BB: OAC: Ohio Athletic Conference

[Spence]

Capital trails 6-0 at Marietta, but they did just turn a triple play (5-4-3).

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Marietta gets complete games from Evan Brockmeier and Mike Finlan and plays 16 innings of errorless baseball in a sweep of Capital.

Big performances with a trip to W&J tomorrow for the 5th game in 4 days.

Looks likely to be Marietta and B-W tied atop the league after today unless something changes.

[Dr. Acula]

7 walks, 2 HBP, 5 errors, 2 passed balls....the 2nd game was worse than the first.  Mount just dug themselves a hole.  Long way to go thankfully.

10-5 and 13-7 BW were the finals, BTW. 

[Dr. Acula]

Whoa.  Musky swept Berg. 

[EttaFan1]

The triple play was pretty interesting. The ball was hit right to the third base bag, and was not difficult to turn. The ball arrived at first well in time.  Have not seen one of those at Don Schaly stadium in over 22 years of watching the pios.

Muskingum seeping berg was a very interesting development.  So was onu splitting with otterbein.

[Spence]

There may be a long way to go but I sure wouldn't want to be 2-4 in this league and trying to claw into the top 4.

Anything more than 3 losses the rest of the way is probably not good enough, and it could be 2.

[motorman]

There may be a long way to go but I sure wouldn't want to be 2-4 in this league and trying to claw into the top 4.

Anything more than 3 losses the rest of the way is probably not good enough, and it could be 2.

There was a 3 way tie for the 4th spot in the league tournament last year at 9-9 so 4 losses isn't deadly. And to help anybody out it looks like BW may continue beating your competition and they don't qualify for the top 4. Admittedly it isn't a position I would want to be in either.

Berg was not good yesterday at Muskingum. Made a pitcher with a 6+ ERA for a team that had only won 2 games look like Cy Young in the first game, getting only 3 hits and wasting a pretty good pitching performance by Tyler Fruhwirth. Other than a couple of attempted bunts, Berg only had 3 ground balls in the entire game.

In the 2nd game they finally remembered how to hit, but the pitching didn't hold up their end. Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the 7th the bullpen gave up 4. They rallied to tie it in top of 8th with 5. After a go ahead run in the top of the 10th, Muskingum rallied for 2 in the bottom for a walk off.

[Spence]

There may be a long way to go but I sure wouldn't want to be 2-4 in this league and trying to claw into the top 4.

Anything more than 3 losses the rest of the way is probably not good enough, and it could be 2.

There was a 3 way tie for the 4th spot in the league tournament last year at 9-9 so 4 losses isn't deadly. And to help anybody out it looks like BW may continue beating your competition and they don't qualify for the top 4. Admittedly it isn't a position I would want to be in either.

Two of those 9-9 teams didn't get into the tournament. My math wasn't the best though. I would figure usually the cutoff is going to be 10-8, I think it has been 11-7 before though. And obviously, it's been 9-9 as well.

B-W being out is unfortunate. They look to be a solid contender. But you're right, that will end up being a break for someone.

[Dr. Acula]

There may be a long way to go but I sure wouldn't want to be 2-4 in this league and trying to claw into the top 4.

Anything more than 3 losses the rest of the way is probably not good enough, and it could be 2.

There was a 3 way tie for the 4th spot in the league tournament last year at 9-9 so 4 losses isn't deadly. And to help anybody out it looks like BW may continue beating your competition and they don't qualify for the top 4. Admittedly it isn't a position I would want to be in either.

Two of those 9-9 teams didn't get into the tournament. My math wasn't the best though. I would figure usually the cutoff is going to be 10-8, I think it has been 11-7 before though. And obviously, it's been 9-9 as well.

B-W being out is unfortunate. They look to be a solid contender. But you're right, that will end up being a break for someone.

Spence is right in that 2-4 is definitely not a spot you want to be in.  No question about that.  But if I'm being honest with myself about Mount (and I always try to be) given that their schedule now appears to be VERY front loaded (Ott, Etta, BW) I would have been happy coming out of that 3-3.  So coming out 2-4 isn't ideal, but also isn't the end of the world.  The problem is that you just removed a helluva lot of your margin for error already.  You CAN'T get swept by JCU or Berg now.  You NEED to go 5-1 against Wilm/Musky/ONU.  None of those things are easy given the competitiveness we're seeing this year.

But beyond any of that I'm far more concerned with just how the Raiders are playing right now.  Their starting pitching is really scuffling.  Outside of Carlino, who has been excellent, the other guys who have started games have a combined ERA a hair under 6.00.  That's just not going to get it done.  And I haven't seen the box scores from Westminster today (a split) but they gave up 7 runs in both games today.  Their offense is too inconsistent to make up for giving up a half dozen runs on a regular basis.

[Dr. Acula]

Berg was not good yesterday at Muskingum. Made a pitcher with a 6+ ERA for a team that had only won 2 games look like Cy Young in the first game, getting only 3 hits and wasting a pretty good pitching performance by Tyler Fruhwirth. Other than a couple of attempted bunts, Berg only had 3 ground balls in the entire game.

In the 2nd game they finally remembered how to hit, but the pitching didn't hold up their end. Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the 7th the bullpen gave up 4. They rallied to tie it in top of 8th with 5. After a go ahead run in the top of the 10th, Muskingum rallied for 2 in the bottom for a walk off.

Motorman, it sounds like Berg is having those same consistency issues on offense that Mount has had.  Honestly, I'm not sure that anyone aside from Etta has they type of lineup that you can truly count on to score in bunches consistently.  BW has a pretty good lineup too, but not on Etta's level IMO.

[motorman]

Berg was not good yesterday at Muskingum. Made a pitcher with a 6+ ERA for a team that had only won 2 games look like Cy Young in the first game, getting only 3 hits and wasting a pretty good pitching performance by Tyler Fruhwirth. Other than a couple of attempted bunts, Berg only had 3 ground balls in the entire game.

In the 2nd game they finally remembered how to hit, but the pitching didn't hold up their end. Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the 7th the bullpen gave up 4. They rallied to tie it in top of 8th with 5. After a go ahead run in the top of the 10th, Muskingum rallied for 2 in the bottom for a walk off.

Motorman, it sounds like Berg is having those same consistency issues on offense that Mount has had.  Honestly, I'm not sure that anyone aside from Etta has they type of lineup that you can truly count on to score in bunches consistently.  BW has a pretty good lineup too, but not on Etta's level IMO.

If you look at league rankings, Berg's problems are obvious. They are first in team ERA and eighth in team batting average. There is a real lack of situational hitting. They aren't going to bludgeon anybody so every run is precious. They cannot afford to get a runner to 3rd with no outs and then not score that run. They put no pressure on a defense to make plays when you only hit 3 ground balls in a game, especially when it is still cold out and wind is blowing in. It is a testament to the pitching depth that they can be anywhere near the top of the league in ERA while losing their top 2 pitchers for close to a month.

They started the OAC season last year 3-3 after being swept by Muskingum so 2-4 doesn't look deadly, but they really need to step it up to come close to the charge they made in the 2nd half of the season last year.

[Spence]

Spence is right in that 2-4 is definitely not a spot you want to be in.  No question about that.  But if I'm being honest with myself about Mount (and I always try to be) given that their schedule now appears to be VERY front loaded (Ott, Etta, BW) I would have been happy coming out of that 3-3. 

You're right about this. I would definitely say that of the 2-4 teams, Mount is in the best shape. Plus they got a win over Marietta that could end up being valuable.

Everyone looks like they've got some pitching issues of some kind.

[EttaFan1]

Marietta's game against W&J exposed where this team is weakest.  Pitching depth. 

They allowed 12 total walks (one intentional) over the course of the game.  If you score 10 runs, you should win the game. 

Granted it was Marietta's 5th game in 4 days, and we were at the end of the rope as far as pitching was concerned, but still.  At some point in a tournament, you could be playing your fourth or fifth game in as short of a time frame, and you have to have someone come up with something. 

From what I've seen, the Marietta rotation looks something like this.

1.  Byers (fr)
2.  Mulvey (sr)
3.  Brockmeier (sr)
4.  Finlan (Fr)

The loss of Langdon to injury has been as big of a story as anything.  The rest of the staff isnt yet where it needs to be to make a significant post season run.  Coach Brewer had mentioned a freshman prior to the W&J game (didn't give a name on the radio) who had been throwing well, and it will be interesting to see if he works his way into the lineup either today or Saturday in Tiffin. 

[Spence]

Coach Brewer had mentioned a freshman prior to the W&J game (didn't give a name on the radio) who had been throwing well, and it will be interesting to see if he works his way into the lineup either today or Saturday in Tiffin.

I'm really interested to see how he plays the next two series. The next two weekday dates are at home and weekends on the road against top-4 possibles.

[Dr. Acula]

Looks like a lot of ppd games today. It's warm and pretty sunny here so Ott is playing. They're down 3-0 to Wilm in the 6th.