College Baseball 360 » Stephen Piscotty

East Downs West In Cape Cod All-Star Game

Sean Stires — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:18:42 +0000

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Boston, Mass—As the 2011 Cape Cod League All-Stars found themselves taking the field at Fenway Park, walking the same steps that Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and many of the best to ever play the game have walked, no one could blame them for being a little nervous. Those butterflies translated into some uncharacteristic hiccups in a frantic first three innings of the 2011 Cape Cod League All-Star Game, which the East won 4-1.

The West wasted no time getting on board, opening the scoring in the first inning off East starter Taylor Rogers (Kentucky). Bourne’s Travis Jankowski (Stony Brook) led off with a single, and scored on an error by East first baseman Ben Waldrip (Jacksonville State). The RBI was credited to Eric Stamets (Evansville) of Hyannis, who bunted for a base hit before Waldrip threw the ball away.

The jitters continued in the top of the second, where the East scored two runs off Scott Firth (Hyannis). Y-D’s Stephen Piscotty (Stanford) reached on an infield single to begin the inning, and teammate Mason Katz (LSU) picked him up with a double. The throw home was high, and Firth threw the ball into left field in an attempt to catch Katz at third. Katz would score on his own double, helped home by two errors.

“We made a couple mistakes in the second inning there,” said West coach Harvey Shapiro, manager of Bourne, “they probably should have got one run, but we threw the ball around there a little bit.”

Before fans could catch their breath, the East struck again in the top of the third. Ryan Jones (Michigan State) of Brewster singled off Bourne’s Josh Conway (Coastal Carolina), moved to second on a wild pitch, and scored on a single by teammate Jason Monda (Wahington State).

That was all the East staff would need, as the West did not sniff the scoreboard again for the rest of the game. Matt Koch (Louisville) of Chatham, Tony Bucciferro (Michigan State) of Brewster, Tyler Johnson (Stony Brook) of Orleans, J.T. Chargois (Rice) of Brewster, Chris Overman (NC State) of Harwich all posted consecutive scoreless innings for the East.

“When you get these starters and closers who can go out for one inning and blow it out…pretty nice, isn’t it?” said Y-D manager and East coach Scott Pickler, in reference to the strong pitching of the East staff.

Chris Beck (Georgia Southern) was able to throw a scoreless top of the fourth for the West, but the East stuck again in the fifth, when Y-D’s James Ramsey (Florida State) laced a John Farrell (William and Mary) offering into the bullpen in right-center for a solo home run.

“Just got a fastball, put good wood on it,” Ramsey said. “The adrenaline’s obviously going, playing in this park.”

Hyannis’ Dietrich Enns (Central Michigan) was able to survive the sixth unscathed for the West despite surrendering a leadoff double. Bobby Wahl (Cotuit) followed suit with mid-90s fastballs to leave the score at 4-1 after six and a half.

After the crowd belted out “Sweet Caroline” during the seventh innings stretch, the East pitching picked up where it had left off, as Brewster’s Austin Voth (Washington), Harwich’s Carter Capps (Mount Olive), and Trevor Gott (Kentucky) of Orleans finished off a flawless three innings for the East.

Wareham’s Konner Wade (Arizona) and John Simms (Rice)of Falmouth would also throw scoreless innings to end on a high note for the West.

All told, the East staff would surrender only one unearned run to the acclaimed West lineup. The final score of the 2011 Cape Cod League All-Star Game ended in a victory for the East, 4-1.

“Their pitching was a little bit better than ours, and it showed up in the score,” Shapiro said.

The official attendance for the game was 7,007. Ramsey was named East MVP, while Stamets was named West MVP. Rogers was the winning pitcher, while Firth took the loss. Gott earned the save for the East.

(Release)

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Fullerton Regional Preview

Sean Stires — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:25:25 +0000

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Titans, Cardinal Back At It…

By CB360 Contributor Jack Blanchat

(Jack will be at the Fullerton Regional all weekend. Look for his post-tourney analysis here next week.)

Preview: Fullerton Regional

Once again, the NCAA schedule makers couldn’t resist the allure of a Stanford – Cal State-Fullerton matchup – but if the Cardinal and Titans are to square off for a trip to the Super Regionals, they must slip past a sneaky good Kansas State team and Big Ten Champion Illinois.

The Favorite:

The Fullerton is definitely the favorite to advance to the Supers this weekend – they’re a 40-win team with some eye-popping stats. The Titans have the nation’s 13th-best team ERA (2.85) thanks to a phenomenal pitching staff, but they also play a brand of small ball that can be confusing and frustrating to teams – the Titans’ 75 sac bunts are ninth in the nation – and they don’t need many runs to win games thanks to their pitchers.

Junior Noe Ramirez (8-3) has a 1.74 ERA and his opponents’ batting average is just .183, and junior Tyler Pill (6-1) has a 2.08 ERA and 99 strikeouts this season. Third starter Colin O’Connell has a 2.42 ERA and a 7-3 record – and he’s walked just 6 batters all season. To cap it all off, closer Nick Ramirez has 16 saves this year and a 1.12 ERA – on top of his .285 batting average and nine home runs as a first baseman.

The Challenger:

Stanford and Fullerton are familiar rivals – the teams usually play every year, and this is the second consecutive time the Cardinal have played in Fullerton’s regional. In 2008, Stanford sent Fullerton home in the Super Regional in SoCal, but in 2010, Fullerton returned the favor by knocking out the Cardinal. Hence why the NCAA wanted to see these teams go at it again, and why this regional will be televised.

Stanford is a legitimate threat to knock off the Titans this weekend because it can counter an excellent pitching staff. Stanford has a .298 team batting average, and sophomore Stephen Piscotty leads the squad with a .361 batting average. After that is Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Brian Ragira, who hits .321, and sophomore Tyler Gaffney, who is hitting .320 and riding a 17-game hit streak. Even Stanford’s “weakest” hitter is a threat – senior catcher Zach Jones, who has a .268 batting average, is actually batting .323 in his last 36 games after starting the season hitting .130 in his first 16 games. Jones also leads the team in extra-base hits. Stanford has a pretty solid pitching staff to boot – it’s 3.50 team ERA is 47th best in the country, and closer Chris Reed has a 6-2 record and eight saves of his own. It all adds up to one thing: don’t count out the Cardinal this weekend.

The Others:

Kansas State and Illinois will certainly be overlooked this weekend, but these are two solid squads who are both riding hot streaks. Illinois won the Big Ten Tournament by beating Michigan State by a combined 13-2 in two games, and the Fighting Illini are 16-4 in their last 20 games. However, Illinois doesn’t have a scary pitching staff – all of the Illini starters have an ERA over 4.00.

The story is almost the same for Kansas State, which staved off elimination once in the Big 12 Tournament before eventually losing to Texas A&M in extra innings in the Big 12 Championship game in Oklahoma City. The Cats can count on the big bats of brothers Jason and Jared King, who combined for 18 home runs this season, and have a combined slugging percentage of .577 (Jared’s is .547, Jason’s is .608). The Cats also have some small ball of their own to compliment the Kings’ power, with 2010 Big 12 Player of the Year Nick Martini swiping 24 bags to compliment the team’s 62 sac bunts. The pitching staff is a weakness for the Wildcats, though, as no starter has an ERA under 4.00. The back end of the pen does have closer James Allen, who has 17 saves, but all signs suggest that the Wildcats will be looking to win a slugfest this weekend.

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Stanford Sweeps Through Bears In Regular Season Finale

Sean Stires — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:57:24 +0000

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Rivals Both Headed To Regionals…

By CB360 Contributor Jack Blanchat

The final games of the Pac-10 season for the Cal Bears and the Stanford Cardinal showed two teams that appear to be heading in opposite directions, even though both are headed for the postseason once again.

Stanford once again utilized its great pitching to take the first two games in the series up in Berkeley by scores of 3-2 on Friday and 4-2 on Saturday. The Stanford bats woke up in the third game, part of a Saturday doubleheader, and the boys in red and white were leading 7-1 in the bottom of the fourth when foul weather set in and ended the game for good.

With the series victory, Stanford finished the season on a high note by beating two top-25 Pac-10 teams in back to back weeks (Arizona and Cal). Cal, on the other hand, hobbled across the finish line with three consecutive series losses in the Pac-10, albeit against three of the better teams in the conference (Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford).

Once again, pitchers Mark Appel, Jordan Pries and Chris Reed all pitched very well, and for the second week in a row, the Cardinal didn’t need much offense to have a winning weekend.

Appel went seven and one-third innings while only giving up one earned run and walking nobody in Friday’s 3-2 win. Reed gave up a hit and a walk, but he closed out the final one and two-thirds innings with the game on the line to seal the victory, which helped Appel’s record to 5-6 and earned Reed his seventh save of the year.

The story was the same in the first game of the scheduled doubleheader on Saturday, but this time Pries was the winner, as he went seven and one-third innings, giving up two unearned runs, one walk and just six hits. Reed closed out the game after he came in during the 8th with a 4-2 lead, runners on the corners and one out. Reed got a fielder’s choice groundout on a dramatic play at the plate and a flyout to rightfield to squash the Bears’ rally, and got a double play in the ninth to end the game.

Despite the losses, Cal’s pitching staff did well over the weekend also, with Erik Johnson striking out 11 Stanford hitters in Friday’s game, and Justin Jones settling down after giving up four runs in the first four innings to finish eight full innings with the Bears down just 4-2 before Reed closed things out for the Cardinal.

Despite the Bears’ solid arms, the offense is a major concern for the boys in blue and gold. Cal has scored just 33 runs in its last 14 Pac-10 games, an average of just 2.3 runs a game. They have been facing off against some excellent teams in that time span – Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford – but the offensive struggles will most likely mean an early exit for the Bears unless they can turn things around in the batting cages before the NCAA regionals.

Stanford’s offense didn’t score a ton of runs either – just enough to get the victories – but a couple key cogs in the Cardinal offense had good weekend. Sophomore Tyler Gaffney extended his hitting streak to 17 games this weekend with consecutive 2-for-4, one run, one RBI days at the plate. Fellow sophomore Stephen Piscotty went 2-for-4 with an RBI on Saturday and had a double, a single, and a walk in the second half of the doubleheader before the game was called due to rain.

Senior catcher Zach Jones went 3-for-5 on Saturday and scored three runs in two games (he also had a double and a single in the rainout game) to raise his batting average to .268 this year. This was a particularly impressive feat because Jones was hitting .130 through 16 games, but Jones has finished the regular season by hitting .323 in the last 36 games, and he leads the team in extra-base hits with 31.

Both these teams will be interesting to watch in the regionals – the Pac-10 has been strong this year, and the Cardinal and the Bears both have some nice pieces going into the postseason, both teams have a tough draw with Stanford heading down to Cal State Fullerton and Cal traveling to Rice, but with a little bit of luck, and the offense,
defense and pitching to syncing up, the Bay Area rivals could find themselves advancing to a Super Regional.

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Saturday Regional Baseball Notebook

Sean Stires — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:01:40 +0000

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A Look Around The Country At Saturday’s NCAA Action

The hitting streak continues, but the season is over. Garrett Wittels extended his hitting streak to 56 games in Florida International’s 15-9 loss to Dartmouth. The loss eliminated FIU from the Coral Gables Regional. That means Wittels will begin the 2011 season needing hits in his first two games to tie Robin Ventura for the all-time Division One record hit streak.
Garrett Wittels (FIU photo)
““Teams are gonna know what to anticipate. He likes to drive the ball away. Look for some teams to try to different things next season. Try busting him hard inside. Nobody tried to do that. We know he can push the ball into right center field, but can he turn on the ball? I think that’s gonna be the test.” That’s what ESPNU studio analyst Jay Walker had to say about Wittels and how other teams might approach him next year. So let me get this straight…Wittels batted .409 this season, hit safely in 56 games, smacked 20 doubles, and came to the plate 237 times, but nobody ever challenged him inside once and he never once turned on the ball? Great analysis Jay (I hope the sarcasm is detected)! Anyone who hits in 56 straight and bats .400 over the course of the season is going to do it by going to all fields. More great analysis by someone we’ve never heard of who probably saw all of eight of Wittels’ at-bats this season.
Dartmouth clean-up batter Jason Brooks was 2-for-5 in the win over FIU with a grand slam and a total of 6 RBIs. The win was the first for Dartmouth in the NCAA Tournament since 1987 and the first for the Ivy League since Princeton won a game in 2004.
Not to be outdone, Illinois State got its first NCAA win in 34 years by downing St. Louis 8-3 in the Louisville Regional elimination game. Kevin Tokarski homered and drove-in four.
Anthony Rendon (Rice photo)
Anthony Rendon jacked 3 HR and totaled 7 RBIs to lead Rice to a resounding 19-1 elimination game win over Rider at the Austin Regional. With the Owls leading 11-0 Wayne Graham lifted starter Taylor Wall after 3 2/3 hitless innings.
Southern Mississippi’s Taylor Walker was 4-for-4 with a home runs, 4 runs and 4 RBIs in an Auburn Regional elimination win over Jacksonville State.
Matt Weisinger hit two of St. John’s‘ four home runs in Charlottesville to help the Red Storm eliminate VCU 8-6.
Baylor beat Lamar 6-5 in Ft. Worth. Logan Vick had his 29th extra base hit to set a freshman school record.
Florida Atlantic had a season-high 18 hits to eliminate Bethune-Cookman with a 12-6 win in Gainesville.
Buddy Sosnoskie belted two HR with 6 RBIs to help Virginia Tech beat Bucknell 16-7.
Stony Brook eliminated North Carolina State with a 6-2 win in Myrtle Beach. Sophomore Tyler Johnson (10-3) set a new Seawolves single-season record for wins. Johnson notched 10 Ks in 8 IP.
Tyler Garwal hit a walk-off home run to keep Oral Roberts‘ season going with a 9-8 win over Cal in Norman. The Golden Eagles hit 4 HR and won despite walking 9 batters.
Francis Larson hit his 25th career home run to help UC Irvine beat Kent State 19-9 in the L.A. elimination game. Larson has now hit the most home runs in Anteater history.
Neil Holland (UofL photo)
Louisville’s 7-1 win over Vanderbilt set a program record with the 50th win of the season for the Cardinals. Neil Holland got his 17th save with 3 shutout innings of one hit ball.
How confident was Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell that his team could start Regional play 2-0? Cardinal ace Thomas Royse (9-1, 2.91 ERA) did not start either of his team’s first two games. He’ll start Sunday, which is the final game of McDonnell’s 3-game suspension.
Mike Olt is UConn’s all-time home run (44) and RBI (177) leader after belting two long balls with a career-best 8 RBIs as the Huskies routed Central Connecticut State 25-5. UConn now faces Oregon, which lost 6-4 to Florida State.
Rain and lightening caused two hours and 28 minutes of delay, but Miami cruised to a 14-1 win over Texas A&M. Hurricane 1B Scott Lawson was 4-for-6 with 3 HR and 6 RBIs.
Danny Hultzen gave-up 6 earned runs in 6 IP, but still improved to 10-1 as Virginia beat Ole Miss. 13-7. The Cavaliers tied a school record with their 49th win.
Mike Ferraro was 4-for-6 with a home run, two doubles and 6 RBIs to lead San Diego to a resounding 22-1 elimination game win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Tempe.
Here’s a lesson to the kids at home: ALWAYS RUN IT OUT. Stanford’s Colin Walsh hit a fairly routine fly ball to left field, but Cal State Fullerton’s Casey Watkins dropped it. Walsh motored all the way to third on the play and scored on a single by Stephen Piscotty. The Titans still won 6-5 thanks to a pair of 2-run home runs by Christian Colon.
Stanford goes 0-2 at the Fullerton Regional. It’s just the second time Stanford has gone two and out in Regional play. The last time it happened was in 1994 in Austin, TX.
There were a total of seven upsets on Saturday. Five #4 seeds won, with three of those wins vs. #2 seeds. Two #1 seeds lost to #2 seeds.
Minnesota is the Cinderella of the Regionals so far. The fourth-seeded Golden Gophers downed #3 New Mexico 6-4 in 10 innings the Fullerton winner’s bracket game to go to 2-0.
Scott Matyas struckout 8 in three scoreless, hitless innings of relief to improve to 5-1.
Eight of Saturday’s Regional games were decided by double digits.
Citadel’s 1-3 batters combined to go just 2-for-12 in their 9-4 loss to South Carolina. The Gamecocks used a 5-run 7th inning to take the win.
Starting pitchers Blake Cooper (11-1) of South Carolina and Asher Wojciechowski (12-3) of The Citadel combined for 23 strikeouts and just 4 walks.
Trevor Bauer (UCLA photo)
Trevor Bauer had 11 strikeouts to lead UCLA to a 6-3 win over defending national champion LSU in the L.A. winner’s bracket game. Anthony Ranaudo had 10 Ks in the loss.
The Bruins (45-13) tied a program record for most wins in one season. It equals the win total from the Bruins’ 1997 team (45-19-1), which was the last UCLA program to go to the College World Series.
Junior Casey Harman tossed the first complete game of his career to help #2 seed Clemson topple #1 Auburn 5-2 in Auburn. Harman scattered five hits with 8 strikeouts.
Arizona State’s Seth Blair is 12-0 after giving-up just a run in 7 IP as the overall #1 seeded Sun Devils rolled Hawaii 12-1.
Joe Weik smacked two home runs and had a career-high 6 RBIs to help TCU down Arizona 11-5. The Horned Frogs improve to 48-11 to tie the school record for wins in a season.
TCU pitchers Matt Purke (13-0) and Tyler Lockwood combined for 10 strikeouts, making TCU 21-0 when its pitchers have at least 10 Ks in a game.