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The college baseball season continues to gain momentum as well swing into week four. This week’s Notebook combines some of the observations of College Baseball 360 Editor Sean Stires with the observations and insights of CB360 contributor Jack Blanchat.

Blanchat has been on-hand for three of the marquee early season series around the country this season-Stanford-Rice, Stanford-Vanderbilt and Stanford-Texas.

Before we get to the Stanford-Texas series, here are some other notes this week:

Cornhusker Uprising…

Nebraska made a big early statement by taking two out of three games (all decided by one run) from UCLA over the

Bryan Peters had both of Nebraska's game-winning hits over UCLA.

weekend in Lincoln. All three games went to extra innings. How rare is that? Nebraska has been playing baseball since 1889, but prior to Friday and Saturday it had never had extra inning games in back-to-back days go to extra frames. Gerrit Cole lost a perfect game after retiring Nebraska’s first 20 batters Friday, but still helped the Bruins win 1-0 in 11 innings thanks to nine shutout innings.

With Trevor Bauer on the mound, Nebraska’s hopes for a win weren’t looking any better on Saturday. Bauer fanned 17 in 10 innings, but settled for a 129 pitch no-decision in the Cornhusker’s 2-1 win. Bryan Peters had the game-winning hit in the bottom of the 12th for Nebraska, while Dylan Vogt pitched five no-hit innings of relief to earn the win.

The Cornhuskers then plated three runs in the bottom of the 9th inning in Sunday’s series finale and eventually won 5-4 in 11 innings. Peters was the hero again, belting a game-ending home run to give Nebraska back-to-back walk-off wins for the first time in eight years.

Nebraska is 8-4 with a team batting average of .303. UCLA is 7-4, despite a 1.55 team ERA with 126 strikeouts and 42 walks in 104 1/3 IP.

Gator Bait…

Florida (10-1) suffered its first loss of the season to Florida State in the Florida Four event last week, but the Gators came back strong over the weekend with a three-game sweep of Miami in Gainesville. Florida’s starting rotation of Brian Johnson, Hudson Randall and Karsten Whitson combined to allow just two earned runs in 17.0 innings during the series. It’s just the second time in school history that Florida has swept a three-game set from the Hurricanes.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise…

Cal State Bakersfield's Jonathon Montoya

Don’t look now, but Cal State Bakersfield is on a run. The Roadrunners have won 10 straight with the help of some great pitching. Bakersfield, playing its first games away from home this season, gave up just two runs while going 4-0 at the Coca Cola Classic over the weekend in Surprise, AZ. The biggest of the wins was a 2-1 10-inning victory over Arizona State. Freshman Cael Brockmeyer’s 10th inning home run off ASU All-American Mitchell Lambson was the difference. The Roadrunners also turned-in wins over Kansas (12-0), Air Force (5-0) and Northern Illinois (6-1). Bakersfield starting pitchers Tommy Hoenshell, Mike McCarthy, Jonathon Montoya, and Brandon Van Dam combined to pitch 35 innings, while giving-up just two runs. McCarthy was the only one not to pitch 9.0 innings.

Sycamore No-No…

Indiana State’s Jason Van Skike tossed a no-hitter in Saturday’s 8-0 win over Central Arkansas. It’s the school’s 10th all-time no-hitter, but the first nine inning no-no for a Sycamore since 1943. Van Skike needed 143 pitches to complete the gem, which still had its share of base runners. Van Skike struckout five, but he walked eight batters and hit one more.

TCU’s Aces…

When talking about TCU pitchers, 2010 freshman phenom Matt Purke is typically the first name to come to mind. However, Kyle Winkler has been lights out so far this year for the Horned Frogs. Winkler (3-0) has allowed just two unearned runs in 22 1/3 IP so far this season. The senior has 19 strikeouts and just one walk with a .149 opponent batting average. He moved to the Friday spot in the rotation the last two weeks while Purke battled a blister on his pitching hand.

Purke has pitched 10.0 shutout innings himself this season (he pitched against Kansas on opening weekend and pitched Sunday against Texas Tech) to improve to 2-0 this year and 18-0 in his career. Meanwhile, freshman Andrew Mitchell has surrendered just a run in his first 15 2/3 IP, including a Sunday start against Cal State Fullerton last week when Purke missed his start.

The Horned Frogs’ bullpen is still a work in progress though. TCU’s opponents have scored winning runs in the 8th inning or later in all four of the team’s losses this year.

Kyle Robinson

Razorback Off & Running…

Arkansas senior Kyle Robinson played sparingly in his first year at Arkansas last year after transferring from Indian River CC. Injuries played a part in his limited time, but Robinson is making-up for it this year. He hit .474 (9-for-19) with three home runs and 13 RBIs last week. The outfielder’s .465 batting average is the third best in the SEC through the first three weeks of 2011. He also ranks in the top five in the conference in slugging percentage (#3 – .791), runs (#5 – 14), hits (T-#1 – 20), and RBI (#1 – 21).

Quality Pitching…

Notre Dame is just 4-6 through Mik Aoki’s first ten games at the helm, but it’s not for a lack of pitching. Starting pitchers Brian Dupra, Cole Johnson and Todd Miller combined to give the Irish nine straight quality starts (at least 6.0 IP and 3 ER or less) to open the season. The last time a Notre Dame staff had just six straight quality starts was 2001, when 2000 and 2001 first round draft pick Aaron Heilman helped the program achieve its first ever #1 national ranking. Dupra, Johnson and Miller combined for 22 2/3 IP with 21 strikeouts and no walks in their three starts last weekend, but went 0-2 with a no-decision (the Irish beat Manhattan in extra innings in Miller’s start).

Duke-ing It Out…

James Madison is off to a record-setting start in 2011. The Duke’s 11-1 start is the best in program history. JMU leads the nation with 30 home runs and 13.3 runs-a-game through the season’s first three weeks.

Stanford @ Texas…

Now we’ll turn things over to Jack Blanchat, who was at the Stanford vs. Texas series in Austin. The Longhorns took two out of three games in the series. Blanchat’s insights start with thoughts on Texas ace Taylor Jungman, who saw his run of 22.0 scoreless innings to open the season come to a close in Friday’s 4-3 Texas win.

Taylor Jungmann

Taylor Jungmann is the real deal – it doesn’t get much simpler than that. He’s confident, aggressive, and he mixes up his pitches and gets outs in every way. His odd delivery makes it hard to pick up the baseball coming out of his hand, and he gets results. It shows something that Friday night was his worst outing of the season so far, considering he pitched eight and two-thirds innings and only gave up three runs on six hits. Even more impressive about those six hits was that nobody got multiple hits off Jungmann – and nothing was hit particularly hard other than a triple from Brian Ragira that broke up Jungmann’s perfect game in the fifth inning.

The environment at Disch-Falk Field was like an NCAA super regional – absolutely crazy, and jam-packed. It’s one of the biggest stadiums in college baseball in terms of capacity and playing dimensions. The stadium also has field turf instead of a natural grass playing surface, so that made conditions a little harder because the baseball would occasionally act very strangely after it bounced off the turf. The playing conditions, which included wind coming in from left field most of the time, resulted in no home runs for a Stanford team that had six dingers in eight games coming into this series, but it also contributed to the three triples in the series as well.

Texas trotted out a few new faces in their lineup, and they all had a few bright spots, but they still looked very much like freshmen. Jacob Felts did a nice job behind the plate, catching Jungmann’s Friday win(although, the way Jungmann is pitching, it’s hard not to do a good job behind the plate), and he went 2-for-7 and scored a run offensively – altogether not a bad weekend for a freshman catcher. Freshman rightfielder Mark Payton went just 1-for-10 at the plate, but he still scored a run and had two RBI in the series thanks to some erratic Stanford pitching. Finally, freshman third baseman Erich Weiss was solid on offense – he had a hit in every game – but he struggled defensively in Saturday’s contest. He had two errors at the hot corner, and could have been docked for one more if the scorekeeper had been less friendly.

Dean McArdle

Stanford’s pitching rotation is shaping up pretty well – now the offense just has to go out and get Mark Appel a win on Friday night. The sophomore has had tremendous stuff in all three of his starts this season, but by virtue of going up against Sonny Gray and Taylor Jungmann, Appel’s record sits at 0-2 so far. It’s easy to believe that Appel will get back in the win column as the season goes along, but he has shown he can be a primetime player on Friday nights – something the Cardinal will need if they want to overtake UCLA and Gerrit Cole in the Pac-10 down the road.

Dean McArdle pitched very well Saturday (in a 9-2 win) – he’s a bulldog pitcher who had his control working and now has a 7-0 career record at Stanford. He and Jordan Pries are surprisingly similar pitchers, both
righthanders with great control and a nice array of pitches, even though they don’t have overpowering stuff.

I think at this point in the season Stanford head coach Mark Marquess is just trying to mix up his rotation a little bit and see how guys work in different places. Mark Appel brings the power on Friday night and has almost out-dueled both Sonny Gray and Taylor Jungmann.
The three week “Country Music Swing” – Houston, Nashville, and Austin – has been tough on the Cardinal’s record, but they have been impressive so far. I get the sense that the team is ready for a few days off, and they’ll get it with finals week this week. In the big picture, Stanford won’t face as consistently good pitchers as they’ve faced these last three weeks, and that should help cut down on strikeouts. Stanford struck out 27 times in the series against Texas (Jungmann had nine) and therefore stranded 23 runners. All in all, this three-week test has been good for Stanford, though. They’ll be ready to take on teams in a deep Pac-10 Conference, and they’ll have just as much or more experience against the nation’s top teams when it comes time for the NCAA Tournament.

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Stephen Francis checks-in again with some top week 2 performances from the Lone Star State…

David Paiz, RF — Texas Tech Red Raiders

Paiz put together a very nice four game stretch as the Red Raiders competed in their second consecutive tournament weekend in Lubbock with a pair of games against BYU and two against Northern Illinois.  He played his part well in Tech’s three wins by batting .444 for the weekend with eight hits in 18 at bats with five RBI and three runs scored.  Six of his hits and four of his RBI came against the Huskies as he seemed to feast off of the NIU pitching staff.

Texas Freshman Pitcher of the Week:

Andrew Mitchell, RHP — TCU Horned Frogs

Mitchell began the season for the Horned Frogs with the understanding that he would fill the role of weekday starter and would pitch out of the bullpen on weekends, barring any injuries to starters.  He took the mound against Baylor to pitch 6 2/3 innings of two-hit shutout baseball with four strikeouts and three walks to earn his first career victory.  As it would turn out, an opening weekend blister to TCU’s Friday starter, Matt Purke,  would thrust him into a Sunday start a mere five days after his first one; this time against college baseball powerhouse Cal State Fullerton.  The freshman responded by tossing five shutout innings and yielding just one hit with three walks and two strikeouts.  Although the bullpen couldn’t hold onto his lead, he still ended the week with 11 2/3 innings pitched with a 0.00 earned run average, three hits allowed, six walks, six strikeouts and his first career win.

Jamodrick McGruder, LF — Texas Tech Red Raiders

It was a good four days for Texas Tech outfielders.  Actually, it was a good four days for Texas Tech hitters in general, but McGruder did almost everything offensively possible to earn his keep this weekend.  Aside from getting plunked four times in four games, which should earn him at least something more than a bandage, the former Freshman All-American also stole two bases, batted .583, smacked three triples and drove in two runs while scoring five of his own.  He also walked four times and finished the weekend with an on-base percentage of .750 and a slugging percentage of 1.167 for a nasty 1.917 OPS.  McGruber has nothing on this guy as McGruder “took it like a man” this weekend and almost seemed to feed off of getting beaned.

Texas Sophomore Pitcher of the Week:

Michael Wacha, RHP — Texas A&M Aggies

If the name Wacha sounds familiar, don’t thank Fozzy Bear.  His name should actually sound familiar because he’s being featured for the second week in a row.  After six shutout innings in week one, he added to it by going seven shutout innings this past weekend against Gonzaga.  The Hoyas managed only five hits and struck out six times without a walk against the right-hander.  On the season now, he has tossed 13 innings with two wins in two starts without surrendering a run.  In fact, one more scoreless start just might have College Station shouting Wacha, Wacha, Wacha — which would be an appropriate chant when Baylor comes to town.

Anthony Rendon, 3B — Rice Owls

Rendon had a week reminiscent of Barry Bonds this past weekend.  Strike that, maybe that’s not a good comparison for an amateur athlete.  Perhaps Mark McGwire . . . never mind that comparison, either.  Let’s just put it this way.  Rendon took a lot of walks this week — seven to be exact.  Maybe there’s a reason for that.  He only batted .273 but hit two home runs, knocked in five runs and scored six runs of his own.  His .556 on base percentage dwarfed the batting average and more than made up for it.  Of course, that .818 slugging percentage didn’t look too bad, either.

Texas Junior Pitcher of the Week:

Taylor Jungmann, RHP — Texas Longhorns

Jungmann appears to be doing his best to remain a main-stay on this list.  After his first career shutout last weekend, the Longhorn ace went out and did it again against Hawaii.  The fact that he took the mound four hours after his normal start time didn’t seem to faze him at all as he pitched his second consecutive complete game shutout and allowed only four hits with nine strikeouts.

Chris Andreas, 1B — Sam Houston State Bearkats

Andreas put on a show in week two, simple as that.  He amassed a slugging percentage of 1.111 by going 9/18 at the plate with three home runs and two doubles.  He was also involved in a majority of the Bearkats’ runs by driving in ten and scoring seven.  He was named the “Hitter of the Year” by the SHSU baseball team in 2010.  Now we know why.

Texas Senior Pitcher of the Week:

Taylor Walton, RHP — UT-San Antonio

To be honest, it was a tough week for senior pitchers in Texas this week.  That’s probably because there aren’t very many of them, though.  Whatever the case, Walton went out and pitched a gem regardless of his classification.  The Midland native is playing his only season of Division I baseball, but didn’t look like it against St. Joseph’s with six scoreless innings on four hits with five strikeouts.  He earned his second win of the year and has now pitched 11 innings without allowing a run.

Texas Longhorns — vs. Stanford Friday, Saturday and Sunday

TCU Horned Frogs — @ Texas Tech Red Raiders Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Houston College Classic

Baylor Bears — vs. Houston Friday, Utah Saturday and Rice Sunday
Texas A&M Aggies — vs. Utah Friday, Rice Saturday and Houston Sunday
Houston Cougars — vs. Baylor Friday, Kentucky Saturday and Texas A&M Sunday
Rice Owls — vs. Kentucky Friday, Texas A&M Saturday and Baylor Sunday

This week we gather some insights from a couple of the top series in the country, #3 Vanderbilt vs. #12 Stanford and #4 TCU vs. #11 Cal State Fullerton, from reporters who were there (rankings based on the College Baseball 360 Week Two Composite National Rankings).

Jordan Pries

Jordan Pries looked very solid in both of his starts this week (Tuesday against Cal and Sunday vs. Vanderbilt) – add them up and you have two wins, 11.0 innings pitched, 4 hits, and 2 earned runs. He varied his stuff well, and he will definitely be a stalwart this season who the Cardinal can count on all year long. Pries’ fastball reaches into the low 90s at times, but the impressive stuff is his off-speed pitches. He has t a slider that looks the same as his fastball coming out of his hand, but dives hard across the plate and ends up for a lot of called strikes.

Brett Mooneyham, unfortunately for Stanford, will miss the entire season with finger surgery on his pitching hand. The blow is definitely a big one for the Cardinal pitching staff, who will miss having a front line starter who could potentially eat up a ton of innings and help keep the bullpen fresh.

Sonny Gray

Friday’s game was a true pitcher’s duel, and both sophomore (Stanford’s) Mark Appel and (Vanderbilt) junior Sonny Gray brought some good stuff to the table. Personally, I thought Appel had better stuff, but I mean that as a compliment to Gray. Gray definitely didn’t have his A-plus stuff on a very cold Friday night, but he still managed to sneak his way to six strikeouts and give up just one run on three hits. To me, that’s the mark of a good pitcher – a guy who can silence a potent Stanford lineup when he is having control issues with his fastball and he frequently missed the strike zone with first pitches. Gray brought scouts out in droves to see his performance (there were probably 15 to 20 teams there), and even though his pitches weren’t great, his pitching was.

The depth of the Vandy staff is also a high point for a team that I think is legitimately a top five team in the country. Gray is far and away their best starter – Grayson Garvin wasn’t as impressive in his Sunday start – but the Commodore bullpen is a force to be reckoned with, particularly Navery Moore. Moore can reach 98 miles per hour on the radar gun, and he also throws a nasty 94-mile-an-hour sliding fastball that is nearly impossible to hit. Having a true closer separates the men from the boys in college baseball, and I think Moore gives the Commodores a big advantage late in games.

A good example of how important a solid closer is to a top team is how the Cardinal let a three-run lead slip away in Saturday’s game, even though they had 17 hits and seven runs (and stranded 13 base runners). Stanford knows what it’s like to have a pure closer – Drew Storen in 2009 – so they know how to develop a guy to compete at the end of games as well.

Offensively, both teams were about equal, but Vandy does stand out for one reason. Stanford trots out a lineup that is full of right-handed hitters, but Vanderbilt has a totally balanced lineup, with a near-equal number of righties and lefties in the lineup at any time.

Kenny Diekroger

For Stanford, shortstop Kenny Diekroeger had another good week, hitting his first dinger of the season on Tuesday against Cal, then going 4-for-5 on Saturday with three RBIs. Similarly, sophomore centerfielder Jake Stewart had another good weekend, as he’s hitting .367 after hitting just .209 last year. He leads the team with three doubles already, and he is blazing fast in centerfield. Senior DH Ben Clowe is also hitting at a nice rate (.385), and he blasted a big home run off Garvin on Sunday. A sore spot for the Cardinal, though, was the suddenly poor Austin Wilson. The big rightfielder struck out eight times this weekend, and had serious trouble with the sliders the Vandy staff kept throwing him.

Vandy’s balanced offense can score in a lot of different ways – Tony Kemp and Mike Yastrzemski are fast and scrappy (but couldn’t swipe a single base this weekend thanks to Stanford catcher Zach Jones, who threw out three baserunners), Aaron Westlake is a big power hitter, and Jason Esposito is a very solid hitter.

Overall, I think both of these teams are legitimately top ten teams. Stanford easily could have won both the Friday and Saturday games, and Vandy could have easily swept the series. Keep an eye on both of these teams – they will be around deep into the postseason this year.

Blanchat was also there last Tuesday when Stanford hosted rival Cal in a midweek game…

Tuesday’s night’s matchup against Cal was very positive for both teams- the reception for the Bears in their last year of baseball for the foreseeable future was pleasant, even though there was some heckling. (A couple choice insults – “That was a big cut! Kind of like your baseball program!” and “Better luck next year!”)

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From t-shirts and caps to limited edition prints commemorating the last CWS ever played at historic Rosenblatt Stadium. Dugouthats.com also always  hats of your favorite college teams like Cal State Fullerton, TCU, Vanderbilt, and Stanford.

Stephen Francis was on hand to see TCU host Cal State Fullerton…

Noe Ramirez

With Titan Friday starter Noe Ramirez, looks can be deceiving.  He doesn’t look like an overpowering pitcher, but he uses off-speed pitching and location with his fastball to throw hitters off and for the most part he did it with success against the TCU lineup.  They made solid contact on a few pitches in the second inning though and with the way Kyle Winkler was handling the Fullerton lineup, that was all they needed.

The TCU and Fullerton lineups compare pretty well to each other at this point, although seven games may be a small sample size.  What sets the two lineups apart though is the power and speed of the TCU lineup vs. the execution ability of the Fullerton hitters.

With TCU, hitters one through nine are capable of driving the ball every at-bat with authority, although things appear to be “all or nothing” at this point.  The Frogs also have a fast group of players that remain aggressive on the basepaths from beginning to end.  With the new bats and the addition of a new hitting coach, the Horned Frogs do appear to have some kinks to work out.

For Cal State Fullerton, they executed very well on the weekend with clutch hitting late in the game.  They seemed to look a little more “seasoned” at this point in the season and took the final two games of the series by winning in the late innings.

While it would be interesting to see what these two teams would do against each other late in the year, it’s clear that Fullerton’s lineup had the easier time this weekend.  That doesn’t tell the full story though because between both teams, pitching was very good across the board.

Andrew Mitchell

Kyle Winkler won TCU’s only game of the series in Friday’s matchup with Ramirez. Matt Purke did not start all weekend due to a blister on his finger. TCU right hander Andrew Mitchell made his second start of the week in Sunday’s series finale and tossed five scoreless innings. He also earned a win after holding Baylor scoreless over 6 2/3 IP in his start last Tuesday.  Although the bullpen couldn’t hold onto his lead in Sunday’s 2-1 loss, the freshman still ended the week with 11 2/3 innings pitched with a 0.00 earned run average, three hits allowed, six walks, six strikeouts and his first career win.