{"id":18073,"date":"2023-06-15T14:24:54","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T18:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18073"},"modified":"2023-06-17T13:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-17T17:27:33","slug":"2023-cws-super-regionals-recap-and-cws-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18073","title":{"rendered":"2023 CWS Super Regionals recap and CWS Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We&#8217;re through the super regionals, and have a CWS field that is, frankly, stacked.  It&#8217;s going to be a great CWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, lets recap the Supers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>#1 Wake Forest v #16 Alabama: <strong>Wake Forest<\/strong> squeaked out a 5-4 opener, then blasted Alabama 22-5 to move to Omaha.  In 5 post-season games, Wake has outscored its opponents 75-16.  Wow.  <\/li><li>#8 Stanford v Texas: <strong>Stanford<\/strong> lost the first but turned things around to squeak past Texas.  In game 2, starter <strong>Quinn Matthews<\/strong> was <a href=\"https:\/\/texassports.com\/sports\/baseball\/stats\/2023\/stanford\/boxscore\/15641\">allowed to finish a CG on 156 pitches<\/a> despite an 8-3 lead in one of the more egregious abuses of a starter we&#8217;ve seen in the college game in some time.<\/li><li>#5 LSU v #12 Kentucky: <strong>LSU <\/strong>blasted Kentucky in game 1 as <strong>Paul Skenes<\/strong> wasn&#8217;t over-worked (as we can&#8217;t say the same for Matthews), getting yanked at 101 pitches in their 14-0 win.   They finished off Ky 8-3 on Sunday.  <\/li><li>Tennessee v Southern Miss: <strong>Tennessee <\/strong>came from a game down to advance past Southern Miss.<\/li><li>TCU v #14 Indiana State (TCU = host instead of the seed due to Indiana State hosting the Special Olympics): this cost Indiana State, as <strong>TCU <\/strong>took two straight to advance.<\/li><li>Oregon v Oral Roberts (Oregon = host); <strong>Oral Roberts<\/strong> blew a 5 run lead in game one, and STILL managed to advance, becoming just the 3rd fourth-seed from a regional to make it to Omaha since the expansion to 64 teams. (Stony Brook and Fresno State).<\/li><li>#7 UVA v Duke; Duke took out <strong>UVA <\/strong>in game one and looked good, but UVA took the next two to advance. <\/li><li>#2 Florida v #15 South Carolina: <strong>Florida <\/strong>took two close ones from South Carolina to advance.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Super Regional predictions<\/em><\/strong> vs Actual: I only got 4 of 8 in my previous predictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>CWS Field (with original national seeds driving the teams):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Group 1 (1,4,5,8): Wake Forest, Tennessee, LSU, Stanford<\/li><li>Group 2 (2,3,6,7): Florida, TCU, Oral Roberts, UVA.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Prospect Watch.<\/em><\/strong>  From Nats perspective all eyes are still on LSU, but now Florida is here too, meaning 3 of the likely top 5 picks are in Omaha for a star studded CWS from a prospect\/scouting perspective.  Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/4604530\/2023\/06\/13\/college-world-series-mlb-draft-prospects-2023\/\">Keith Law&#8217;s take on the 15 major draft prospects<\/a> in Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>LSU: Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes, projected to go 1st and 2nd overall<\/li><li>Florida: Wyatt Langford, projected top 5 pick, along with another arm in Hurston Waldrep as a 1st round projection.  A bit further down: Brandon Sproat, Josh Rivera.<\/li><li>Tennessee: Chase Dollander, who was in the 1-1 mix but who has struggled, continues to build up draft sock.  A bit further down: Maui Atuna.<\/li><li>Wake Forest: Their RHP Rhett Lowder is a possible top 10.  3B Brock Wilken end of 1st round.  A bit further down: Sean Sullivan LHP.<\/li><li>Virginia: their Catcher Kyle Teel and 3B Jake Gelof both top 50 prospects.<\/li><li>Stanford: SS Tommy Troy is a mid-1st rounder<\/li><li>TCU 3B Brayden Taylor an end of 1st rounder<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, lots of draft talent on display in Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My Predictions<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Group 1: Wake Forest over LSU in the group final, with Tennessee getting a win and Stanford going 2 and out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wake leads the nation in pitching &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/team-leaderboards\/\">by a full POINT in team ERA<\/a>.  That&#8217;s amazing.  And they&#8217;re no slouches at the plate either, as we&#8217;ve seen as they&#8217;ve averaged 15 runs a game in the post-season (they&#8217;re 5th in team OPS).  So that&#8217;s a very balanced team.  LSU likely throws Skenes in game one against Tennessee, but Tennessee&#8217;s been using Dollander as their 2nd starter, so they&#8217;ll throw him in an elimination game against Stanford to get an LSU rematch with both teams on their 3rd starter.  But LSU&#8217;s pitching depth only goes so far, and Wake basically has 3 friday night starters to blow through the draw.  Unless Skenes can get another start LSU will struggle to get past Wake and falls in the national semis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Group 2: Virginia over Florida, with TCU and Oral Roberts finishing 3rd and 4th in some order.  UVA leads the nation in team BA, is third in ERA, and will find a way to win.  The problem is that UVA plays Florida in the opener and has proven to be a slow starter.  But they&#8217;re deep and can withstand an early loss.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>final: Wake over UVA in an all-ACC CWS final despite half the regional hosts being SEC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re through the super regionals, and have a CWS field that is, frankly, stacked. It&#8217;s going to be a great CWS. First, lets recap the Supers. #1 Wake Forest v #16 Alabama: Wake Forest squeaked out a 5-4 opener, then blasted Alabama 22-5 to move to Omaha. In 5 post-season games, Wake has outscored its [&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":[],"class_list":["post-18073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073","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=18073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18079,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions\/18079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}