   Oregon made their way to the regional final, but were beaten again 3-2 by a Vanderbilt team that won its 3 regional games by a combined score of 21-4.
14. In the Columbia Region (host/seed: South Carolina): Maryland scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th (two by virtue of bases-loaded HBPs, including the walk-off winning run) to upend ODU in the opener, bailing out their ace Jake Stinnett‘s good but not good-enough 8-inning 3 earned run performance.    They next face host South Carolina.  In day-2 ODU unfortunately went two-and-out at the hands of Campbell but the big news was Maryland’s upsetting of #15 seed South Carolina 4-3.  Maryland is now in a great position to advance out of the regional where they could play local rival UVA in the super regional.  On 6/1, South Carolina fought their way back to the regional final, where they were pounded 10-1 by Maryland for the regional upset.  Not only was this a regional upset … but this was the first time South Carolina had lost at home in something like 27 games.  In the Baseball America CWS preview, they didn’t even bother talking about this series because “South Carolina doesn’t lose at home.”  Well, South Carolina lost twice to Maryland and the Terps are moving on.
    
15. In the Coral Gables regional (host/seed: Miami), host Miami struggled mightily with the below .500 Bethune-Cookman team, winning 1-0 on a walk-off wild pitch in the 9th.   They face Texas Tech next, who also struggled (comparatively speaking) with the scholarship-less Ivy league champs from Columbia.  In the winner’s bracket game Miami’s offense was exposed again as Texas Tech shut them out 3-0 to take the driver’s seat.  Miami blitzed Bethune-Cookman to make it back to the regional final, where they were losing 1-0 in the 8th inning when play was suspended on 6/1/14.  Things got no better and Texas Tech finished off Miami 4-0 on 6/2/14.  All three of Florida’s seeds are now eliminated, a huge surprise.
16. In the Stillwater regional (host/seed: Oklahoma State): Cal State Fullerton showed why they were likely under-seeded with an opening 5-1 win over Nebraska, though they depended on a grand-slam to take the lead for good.  Meanwhile host Oklahoma State rolled to an easy victory over small school Binghamton.  In the winner’s bracket on day 2, Oklahoma State put some doubters at bay by winning a slugfest over Fullerton 13-7 to take over the driver’s seat.  Fullerton beat Nebraska to get another shot at the Cowboys, but were beaten by Oklahoma State in the regional final 6-4.

Summary of Regionals statistically:

• 9 seeds/hosts upset, while just 7 seeds/hosts advanced out of 16.  This includes your overall #1, #2, #4, #5 and #8 seeds eliminated, some two-and-out.
• 4 number of #2 seeds advancing, 4 number of #3 seeds and 1 #4 seed (College of Charleston) advanced to the super regionals.
• 7 = number of regionals forced into the “extra” deciding game.
• 9 number of #4 seeds who didn’t finish 4th in their regional (Georgia Southern, Xavier, Youngstown State, Bucknell, Campbell, Jackson State, Sacramento State, Bethune-Cookman and College of Charleston)
• 13 = the number of extra inning games (out of 103 total played this weekend), including a 22-inning monster between TCU and Sam Houston State.  The TCU regional featured 3 extra-inning games plus a 2-1 9-inning game.
• Biggest upsets: clearly the two Florida national seeds (#2 Florida and #5 Florida State) getting blown out and going winless in their regionals.  But the fact that all three Florida hosts were upset is pretty amazing.  Oregon State losing as the #1 overall seed is pretty shocking (even if some thought they were over-seeded).
• Most surprising regional winner: Has to be Kennessaw State, despite its upper first round talent Penecost.  College of Charleston may have been the only #4 seed to advance, but many thought they were at least a #3 seed and maybe even a weak #2.   These were the two highest RPI teams advancing, both in the 50s.
• The #1 ranked RPI team (UVA) and the #1 ranked Baseball America team (Louisiana-Lafayette) both advanced and are on the same side of the potential CWS bracket.
• Exactly ONE Regionals that went pure chalk; the Ole Miss Regional.  Every other regional featured some sort of upset.
• My predictions: just 6 out of 16 predicted correctly.  There were just a ton of upsets this weekend.

Conference Breakdowns of the teams in the Super Regionals:

• 2 ACC teams (out of 7 that made full field).
• 2 SEC teams (out of 10 that made full field).  This is pretty amazing; the SEC had 10 teams and 5 hosts and just two advanced.
• 4 Big-12 teams (out of 5 that made full field).  This is the big news for me; four of the Big-12’s five teams won their regional and the lone outlier (Kansas) finished 2nd to Louisville.
• 1 Pac-12 teams (out of 5 that made full field).  Very poor showing for the Pac-12 this year.
• 1 Big-West teams (out of 4 that made full field).  And the Big West advancer was a shock upset in UC Irvine.
• Both American Athletic Conference teams advanced (Louisville and Houston)
• The remaining 4 are from one-bid conferences: Kennessaw State (Atlantic Sun), Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt), Pepperdine (West Coast), and College of Charleston (CAA).

(Link at CollegeBaseballBlog that has the full field conference breakdowns)

Super Regional Matchups:  With all these upsets, figuring out the hosts was tough.  The 8 hosts were announced late 6/2/14.

• UC Irvine at #16 Oklahoma State
• College of Charleston at Texas Tech
• #3 Virginia hosting Maryland
• Stanford at #13 Vanderbilt
• Kennessaw State at #12 Louisville
• #6 Louisiana-Lafayette hosting #11 Ole Miss
• #7 TCU hosting Pepperdine
• Texas hosting Houston

Super Regional Predictions:  Clearly we’ve under-rated the Big-12 teams, and now they’re hosting four super-regionals.  In each case the’re hosting an up-start/regional upset winner.  I like all four to advance to Omaha.  I think I like the two SEC teams as well; I like Ole Miss upsetting Louisiana-Lafayette.  UVA won’t be beat and for me is the clear CWS favorite right now (The BA guys liked UVA as their pre-tournament favorite despite their losses in the ACC and their dropping in the final top 25 ranking).  Lastly I think Louisville can hold off the surprising Kennessaw State.

Predictions: Oklahoma State, Texas, Louisville and Vanderbilt for one side of the CWS.  UVA, Ole Miss, TCU and Texas Tech on the other.  A very Texas CWS ahead.

College Baseball Daily’s predictions: Oklahoma State, Texas, Louisville, Stanford, UVA, Louisiana-Lafayette, TCU and Texas Tech (with some disagreement here and there).

Resources: d1baseball.com has all the regional results on one page. Their live scoreboard is great and is up-to-the-minute all throughout the weekend with links to the ESPN box scores.