{"id":16001,"date":"2019-06-24T10:17:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T14:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16001"},"modified":"2019-06-24T10:18:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T14:18:01","slug":"2019-cws-group-winners-and-cws-final-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16001","title":{"rendered":"2019 CWS Group Winners and CWS Final preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/175px-Cws_logo_new_ncaa2016.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15895\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15895\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/175px-Cws_logo_new_ncaa2016.png\" alt=\"175px-Cws_logo_new_ncaa2016\" width=\"175\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/175px-Cws_logo_new_ncaa2016.png 175w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/175px-Cws_logo_new_ncaa2016-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/CWS-2018_calendar-narrow.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14875\"><br \/>\n<\/a>Here\u2019s a recap of our CWS coverage so far for 2019:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15858\">2019 CWS Regional Results, Super Regional Pairings, Nats picks still playing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15946\">2019 CWS Super Regional Recaps, CWS Omaha field and performance of Nats draft picks<\/a>\n<div class=\"locked-info\"><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Lets review the CWS group play.\u00a0 The CWS plays just one or two games a day; a far cry from the first weekend, where 64 teams played hundreds of games over the course of a long weekend.\u00a0 So this post has been written in one or two sentence increments for a week and a half\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Predictions for the Group stages: Vanderbilt and Texas Tech.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>In the Top\u00a0Bracket<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0(Michigan, #8 Texas Tech, #5 Arkansas, Florida State)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In the opening games<\/strong>, we got two upsets right out of the box.\u00a0 Michigan beat TTU 5-3 behind a solid outing from 2nd rounder <strong>Karl Kaufmann<\/strong>, while Florida State topped Arkansas in a 1-0 pitcher&#8217;s duel.\u00a0 Nats picks\u00a0<strong>Drew Mendoza<\/strong> went 0-4 for FSU, while Arkansas closer\u00a0<strong>Matt Cronin<\/strong> pitched a scoreless 9th inning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the first elimination game,\u00a0<\/strong>Texas Tech beat Arkanasas 5-4 to eliminate the #5 seed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the winner&#8217;s bracket game<\/strong>, 2nd round pick\u00a0<strong>Tommy Henry<\/strong> pitched the game of his life, throwing a 100-pitch 3-hit shutout to blank FSU 2-0 and put Michigan in the driver&#8217;s seat.\u00a0 FSU&#8217;s Mendoza went 0-4 with two punchouts against the tough lefty, and badly threw away an easy grounder in the field.\u00a0 \u00a0 This sets up Michigan and their 2-Ace staff nicely;\u00a0they don&#8217;t play again until Friday, giving their #1 starter Kaufmann 5 full days of rest for that regional final.\u00a0 And if they have to go to the next game &#8230; Murray would have four full days of rest.\u00a0 Michigan is going to be hard to beat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the play-in game<\/strong>, Texas Tech eliminated Florida State and sent their legendary manager <strong>Mike Martin\u00a0<\/strong>into retirement without having ever won the CWS, despite dozens of appearances.\u00a0 The final collegiate game for Mendoza did include a hit (on a questionable scoring call), and his 1B bailed him out of another easy throwing error early.\u00a0 But FSU is done and Mendoza should be cleared to start negotiating.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the group final<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Michigan<\/strong> <\/span>scored early and often to blitz Texas Tech and advance loss-less to the final.\u00a0 just an amazing story.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Final Group standings: Michigan, #8 Texas Tech, Florida State, #5 Arkansas<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>In the Bottom\u00a0Bracket<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0(Auburn, #6 Mississippi State, #7 Louisville, #2 Vanderbilt)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In the opening games<\/strong>, Vanderbilt held serve and topped Louisville 3-1, while Mississippi State scored 4 in the 9th to beat Auburn 5-4.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the first elimination game<\/strong>, Louisville took out Auburn across two rain-delayed days to eliminate Auburn.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the winner&#8217;s bracket game<\/strong>, Vanderbilt got another stellar start from freshman sensation\u00a0<strong>Kumar Rocker<\/strong>, this time throwing &#8220;only&#8221; 95 pitches and giving up 1 run in 6 complete, to down #6 Mississippi State and take control of the group.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the play-in game,\u00a0<\/strong>another walk-off win as Louisville spoils a gem of a start from Mississippi State&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>J.T. Ginn\u00a0<\/strong>by scoring 2 in the 7th and 2 in the 9th to win 4-3 and eliminate Mississippi State.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the group final<\/strong>, Karm police took hold of Louisville starter\u00a0<strong>Luke Smith<\/strong>, who pitched 8 stellar innings &#8230; and profanely let the Vandy dugout know it, only to lose in the 9th as <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Vanderbilt<\/strong> <\/span>walked off for the win.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Final Group standings: #2 Vanderbilt, #7 Louisville,\u00a0 #6 Mississippi State, Auburn<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>CWS finals discussion<\/strong><\/span>: Games 1,2,3 set for Mon-Wed 6\/24\/19 to 6\/26\/19.<\/p>\n<p>Pitching Match-ups:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Game 1: Monday 6\/24\/19: Vanderbilt&#8217;s #1\u00a0<strong>Drake Fellows<\/strong>\u00a0(7 days rest) vs Michigan&#8217;s #2\u00a0<strong>Tommy Henry<\/strong> (6 days rest)<\/li>\n<li>Game 2: Tuesday 6\/25\/19: Vanderbilty #2\u00a0<strong>Kumar Rocker<\/strong>\u00a0(5 days rest) vs Michigan&#8217;s #3\u00a0<strong>Jeff Criswell<\/strong> (3 days rest from a relief appearance)<\/li>\n<li>Game 3: Wednesday 6\/26\/19: Vanderbilt&#8217;s\u00a0#3\u00a0<strong>Mason Hickman<\/strong>\u00a0(4 days rest) vs Michigan&#8217;s #1\u00a0<strong>Karl Kaufmann<\/strong> (4 days rest)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thoughts: Michigan is the cinderella &#8230; but Cinderella had to burn a second CWS start from their ace Kaufmann to get there.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Vanderbilt advanced to the title without interrupting its rotation whatsoever and has its staff lined up exactly as they want.\u00a0 Michigan gets the ball to their stud lefty Henry, who shut down FSU and should be pretty effective against Vanderbilt&#8217;s lefty-heavy middle of the order.\u00a0 I&#8217;m predicting that Michigan sneaks a win from Henry, but then (as in the super regional) Vanderbilt will explode against the rest of the Michigan staff and runs away with it in three.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Prediction<\/strong><\/span>: Vanderbilt in 3<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>College CWS tournament references<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>d1baseball.com&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.d1baseball.com\/daily\/today.htm\">daily scoreboard<\/a>\u00a0is my go-to link<\/li>\n<li>d1baseball&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/ncaa-regionals-tournament-central\/\">Tourney Central<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Baseball America&#8217;s\u00a0College coverage home page<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.collegebaseballdaily.com\/\">CollegeBaseballDaily.com<\/a>\u00a0has coverage as well.<\/li>\n<li>CollegeBaseballCentral.com has coverage as well.<\/li>\n<li>Ncaa.com&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/brackets\/baseball\/d1\/2019\">interactive full 64-team bracket<\/a><\/li>\n<li>NCAA\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/stats\/baseball\/d1\/current\/individual\/200\">Individual player stats<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Warren Nolan.com&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.warrennolan.com\/baseball\/2018\/index\">College Baseball RPI<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Warren Nolan&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/warrennolan.com\/baseball\/2019\/conferencerpi\">Conference RPI ranking<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a recap of our CWS coverage so far for 2019: 2019 CWS Regional Results, Super Regional Pairings, Nats picks still playing 2019 CWS Super Regional Recaps, CWS Omaha field and performance of Nats draft picks Lets review the CWS group play.\u00a0 The CWS plays just one or two games a day; a far cry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4230,4239,4243,3791,4238,3701,4241,4242,4185,4240,4216],"class_list":["post-16001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","tag-drake-fellows","tag-drew-mensoza","tag-jeff-criswell","tag-jt-ginn","tag-karl-kaufmann","tag-kumar-rocker","tag-luke-smith","tag-mason-h-ickman","tag-matt-cronin","tag-mike-martin","tag-tommy-henry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16001"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16039,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001\/revisions\/16039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}