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A big early April weekend of college baseball is in the books, so consider this your look back at some great action. The April 8-10 weekend saw some great baseball played around the country.

Going back to April 7, it was also the debut of Thursday Night college baseball on ESPNU. Not only was there South Carolina vs. Tennessee baseball on The U Thursday night, but there was also Arkansas vs. LSU Saturday night (drama) and Cal State Fullerton vs. UC Irvine on Sunday (not as much drama, but still good baseball).

The weekend’s action included 39 series that featured College Baseball 360 Top-50 teams, with 12 of those series being won by the lower-ranked/unranked teams. Sunday’s games alone had 41 total games involving top-50 teams, with the higher-ranked teams winning 61% of those games (25-16). In fact, less than one-third of the weekend’s series involving CB360 top-50 teams (12 of 39) resulted in sweeps.

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Here’s a look back at some of the Top 50 highlights:

Big, Bad Beavers…

#19 Oregon State made history by sweeping #5 Arizona State in Corvallis over the weekend. It’s OSU’s first sweep of the Sun Devils at home and also marks its first sweep of ASU since 1966. Arizona State (22-9, 5-4) had not been swept in Pac-10 play since 1999.

Ryan Dunn (courtesy Oregon State).

Oregon State’s Ryan Dunn batted in the 8-hole for the Beavers (24-7, 5-1) all weekend. The shortstop batted 6-for-11 with three doubles, a home run and six RBIs. He helped OSU’s 6-9 batters go 22-for-42 (.523) over the three games, with 12 RBIs and 15 runs. Oregon State’s 24-7 start is the program’s best since its 2007 national championship season. 7,751 fans saw the three games at OSU’s Goss Stadium.

Cavs Cooled…A Little…

Virginia had its 12-game winning streak snapped when it lost 10-8 at Georgia Tech Sunday, but the Cavs still took two of three games from the Yellow Jackets in the big ACC series. Saturday’s 12-9 UVA win to clinch the series extended Virginia’s school record road winning streak to 11 games.

No surprise, Cavalier ace Danny Hultzen (7-0, 1.33 ERA) fanned 12 with just one walk in 8.0 IP in Friday’s 6-2 Virginia win. Hultzen is second in the nation with  90 strikeouts in  54 1/3 IP this season.

Virginia (31-3, 13-2) roughed-up Georgia Tech starters Mark Pope and Jed Bradley in the first two games. The duo combined to give-up 11 runs on 15 hits in 12 1/3 IP on Friday and Saturday. Virginia has won all five of its ACC series this season, including three on the road. It’s only other ACC loss also came on Sunday against Florida State.

Jake Davies was 4-for-4 with 3 RBIs to lead the Yellow Jackets to Sunday’s win. Georgia Tech (24-9, 12-3) suffered its first ACC series loss of the season. Buck Farmer earned his sixth straight win for GT, despite giving-up seven runs (four earned) in 7.0 innings on Sunday.

Woo Pig Sooie…

James McCann

Arkansas swept LSU in their 3-game SEC series in Fayetteville and if you were lucky enough to see any of the action you saw some great baseball. The Razorbacks won each of the last two games of the series in walk-off fashion. Saturday night’s game on ESPNU ended on James McCann’s 3-run home run that gave the Razorbacks a 4-3 win in front of a record 11,103 delirious fans. LSU, after going scoreless over the first 17 innings of the series, had scored three runs in the top of the 9th before McCann’s shot in the bottom of the inning.

Sunday’s game ended on Kyle Robinson’s sac fly to centerfield to score Bo Bigham for a 5-4 win and the series sweep. It’s just the third time Arkansas (23-8, 6-6) has swept LSU since joining the SEC in 1992. The Razorbacks are now a game behind Alabama in the SEC West. LSU (21-11, 3-9) has won just one of its four SEC series this season. Austin Nola’s 6th inning grand slam gave the Tigers their four runs. 28,657 fans packed Baum Stadium for the 3-game set.

Sooner Pain, Cowboys Gain…

Oklahoma State continues to make some noise in the Big 12 after a 3-game sweep of Missouri. The Cowboys’ 7-3 win over the Tigers on Sunday gives the program its first conference series sweep since April 27, 2008.

OSU (24-8, 8-4) are in third place in the Big 12 standings, behind Texas and Texas A&M. The Cowboys finished last season with a 29-26 overall record, including just 8-19 in conference play.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma (24-8, 6-5) dropped two of three games at Kansas State. The series loss is the second for the Sooners in Big 12 play this season, to equal their total from all of last year’s College World Series team. It’s a big series win for K-State (18-12, 4-8), which takes a series from OU for the first time in 10 years and earns its first conference series win of 2011.

California Crash…

Three California schools, Cal, Stanford and Fresno State, all suffered series upsets over the weekend. Maybe #18 Cal was breathing a sigh of relief after finding out the program had been spared the ax prior to its series at Arizona, but the Golden Bears lost two of three in Tucson to the Wildcats. Cal’s Justin Jones was tagged for 7 ER in 4 1/3 IP in Sunday’s 10-8 loss. Golden Bear Erik Johnson and Wildcat Kurt Heyer each fanned 11 in the series-opener, but neither earned a decision as Arizona scored three in the bottom of the 9th to win 5-4. Arizona pounded-out 40 hits in the series.

Jordan Ribera

#10 Fresno State didn’t lose its series, but that’s due in part to the fact that the WAC plays 4-game conference series. The Bulldogs (22-5, 2-2) dropped two of its first three games at #50 San Jose State (21-11, 2-2) and then pulled-out a 5-3 win in Sunday’s finale to settle for the tie. Last year’s DI home run leader, Jordan Ribera, hit a three-run homer to break out of a season-long swoon, while closer Charlie Robertson earned his 10th save of ’11. Ribera is still batting just .223 with 2 HR and 11 RBIs after belting 27 HR with 69 RBIs last year.

#14 Stanford dropped two of three in its series at USC as well. The Cardinal (15-9, 3-3) has played five of its first six weekend series on the road against the likes of Vanderbilt, Rice, and Texas. They host the aforementioned red hot Oregon State Beavers next weekend. The series win was the first for the Trojans (13-19, 4-5)  in their last five series vs. Stanford. Logan Odom tossed 7.0 scoreless innings in Sunday’s 6-2 series clincher. All three of his wins this year have come over ranked teams.

Tallahassee Tar Heels…

#8 North Carolina (29-5, 12-3) did something this weekend that it hadn’t done in 16 years-win a series against #7 Florida State (23-9. 9-6) in Tallahassee. The Tar Heels won 7-6 in Sunday’s series finale to end the Seminoles’ streak of 25 straight Sunday wins. UNC reliever Michael Morin earned saves Saturday and Sunday after relief stints of 1.0 and 3.0 innings, respectively.

Historic Spartans…

Michigan State made history after sweeping reigning Big Ten champion Minnesota for the first time ever. The MSU-Minnesota series dates all the back to 1925, and it also marks the first time the Spartans (20-7, 5-1) took back-to-back series against the Golden Gophers (10-12, 2-4) after taking two of three at Minnesota last year. Brandon Eckerle leads a Spartan offense that’s batting .316 with a .439 average. First baseman Jeff Holm is the top run-producer with a .398 average, 4 HR, 29 RBIs, 13 stolen bases, and an 1.102 OPS. The Michigan State pitching staff sports a 2.70 ERA. Starters Kurt Wunderlich and Tony Bucciferro are each 6-1.

(Front page photo courtesy Arkansas.)

 

 

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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.

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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