series preview: Vanderbilt

Date/Time: Mon-Wed, 6/22-6/24; 8:00

TV: ESPN

Record against the Commodores: 1-4

Last meeting: Vandy 2-1 over UVA (8-9, 7-2, 2-3); 6/23-6/25/14, Omaha, NE (CWS Final)

Last game: UVA 5, UF 4 (6/20); Vandy 7, TCU 1 (6/19)

Pitching probables:

Monday: RHP Connor Jones (7-2, 3.05, 107 Ks) vs. RHP Carson Fulmer (13-2, 1.95, 159 Ks)

Tuesday: LHP Nathan Kirby (5-3, 2.61, 76 Ks) vs. LHP Philip Pfeifer (6-4, 3.77, 112 Ks)

Wednesday: LHP Brandon Waddell (4-5, 4.02, 87 Ks) vs. RHP Walker Buehler (5-2, 2.85, 89 Ks)

(The last two, for UVA, are guesses on my part.)

You can't make this stuff up.  Or rather, maybe you can only make this stuff up.  Imagine it, dream it, but never expect it to come true.  UVA started winning in California and just didn't stop, most recently taking two out of three from the SEC champions to bring in sight the pot of gold at the end of the road to Omaha.  I can't decide whether to be astounded the little team that could made it this far, or whether to call it postseason business as usual.  Winning the regional isn't that hard, so why shouldn't they?  And once you've won the regional, why shouldn't they win the super?  And once they win the super, why shouldn't they just keep on winning in Omaha?

Well, lots of reasons, actually.  The bullpen is Josh Sborz and "lol I dunno maybe this guy over here."  Nobody really knows who the ace starter is anymore.  The lineup has four guys in a row hitting under .250.  The opponents keep trotting out MLB-bound players.  Two of our top three draft picks are shells of themselves thanks to untimely injuries.  When teams like that keep winning, all a writer can do is fall back on things like "clutch" and "team of destiny" that drive opposing fans batshit insane.

And after all that clutch hitting and pitching, a rematch.  At the end of the road, the teams left standing are the same ones as last year.  The tables have turned somewhat: last year, UVA cruised through three games and set up the bullpen all nice and easy while Vandy needed the extra game to get past Texas.  UVA was probably the more talented team, and outscored Vanderbilt over three games, but didn't deliver in the clutch and watched Vandy walk off with the trophy.  Now the Hoos come in on fumes and giving up the on-paper edge in all conceivable aspects of the game.  Vanderbilt's rotation is set up all nice and neat and their pen is fresh.  It's true what they said on ESPN - a lot of books won't take bets on the series, so heavily favored is Vanderbilt.

Regardless, you have to play the games.  I told you a couple weeks ago, I didn't stop telling you, and I'll continue to tell you: Connor Jones and Brandon Waddell.  UVA will win for as long as those two are cutting down opposing hitters.  When they stop, so does the fun.  Let's hope those tables turn all the way.

Vandy's lineup:

-- Catcher: Karl Ellison (.213-2-15).  Ellison starts about 2/3 of the time, actually; Vandy also platoons in Jason Delay.  With a .292 batting average, Delay is the superior hitter, but Ellison is a better defender.

-- First base: Zander Wiel (.317-15-67): Cleanup hitter, which means he protects Dansby Swanson in the lineup.  Vandy will trot out three players in a row who've got 15 homers apiece, and Wiel is the last in that murderer's row.  Like UVA, Vandy won their winner's bracket game 1-0, and it was Wiel providing the decisive home run.

-- Second base: Tyler Campbell (.235-2-26). Unlike the Florida lineup, Vandy does offer some lightweight hitters.  Campbell bats ninth and hits for little power, little contact, and rarely walks.  He's a junior, but went undrafted this year.

-- Third base: Will Toffey (.297-4-47).  One of only two freshmen in the lineup.  Toffey bats fifth, sometimes sixth, and has good line-drive power.  Probably going to be one of the SEC's best in the upcoming years; for now a bit overshadowed but still dangerous.

-- Shortstop: Dansby Swanson (.337-15-62).  Did you know he was the top overall pick in the draft?  They might've mentioned it somewhere at some point, maybe in passing.  Let's face it, though - he is a really good hitter.  He leads the team in every hitting stat, walks and triples included, and has speed to go along with his bat.  You're allowed to breathe a little sigh of relief when he walks back to the dugout after an at-bat.

-- Left field: Jeren Kendall (.291-8-40).  The other freshman.  Leads the team in stolen bases, which is really an accomplishment on this team because Vandy is a hyper-aggressive team on the basepaths - and they have a tremendous success rate, too.  Also has six triples, tied for the lead with Swanson, and the best OPS (.959) on the team outside the aforementioned 2-3-4 hitters.

-- Center field: Bryan Reynolds (.319-5-48).  In Vandy's three games in Omaha, Reynolds is batting .500.  He hasn't made the headlines the way Wiel or Kendall did, with dramatic game-winning homers, but he's been Vandy's steadiest hitter.

-- Right field: Rhett Wiseman (.319-15-49).  In Vandy's lineup, the #2 hitter and the first of the three truly dangerous hitters.  Quite a change from last year when he hit zero home runs all season.

-- Designated hitter: Ro Coleman (.296-1-25).  Leadoff hitter.  Tough to pitch to because he's 5'5" and crouches, and draws a lot of walks that way.

Starting pitchers:

-- Monday: RHP Carson Fulmer (13-2, 1.95, 159 Ks).  Mid-90s fastball, absurdly good breaking ball.  Fulmer was the third pitcher taken in the MLB draft.  If you hate watching that stupid delivery of his, you're not alone; scouts hate it too, because it's a max-effort delivery that can sometimes jerk his control off track.  But it also distracts hitters, and though his walk totals are a touch elevated, Fulmer's allowed only a .186 BA all season.

-- Tuesday: LHP Philip Pfeifer (6-4, 3.77, 112 Ks).  Pfeifer missed last season - in fact he failed a drug test and was left off the team - but straightened out and returned to pitch well enough to be drafted in the third round by the Dodgers.  He's pitched even better in the postseason, most especially against TCU where he threw seven shutout innings.  Pfeifer has a solid curveball, and overall is rather similar to Waddell in that he's probably not going to top about 91 on the gun, at most, and relies on location and command to get hitters out.

-- Wednesday: RHP Walker Buehler (5-2, 2.85, 89 Ks).  Buehler's been a bit more hittable and less strikeout-ey than his teammates here, but was nevertheless drafted in the first round thanks to his ability to mix up speeds on his fastball and throw two different breaking pitches.  MLB.com describes his change-up as "inconsistent to effective" which is basically just saying "inconsistent."  Still, he too shut down the TCU lineup in Omaha and has only allowed one run in two postseason starts.

Let's face it: this is a tall order for UVA.  Very tall.  So was Florida; so was winning a bunch of regional and super-regional games against ostensibly excellent closers when trailing in the 7th and beyond.  Essentially, though, UVA just won a three-game series against Florida.  One in which Brandon Waddell got enough rest to pitch twice, sure, but a three-game series nonetheless.  Vanderbilt is very tough, but not remarkably tougher than Florida.  Slightly worse lineup.  Better ace starter, but the next two guys aren't much different.

Still, UVA must go into this probably without Josh Sborz on Monday.  Connor Jones needs to go nice and deep into the game.  Nathan Kirby presumably starts on Tuesday - that's on fairly short rest and another pitch count limit, after which the bullpen must deliver big-time, again.  And if the series goes to Wednesday, Waddell is on fairly short rest too - though he only threw 87 pitches and I mean once you get to Wednesday pitch counts are out the window.  Chances are good that someone like Alec Bettinger or Tommy Doyle is going to have to throw some quality innings.  That rubber game was a bullpen-killer.

Gotta play the games, though.  Vandy's undefeated in the postseason.  UVA has yet to be anything but an underdog - even when hosting a fellow #3 regional seed, more experts picked against them than not.  And yet UVA's looseness and comfort in the situation is not a cliche.  They're the team you watch from the other side of the bracket, hoping someone will take them out because until they're gone, you can't rely on the stats to tell you anything.  Now they're here in the finals and you have to do it yourself.  That's a great way to make the favorites nervous.

underneath a rock

That's where this comes to you from, if I had my way about it.  This will probably be short, which you don't deserve after two days of radio silence caused by me hanging on to the CWS finals and neurotically pausing the DVR for like 30 minutes at a time, racing forward, racing backward, and generally watching the games in a way totally unenvisioned by live TV viewers of 15 years ago.

It'll be short because I've never wanted to write anything less in my life**, and because my usual style is useless here.  Simply put, I haven't been so stung by a loss since the '09 Stanley Cup Finals, and that one sapped all hockey interest from me for months.  It lasted almost to the next year's playoffs.

It's the knowledge that it is incredibly damn hard to get back to this spot.  That's what haunted me then and that's what haunts me now.  And this: this was a team that absolutely deserved to win a national championship.  So much resilience, so many gritty performances, gone to waste for the want of any one of a thousand things that all went the wrong way.  And that's stinger #3 - knowing that UVa played so well that you could literally change just one event in either of two games and today would be a celebration.

Fact is, UVa generated five times the opportunities that Vanderbilt did.  And Vanderbilt cashed in on 100% of the chances they had, which makes all the difference when you only convert about 25% of your own - and makes it sting knowing you could've won by converting 26%.

Everybody hates hearing the losers say, "the better team lost," and especially anything about the officiating, but it's just so damn hard not to sometimes.  All it took to lose this series was one inning from hell, two rinky-dink garbage runs, and a well-timed towering blast.  Win 3/4 of the battles, lose the war.

And, by the way, no help from the umpires.  When you complain about the umpires, people usually jump in and say, "that's not why we lost," proceed to lament missed opportunities, and the argument goes on as if the two positions are mutually exclusive.  They're not.  Yes, not scoring on uncountable RISP opportunities is pretty much the reason for all this - that doesn't make the umpires suddenly good.  I don't have the stomach or patience for this kind of exercise - at least not right now - but it wouldn't be hard to put together a video of the apparently octopus-shaped strike zone from home plate blue last night.  Josh Sborz left after one inning in large part because he didn't get the shin-high, three-foot-wide strike zone that Carson Fulmer did.  And then the zone got even less consistent as time went on.  Did you notice ESPN's "K Zone" at all from about the 6th inning onward?  You did not.  And - I'm aware of the "transfer rule" but that was one of the most egregiously bad applications of it that ever existed.  Had Derek Fisher been called safe - well, you always have to be careful about declaring what would've happened afterwards, because then some coach or pitcher or someone would've made a different decision.  But the sequence that followed - a balk and a hit - at least makes it more likely that you can say it made a difference.  The announcers were unanimous in calling that a huge break.

I know we'll have most of this pitching staff back next year, but seriously - it's gonna take a little while before I care.  This team is the one that got away.  There's only one thing that can fix this - you know what that is, but it's a fan luxury to just be able to reset every year and hope for it.  There's a few pro careers beginning soon for guys that missed their one chance.

**Though I've also rarely felt so obligated.

series preview: Vanderbilt

Date/Time: Mon-Wed, June 23-25; all games 8:00
(Wednesday game if necessary)

TV: All games on ESPN

Record against the Dores: 0-2

Last meeting: Vandy 7, UVa 3; 6/6/04, Charlottesville (NCAA Regional)

Last game: UVa 4, Ole Miss 1 (6/21); Vandy 4, UT 3 (6/21)

Pitching probables:

Monday:
LHP Nathan Kirby (9-2, 1.70, 108 Ks) vs. RHP Tyler Beede (8-7, 3.80, 112 Ks)

Tuesday:
LHP Brandon Waddell (9-3, 2.57, 68 Ks) vs. RHP Walker Buehler (12-2, 2.27, 109 Ks)

(Again, these are guesses, at least for the Vandy side, based partly on a little by-the-book guesswork and partly on what Vandy fans think.  No doubt whatsoever who'll go for UVa, really.  As for Wednesday, I'm just not gonna try, especially on our side.  I suspect Josh Sborz was pulled earlyish from the Saturday game at least partly with an eye on having him ready for Wednesday.  Besides, if there's a game Wednesday it's literally the ultimate in do-or-die games, and Johnny Wholestaff will be at the ready.)

At this point in a season, there's nothing left to be said, but you know me, I'm gonna say it anyway.  (It's not like anyone else shuts their flaps.)  This is an interesting matchup, and one of my favorite kinds: someone is going home with their first-ever national title.  (In this sport.)  Neither team has ever even made the finals.  Vanderbilt takes it even further: they don't quite have the full VT goose egg, but their lone national title is a women's bowling championship in 2007.  This is really their chance to win a championship in front of an audience.  If it had been Texas, UVa would no doubt be the national rooting interest.

On the other hand, UVa is carrying the flag for the ACC, which, as we'll be reminded dozens of times in the next couple days, hasn't won a baseball title since 1955, nor even does the conference regularly place someone in the finals.  People wanting to see the SEC fall on their faces - and that's a long list of folks - will still be pulling for the Hoos.

Vandy's road here had just a couple bumps in it; Texas staved off elimination at the end of the double-elimination round of the CWS, and Stanford scraped a 5-4 win over the Commodores in the super-regionals.  Vandy, however, has never faced a national seed along the way; none of them on that side of the bracket made it to Omaha, and Stanford had beaten 4-seeded Indiana to get to the supers.  In fact, other than Louisville, whom Vanderbilt beat in their CWS opener, the Dores haven't even faced a regional 1 seed.  UVa, on the other hand, was spared South Carolina but had to go through Ole Miss twice, plus national 7 seed TCU, to get here.  It puts UVa's pitching dominance in solid perspective.

Ordinarily I talk about the stakes here, but, um, if you need to be told that then I can't help you.  It's scouting report time.

-- First base: Zander Wiel (.270-5-43).  Cleanup hitter even through mid-postseason lineup shuffle.  Solid tools all around - decent power, speed, and glove.  Team leader in homers and second in triples; also has 30 walks.  Not a hugely fearsome hitter but a bat that must be respected.

-- Second base: Dansby Swanson (.337-3-34).  Leadoff hitter and perhaps the team's best batsman; team OPS leader at .898 and OBP leader at .413.  20 stolen bases in 25 attempts, both tops on a very, very aggressive Vanderbilt team.

-- Third base: Tyler Campbell (.217-0-3).  Likely to bat ninth; Campbell is a very late replacement for regular third baseman Xavier Turner (.284-2-38), who was declared ineligible (whether by Vandy or the NCAA isn't known) and sent home.  Turner was a reliable bat and an outstanding fielder; Campbell is a sophomore who's been a reserve all his career, and his glove is at best unknown.  He was hitting .132 coming into the Texas game where he was tossed into the fire, but went 2-for-3 on Friday and drove in the game-winning run in the 10th inning on Saturday.

-- Shortstop: Vince Conde (.294-4-48).  #3 hitter; tough out with more walks (40) than K's (37). Tremendous fielder at .984 FP with only four errors all season.  9th-round pick of the Yankees this year.

-- Left field: Bryan Reynolds (.341-4-53).  #2 hitter.  Among the best hitters in the Vandy lineup along with Swanson and Conde.  Team leader in BA, RBI, hits, and second in doubles.  Switch hitter and one of the top freshmen in the SEC.

-- Center field: John Norwood (.288-2-29).  Had been batting 6th or 7th; moved up to 5th with the loss of Turner from the lineup.  Junior who just moved into the starting lineup this year and therefore went undrafted.  Hits for some contact, but not a great deal of power, and strikes out often.

-- Right field: Rhett Wiseman (.283-0-29).  Bats sixth.  Has decent line-drive power and leads the team in triples, but is only one of two of the eight regular position players (including Turner, not Campbell) not to have hit a home run.  Also lowest OBP (.352) of the eight.

-- Catcher: Jason Delay (.257-0-13).  Will probably bat 7th or 8th.  Relatively light-hitting freshman.  Has nine doubles out of only 28 hits, but whiffs with great frequency.  Occasionally gives way to fellow freshman Karl Ellison (.203-0-9), an even lighter-hitting player than Delay.

-- Designated hitter: Nolan Rogers (.204-0-14).  The DH spot will be 7th or 8th unless Campbell is rewarded for his play against UT with a move up from ninth.  Vandy doesn't have much in the way of options here.  Rogers is a freshman who hasn't hit much all year.  He's a lefty, so Vandy may opt for the switch-hitting Ro Coleman (.214-1-13) instead, against UVa's lefty starters.  Vanderbilt's coach Tim Corbin likes to start a pitcher in the DH slot and then pinch-hit for him in the first at-bat; why he does this, I can't figure out.  Perhaps to remove the temptation of using that pitcher in the game, as it's often the previous game's pitcher.

-- Pitching staff:


RHP Tyler Beede (8-7, 3.80, 112 Ks).  Beede has great stuff and three plus pitches, which got him drafted 14th overall by the Giants this spring.  However, control issues have dogged him throughout his career.  Vandy fans speak of their hope that "Good Beede" shows up on the mound.  His Irvine appearance might have been every one of his outings wrapped into one; he went 3.2 innings, struck out four, walked three, and threw two wild pitches.  His talent is undeniable, as he's one of only 18 players in MLB Draft history to be taken in the first round of two different drafts.  Vandy might be in trouble, though, if Beede doesn't bring any control to the mound.

RHP Walker Buehler (12-2, 2.27, 109 Ks).  Buehler is a lanky right-hander with a fastball that's not quite "blazing", but close, and a really sharp slider.  He turned down the Pittsburgh Pirates as a 14th-round pick out of high school to go to Vandy.  Purely from a stats standpoint, Buehler is the best of the staff; he has 2 complete games, a 3.5/1 K/BB ratio, and a .218 OpBA.  In his previous CWS appearance, he came on in relief of Tyler Beede after Beede got in trouble against UC-Irvine, and pitched 5.1 innings of no-hit ball against the Anteaters while the Vandy bats repaired the damage Irvine had caused.  Buehler had needed rescuing himself in the supers, though, as a troublesome third inning against Stanford knocked him out of the game and nearly erased the 5-run lead he'd been staked to.  He's not totally unhittable, but he does represent a challenge for the UVa hitters.

RHP Tyler Ferguson (8-4, 2.72, 63 Ks).  If the series goes to Wednesday, and if things go according to plan for Vandy, Ferguson might be the starter for the Commodores.  Circumstances always seem to get in the way, so that's no guarantee, but that's how things might go.  Ferguson is another power pitcher and talented enough that Aaron Fitt called him a potential first-rounder next year, but his only CWS appearance was a mess.  He plunked the Texas leadoff hitter with his first pitch of the game, and proceeded to walk and plunk the bases loaded.  Texas ended up with two runs and Ferguson didn't survive the inning.  Ferguson would be fresh and available out of the pen should that become necessary, and it's probably a good thing if so - it would likely mean UVa has had success against the Vandy starter.

RHP Carson Fulmer (7-1, 2.00, 90 Ks).  Fulmer has been the closer most of the year, and a very effective one, but has been earning starts in the postseason.  Likely unavailable out of the pen on Monday and Tuesday after going 4 1/3 on Saturday night, Fulmer would be another candidate for a Wednesday start.  In this case he'd be going on awfully short rest and would likely be limited to four or so innings.  Is a pitcher in a similar mold as the others; power fastball, good slider.

-- Bullpen: Two more pitchers who are likely burned up for Monday and Tuesday are righties Brian Miller (1-1, 1.93, 37 Ks) and Hayden Stone (3-0, 1.76, 76 Ks).  Miller was the guy who relieved Ferguson against Texas, and threw the whole rest of the game - 7 1/3 innings, after averaging less than 1 1/3 per appearance on the season.  He's not likely to be available except perhaps in a Wednesday desperation situation.  Stone went 5 2/3 on Saturday night, and the same applies.

That leaves Vandy with limited options.  RHP Adam Ravenelle (3-2, 1.46, 35 Ks) is easily the #1 choice.  Ravenelle sports a .154 OpBA, and has good enough stuff that despite a limited history (largely due to some 2012 elbow trouble) he was a 4th-round pick of the bullpen-starved Tigers.  Other options may be southpaw Jared Miller (6-2, 4.20, 45 Ks), an 11th-round pick of the Diamondbacks despite crashing to earth somewhat as the season wore on; or fellow lefty John Kilichowski (0-0, 1.35, 20 Ks).  Neither has appeared in the CWS, though, and it's just as likely that if Vandy gets into trouble, they turn to a guy they'd hoped to start.

-- Synopsis: Vanderbilt's best chance is their starting pitching.  Beede and Buehler, when on, could be just as tough a nut to crack as UVa's starting two of Kirby and Waddell.  As well, the top of Vandy's lineup is no picnic.  Swanson and Reynolds are excellent hitters.

That said, the Vandy lineup is really no better than what Ole Miss sent to the plate, either, and it's not as deep, especially without Xavier Turner.  The bottom third is pretty weak and there's nothing off the bench.  UVa might not have Artie Lewicki available on Monday (even that isn't a guaranteed statement), but Vandy has fewer bullets in the chamber than UVa does, having used up a few of them in order to get here.

And there's something to be said for lights-out pitching.  Vandy has good arms - but they're trumped by the 0.55 ERA UVa's hurlers have produced in three CWS games.  This is an absolutely dialed-in bunch right now.  If they stay dialed-in, Vandy will lose two in a row.  They might be a close two in a row, but still.  Baseball is an anything-can-happen sport, but UVa should be seen as the favorite.

*******************************************

While I have the chance, a few bullets on yesterday's Ole Miss action:

-- Robbie Coman was deservedly named the player of the game by the announcers, which was really even more impressive given his awful early innings.  One passed ball - which, yes, basically led to Ole Miss's run - and one terrible at-bat had me muttering swear words to myself about how Coman needed to get his head in the game.  Once his brain was properly screwed in - really nice work.

-- I complain about crappy announcing, so I have to give credit when it's due - I thought the discussion they had about Joe McCarthy's bunt was as good an exchange as you get in baseball announcing, up there with the nuggets Bobby Knight dispenses about basketball.  On the one hand, yes, you want to improve your chances of scoring a run; on the other hand, maybe one of your best hitters can move the runner up just by letting him take his hacks.

For the record, I agree with the bunt in that situation.  Followers of sabermetrics hate sac bunts in almost any situation, but sabermetrics is nearly a context-free system.  When you're in a park that's tilting the game way, way in favor of the pitcher, and your own pitchers are just mowing them down, that extra run is a big deal.  With a runner on first and none out, and you bunt, you're saying that one run is more important than the chance for multiple runs.  I agree and would gladly improve my odds of scoring that one run, even at the expense of the second run, given the ballpark and the pitchers.  That run looms awfully large when you do score it.

-- So was that also part of Vengeance Tour '14?  Oh, absolutely.  You'll remember the 2007 regional, in which Oregon State got a weather reprieve and used the newly-rested pitchers to beat UVa twice in a row.  Mississippi got the same gift and couldn't cash in, even when they were able to pull a pitcher that UVa was absolutely tagging in favor of their ace.

And now the final round of the Tour begins: I'd long forgotten, if I even ever knew, that Vanderbilt was the team that booted UVa from the 2004 tournament.  So now Vengeance Tour '14 can come full circle, from the very first season of BOC.  Time to go win.....something.