College World Series schedule announced; vs. Texas Tech Saturday at 2 PM EST
https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/baseball/d1/2019/cws
We're the first game on Saturday, 2 PM EST on ESPN. The 2nd game will be on Monday vs either Arkansas or Florida State (2 PM if Sat. is a loss, 7 PM if it's a win).
Thanks, I had just posted that question about a half hour ago on the Omaha thread after finding nothing on both the CWS website and MGoBlue.com.
So after we win on Saturday, then 7 pm on Monday. I like that start time much better than all those very late starts vs Creighton and UCLA.
Anyone know how good Tech's #1 is?
Don’t know stats but tech swept us earlier this year and none of the scores were pretty
Tech only has one starter with an ERA lower than any of our top 3--Dallas at 3.38. Their other starters are all around 4 ERA or higher.
That being said, all 3 of our starters got hit pretty hard by them in March. Didn't help that the defense committed 8 errors in 3 games. Definitely wasn't a high point of the season.
What's the skinny on M's defense this year?
The only games I've watched so far were Saturday (5 errors) and Sunday (1 error but that was generous given Brewer's slip and fall leading to a triple), and they made A LOT of mistakes. They do seem to have a lot of athletes that cover a lot of ground and that makes up for some mistakes so not sure the net effect.
Do they typically have an error prone defense or are these just one offs?
In general, defense is not the strong suit of college baseball. These kids are recruited because they can hit-the coaches hope they can teach them to field when they get on campus. Here, Michigan is not an exception.
Michigan's fielding percentage this year is .974; that's in between last year's average for the Carolina League (high A), .975, and the Midwest League (A), .972.
So about what you'd expect.
I'm sure they're not major league level, but I'm also sure there is plenty of variation amongst college teams such that some are relatively great and others are relatively far worse. Just wondered where Michigan falls on the spectrum overall.
Having watched some of the other teams this weekend, it seemed like Michigan had better athletes than a lot of other teams, but were less polished. Nwogu is a beast, Brewer they talked about being an excellent football player, and they have speed all over the field. Compared to other teams it seemed like Michigan takes guys that are athletes and then teaches them to field and hit.
In that vein, it's possible that Michigan makes a high number of errors but is a relatively good defense team because they can track down more balls that average players which can more than make up for a few more errors. Fielding percentage is a highly incomplete indicator of defensive quality. There are better, modern metrics and I wondered if anyone knew where Michigan falls there.
I agree about fielding percentage but the discussion was specifically about errors so it seemed a reasonable choice here. And if anyone's compiling advanced stats for college baseball I sure don't know where to look.
Michigan's 67th in the country in fielding percentage, out of 297 teams. Only Illinois was better in the B1G (3rd nationally).
I'm not sure you can judge the quality of defense in CBB relative to MiLB based on errors.
The bigger differences defensively are the sizes/strength of the players in pro ball compared to college. This is most easily seen at C and SS but also 2B. There are balls in the hole & soft grounders at SS that a pro player has the hands/expereince/arm strength to make an out that most college SSs and 2Bmen can't make. Think about the number of IF singles in college that you just don't see in high (AA, AAA) pro ball.
@ C you will see some slight guys in the college game that are good, technical catchers but don't quite have the combo of arm strength, athleticism and ability/strength to not be a total liability at the plate in the pro game with a wood bat.
So that's a pretty good fielding percentage then. Seems like the TTU and UCLA games were probably outliers.
Brewer was not charged with an error on that play. It was a triple. There was a throwing error by 3B Blake Nelson.
I know. That's why I said they had 1 error but that was generous because Brewer wasn't charged with an error.
Here's game 1 of Michigan's series there in March:
https://texastech.com/boxscore.aspx?path=baseball&id=14337
Michigan led 1-0, then Henry imploded a bit and Tech scored 6 on six hits and two errors in the bottom of the 5th.
Micah Dallas is a freshman; that was his first start. He's been their #1 ever since as far as I can tell; he worked game 1 of the superregional (that game's probably still up at the ESPN site if you want to watch some of it--I didn't see it). He's 7-0 with a 3.38 ERA, 82 Ks in 72 IPs. But they haven't been working him deep in games--he's only gone over 100 pitches once and that was a game he got pulled in the fifth.
Michigan was swept by TTU in 3 games from 3/21-3/23 in Lubbock (L 2-11, L 3-10, L 5-8).
From the TTU blog, it looks like Caleb Kilian has been their ace for the last few seasons.
In the 8th round and with the 236th pick, the San Francisco Giants selected Caleb Kilian. His pick has a monetary value of 176,000 dollars. Kilian has been the ace of the rotation the last two seasons and has been a influential part of the pitching staff in all three of his seasons at Texas Tech. He’s compiled a 23-6 record in his three seasons on this team and has been dominant in every season and has been someone Tim Tadlock has been able to rely on time and time again.
Michigan faced Kilian in the 2nd game during that series. 6 IP, 5H, 2R, 6K, 0 BB. So far this season, he has started 16 games, 8-3 with a 3.93 ERA.
In the 1st game of that series, they faced Micah Dallas. 5 IP, 3H, 1R, 7K, 0 BB. So far this season, he has appeared in 17 games (11 starts), 7-0 with a 3.38 ERA.
Dallas has been the Friday starter more often than not since he first got moved out of the bullpen in March, and he opened both the regional and superregional. He's also outpitched Kilian all year. I'm guessing that's who we see on Saturday.
How am I supposed to go tubing down the hooch, fish, drink, and watch on my phone at the same damn time?
Water proof phone with a flotation key fob attached.
Zip lock will have to do. I guess I could put my key fob float in the bag. Will have to experiment first to make sure it floats. Will have to be drinking when experimenting to simulate actual use.
Try this:
I have one for kayaking. Works great. Can use the phone while inside the case.
You live in North Georgia? Used to love shooting the hooch when I lived in Atlanta.
I'm in Atlanta now. Family has a cabin on the Etowah up in the mountains, so most of my time on a river has been that one. It's nice to be 20 minutes from decent trout fishing on the hooch though.
Where did you move? Pros and cons compared to Atlanta?
just moved from Atlanta to Sharpsburg near Peachtree City
did you get a free golf court when you moved to P'tree City?
Sharpsburg is a good place to live. If you have any questions about that area or the surrounding counties or need legal advice or attorney recommendations for anything down there, feel free to contact me.
Deliverance - the Hooch is a no go zone.
I'm fairly certain the hatter can probably help you with a rig set up to assist with mind altered multi tasking
Am I the only one who thought that "tubing down the hooch" was dripping with sexual innuendo?
It's usually called shooting the hooch, but I didn't want to offend or confuse.
Can't wait. Rain predicted here so will be great to watch on Saturday.
So exciting. Go Blue! Hoping I'll be able to watch on a potentially very busy weekend.
So, this is a crazy question. With games, at worst, on the 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st and 22nd, is there any chance Michigan just REALLY shortens their pitching staff and uses mostly TWO starters of our 3 guys (Kauffmann, Criswell & Henry), keeping the other guy for relief along with Paige and maybe Keizer?
With a minimum of a day off between every game, whoever starts game 1 could start game 3 on full rest regardless of wins or losses. WIth our 3 main guys being so good, you could possibly have a situation where you ride almost exclusively with one of the 3 of them on the mound.
Game 3 after game 1 would only be three days rest. That wouldn't be full rest for an MLB pitcher; most college pitchers have been working weekly. I don't think any of Michigan's starters have gone on less than five days all year, although they've occasionally worked an inning of relief in between.
Four days rest is probably doable, so three starters.
You are right--I was doing the math wrong. I was counting the game as being 4 days later, but that is only 3 days rest, which is not full rest, correct.
Ok, so we need 3 starters unless we win the first two games, in which case we get 3 days off before the next game instead of 1.
I wouldn't mind seeing the game 3 starter in relief for an inning in game 1 if needed.
That's a more likely scenario: Kauffmann pitches 7 innings Saturday and either Henry or Criswell comes in for the last two, or something like that. The #3 guy could easily throw 40-ish pitches on Saturday and be ready for a start on Wednesday if needed.
I think you could see all 3 in game 1. Remember Criswell threw Friday night about 15-20 pitches then came back a Saturday. He or Henry absolutely could throw 30ish pitches and come back Monday. Same for Monday, I wouldn’t be surprised to see just starters for the first 2 games as long as none get rocked...
Our side of the bracket contains another unseeded team (FSU) and the highest seed left is #5 Arkansas.
The other side contains one unseeded team (Auburn) with the highest seed being #2 Vandy. Miss. St. is also on that side of the bracket so 3/4 are from the SEC and 4/8 total.
Not sure how the baseball tournament normally shakes out but seems like this year has had some notable upsets (3 of the top 4 seeds didn't make it to Omaha).
This year isn't abnormal. Baseball can be as much of a plinko tournament as hockey sometimes. A regional 3 seed winning the whole thing - the equivalent of a 9-12 seed in basketball - isn't at all unheard of.
It's been a bit more random than basketball but it's nothing like hockey. In the 20 years under the current format only four teams have won that didn't host a regional. Nine times the winner has been a top-five national seed.
- 1999: #1 national seed
- 2000: #2 national seed
- 2001: #2 national seed
- 2002: #5 national seed
- 2003: #5 national seed
- 2004: #2 regional seed (Fullerton)
- 2005: #1 regional seed
- 2006: #1 regional seed
- 2007: #1 regional seed
- 2008: #4 regional seed (Fresno St.)
- 2009: #3 national seed
- 2010: #1 regional seed
- 2011: #4 national seed
- 2012: #1 regional seed
- 2013: #1 regional seed
- 2014: #1 regional seed
- 2015: #3 regional seed (Virginia)
- 2016: #2 regional seed (Coastal Carolina)
- 2017: #3 national seed
- 2018: #3 national seed
What Virginia did is unusual--since then no #3 seed has won a CWS game and overall in the last decade #3 and 4 seeds not named Virginia have gone 3-14. Add in Virginia's run and it's 8-16.
*EDT
As long as it doesn't rain could be a good father's day weekend for me. 7:30am tee time, get back just before the game starts and finish up with the US Open.
Hello Michigan fans,
Congrats on beating the Bruins and making it to Omaha...hoping for a very well played game on Saturday. Looks like Tech suffered a big loss on Saturday, and probably lost our RF...Gabe Holt. He was also our leadoff guy, and was a 7th round pick.
I'm sure Coach Tadlock will start our Freshman Micah Dallas Saturday, and he has some electric stuff...he is very, very good.
Seems as if UM/Tech has been meeting up quite a bit lately.
Thanks for the insight Raider.
Hey, Raider. In May 2011, Texas Tech traveled to Ann Arbor to play a 2-game midweek series against Michigan. That was the first time since the 1930s that any P5 school other than Notre Dame had played a regular season non-conference game in Ann Arbor.
I assume it was a "return trip" after Michigan played 2 games in Lubbock in 2010. Whatever the reason, I was very impressed--Texas Tech didn't have to do that, but they did anyway. I became a fan of Raider baseball just for that reason, so good luck on Monday and in any other game where you aren't playing Michigan.
Thanks for the insight.
Good grief, I'm sick of Florida and Texas Tech ..
Haha...Tech has been playing Florida a lot, too. Couple years ago, we beat them in the Sweet 16 in basketball, then have been playing them in Omaha, and then they were put in our regional, but Dallas Baptist beat them twice..so, we were not lucky enough to get to beat them again.
Just found out I received tickets! Taking my boys to Saturday game. Anyone want my Monday tickets?
I do!
They're yours. Just have to figure out the will call procedures.
Awesome! Thank you! I will be at the game on Saturday as well.