BB: ASC: American Southwest Conference

[Bmo]

"Schafer hadn't pitched since May 21, 2004 in the NCAA Division III West Regional because of an injured shoulder. "

You have to give him all the credit in the world for coming back after an almost three year layoff and beating the number 2 team in the country.  It's very easy to move on to other things, especially at the D3 level. 

[CUAfan]

Ralph: You should know, having helped found a SABR chapter. Just saying that in terms of pitcher-only variables, one can make a good case that Miller had the better outing. Not that he necessarily did, but that the case is there.

Bmo: I was under the impression that POTW was a performance award, not a human-interest feel-good award. Schafer's comeback after the layoff was impressive, yes, but the question ought to be whether or not it was the best performance by an ASC West pitcher that week.

BTW, I think a lot of the POTW awards get skewed towards winning teams more across the board, so they turn into more team-effort awards than individual-effort ones. Example: McDonald in men's bball led the league in scoring all year and won 1 POTW award, probably since we had a losing record all year.

[utilitycat17]

I agree that on the surface it may seem as though Miller's performance was statistically better.  However, I think when you factor in all of the variables the right decision was made.  When you look at how all of the other pitchers for McMurry fared against the Chapman offense you have to figure that Schafer's numbers were way out of the norm for holding down that offense.  That performance was way out of the norm when you look at how everyone has done against Chapman.  When you look at Southwestern they are a team that is below .500 right now.  They have yet to score 10 runs in a game even once.  They have scored only 4 runs or less in more than half of their games so far this season.  I would say that even though the stat line may have been somewhat better for Miller the degree of difficulty for Schafer was much greater.  In my opinion, that make Schafer's pitching performance the more unlikely and the more significant.  And when you throw in the fact he hadn't won a game in two years and I'm sure the anxiety of how he would perform after the time off, it makes for a better story.  One that could draw more attention to the player, the school, and ultimately to the conference.  I think the right decision was made.

[CUAfan]

True enough. I don't know enough about Chapman other than the high ranking to make a call one way or the other. I can see how Schafer's performance was better, given the competition. My whole point in this has been to say that maybe too much attention is given to team accomplishments when handing out POTW awards. Not all the time, and not necessarily in this case, but as a general rule.

[utilitycat17]

CUAfan,

I think you make a good point there.  The POTW awards should be more about the individual performance.  I believe a great performance can come from anywhere, even in a losing effort.  I would say, however, that if two accomplishments compare equally I would have to look at more information in making a decision. Such as the importance of the game i.e. was it a game with a lot of post-season implications, or how big of an impact did that performance have on the game itself.  If a guy got 5 hits in a game his team won by 15 runs, I wouldn't care as much as a guy with 3 hits and his team won on his walk-off home run.  I think it is good, though, to scrutinize these things because it means a lot to the players and teams when they are awarded.  It shouldn't just go to the top team every week.

[Just_Some_Guy]

In addition to things that utility cat mentioned.  And I posted this the other evening, but it timed out on me and never made it up.  Schafer beat a team that hasn't been beaten and hasn't scored less than 4 runs EXCEPT in that outing.  He beat a team that was averaging 8.8 runs a game; whereas, Miller did something that other pitchers are doing.  Schreiner's Armijio went 8 IP and had 9 Ks and either 0 or 1 run against Southwestern, and Tuesday TLU's Besa through 4.1 in relief and had 0 runs and 6 K's so he was probably on pace as well. CUA fan, you're right a case could be made in favor of Miller, but I think when it came down to it that the right decision was made, and I feel like the ASC usually does a pretty good job.

[Ralph Turner]

Good point, guy.

I hope that Schafer's shoulder holds up.  That was his first decision since May 2004!

Right now, my top 2 pitchers in the West are Besa for TLU and Dalton Rucker for HSU.

Has anyone seen any others?

[Just_Some_Guy]

I think you probably mention Enloe (TLU) in the same breath as those guys.

                               ERA   W-L   APP  GS  CG SHO/CBO SV    IP   H   R  ER  BB SO 2B 3B HR  AB B/Avg
Adam Enloe..........  0.75   1-0     2      2   1      1/0         0  12.0   9   2   1   0   8   0   0   0   43  .209   

Not necessarily at that level but worth a mention are guys like Schafer (maybe?), Miller at CUA, Armijo at Schreiner so far this season, and maybe Kevin Jones from Schreiner (but we'll see once they get into ASC play). I'm interested in seeing how the two division 1 guys that transfered into HSU to accompany Rucker in the rotation fare.  Also, Kyle Newman has been masterful the past three years for TLU. It will be interesting to see if he can get back on track.

[Bearkat00]

To get on the East's band wagon real quick, I think right now you can pick out any of the UT-Tyler pitcher's as being the best on our side.  Ryan Campbell seems to be the strongest of them all, which includes an opening day win against McM 
                                 ERA   W-L    IP      H   R  ER  BB  SO   AB    B/Avg   
Ryan Campbell.......  0.68   2-0   13.1  12   1   1    1    12   48     .250     

UT-Tyler Team Totals
                          ERA   W-L    IP      H   R  ER  BB  SO    AB    B/Avg   
Totals..............  0.92   5-0   39.0  27   8   4   6    46   143    .189

While I realize that their schedule to this point has been somewhat weak, which could be the understatement of the year, it's still pretty impressive to see some of the stats they are putting up.     

[CUAfan]

As long as his arm holds up (which goes for all of them I suppose), Miller should have numbers right up there with the big boys by the end of the year.

At any rate, you can't really make a statistical case for anyone with nobody having more than 15 innings or so pitched yet. Let's see where they're at when they hit 40-50 IP.

[Bearkat00]

Agreed, but that's what makes Baseball stats so fun!

[Just_Some_Guy]

Not a lot of Friday scores reported yet.

UT Tyler 7 - Howard Payne 6 -- No Box Scores yet

Mississippi College 22 - Mary-Hardin Baylor 5

WP Shawn Ashley 6 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 SO
LP R.B. Garza 4 IP, 11 H, 7 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO

Kind of surprised UMHB would start Garza who started against Trinity on Tuesday.  Granted, he only threw three innings, but still. He's thrown well all year (including against Trinity) so I'm kind of surprised he got touched up quite like he did except for the fact that he had thrown on Tuesday.

UMHB
DH Gary Lopez 1-3, 2 RBI
3B Andrew White 2-3 1 run, 1 RBI

Miss
SS Hugh Brown 3-5, 4 runs
2B Jody Britt 2-4, 2 runs, 2 RBI
RF Wesley Radicioni 5-6, 4 runs, 4 RBI
1B Max Parks 3-4, 3 runs, 4 RBI
C Ben Lenard 3-5, 5 RBI
Lf Brannan Walls 2-2, 3 runs, 1 RBI, 2 BB

[Just_Some_Guy]

Texas Lutheran 8 - Ozarks 7

http://www.tlu.edu/athletics?newsid=343

Hardin Simmons 18, 10 - Louisiana College 10, 3

http://hsuathletics.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/recaps/022307aaa.html

[Ralph Turner]

Feb 21st

Southwestern 12, McMurry 11

Richard Falcone's walk off 2-run homer in the bottom of the 9th gives the Pirates the win.

http://www.mcm.edu/athletics/baseball/stats/mcmsw.htm


Feb 23rd

UT-Dallas 13, McMurry 12 (10)

McMurry scored four runs in the eighth and seven in the ninth, but failed to score in the tenth as UT-D's Trent Elizondo, who had doubled, scored on Nick Bird's RBI single in the top of the 10th.  DH is scheduled today.

http://www.mcm.edu/athletics/baseball/

[CUAfan]

CUA scores this weekend:

CUA 4, ETBU 2
CUA 4, ETBU 3
CUA 38, ETBU 10 (yes, you're reading that right; they decided to play a football game )
CUA 5, HTU 8 (oh well, can't win 'em all)