Baseball Home Opener v. PUNC

jetz · April 01, 2013, 02:32:04 PM

This game was originally scheduled against Holy Cross (IN). Believe it or not, this is a big game for the Crusaders. Need a blowout win today. One where everybody hits. I have no info on our starter, but I'm guessing one of the freshmen will get the nod, and we'll see a few guys throw today. The road back to where we can be might start here...

jetz · April 01, 2013, 04:22:50 PM

Well, GameTracker is it's normally unreliable self this afternoon. No update since the top of the 5th for me. No Twitter feed either. This is going to be a tough year to follow the Crusaders. Anyone else getting anything? BTW, we were losing 2-1 after 4...

valpotx · April 01, 2013, 04:31:53 PM

If this score stays at 2-1 (7th inning), it would have to be our worst loss in our NCAA D-1 history

. I sincerely doubt that PNC has gotten any better than when I used to pitch against them. I felt like I was throwing against little kids each time...

jetz · April 01, 2013, 04:34:40 PM

How'd you get the score in the 7th?

valpotx · April 01, 2013, 04:38:13 PM

Look at that, I must have jinxed PNC! We are now up 3-2 in the bottom of the 7th. My GT seems to be updating fine, as we have first and second with 2 outs.

Also, Walsh pitched the last 2/3 of the 7th, and appears to be staying in

valpotx · April 01, 2013, 04:46:32 PM

It is now 4-2 in the bottom of the 7th, bases loaded. Their relief pitcher just walked two straight, and now has 8 BBs in 2.1 IP this year...

jetz · April 01, 2013, 04:49:16 PM

Thanks, getting GT now...

jetz · April 01, 2013, 05:52:32 PM

It's a win, but the bats still never showed up. Manning's 2 RBI, 2 out single was the first clutch hit we've had in a while. Then the PUNCs just walked a couple in...ND is next on Wednesday--they're in the top 20 and looking to avenge a Crusader win there last year...

Enrico Palazzo · April 02, 2013, 04:33:51 PM

Good afternoon, ladies and gents. As for the snafu with GameTracker, that was on me. GameTracker feeds off StatCrew (computer scoring program), and there was an odd play in the 5th where a PNC runner attempted to steal second, the batter swung at the pitch and was called for interference. It was unknown up in the booth as to what the call was, but I tried scoring it what I thought was simply a caught stealing. It was batter's interference and I simply didn't know what the keyboard shortcut was.

Aaron Leavitt is the StatCrew guru, but he was over at softball. Nevertheless, he helped us get caught up but not until after the 6th inning.

As for this past weekend in Chicago, I didn't want to say anything because he's a very nice guy that does (in my opinion) the best work in the Horizon League for baseball, but the Milwaukee SID forgot the activation code for GameTracker back in Wisconsin on Friday. Then when he did have it for Saturday, the information was going to the link from Friday's game. It was an cluster, no doubt about it. I tried my best to keep the Twitter account updated.

Enough with the media geek problems, though.

The offense showed a pulse in the 7th inning yesterday, and it's nice to see some contributions from guys (Schneider, Hanson) that have stepped up. As I alluded to in the game story, this team has yet to have a practice outdoors on a baseball field. That's not anyone's fault. That's not an excuse. It's just a fact. (Of course, Milwaukee is in the same boat we are.)

Not to sound like a homer, but there have been a lot of line drives and hard hit balls that are either right at fielders or defenses have made exceptional plays on. Just like bad calls from umpires, those things tend to even out over the course of an entire season.

10-16 is certainly not where this team was expected to be after 26 games, but there's a lot of baseball still to be had. It was around this time last season that this club started playing its best ball.