This hurts me to write but I think a big part of the blame for this one goes on the coach, and here’s why. We all knew coming into the CWS that South Carolina was our biggest competition on our side of the bracket. We also knew that game two was the biggest game for us to win. 18 of the last 21 winners of the CWS have gone 2-0 in their first two games. We also knew that Cal was probably the weakest of the teams to make it. Let’s board my train of thought for a second here and I’ll try to explain what my thinking is for this.
To me once Coach O’Connor brought in Tyler Wilson it showed me one thing clear as day, Will Roberts is the clear number 2 for this team going forward. Granted Roberts has been a much more consistent pitcher for us this season and has been rock solid through the post season so far so this wasn’t a big surprise for me to discover. However let’s looks at his style versus the style of Danny Hultzen, I feel this is where a crucial mistake was made. Will Roberts is effective because he is efficient. He throws a ton of strikes and relies heavily on his defense, which has made him great all season, except tonight. Whether it was nerves or the wet field or whatever the Hoos messed the bed in the field in that first inning and that set the tone. It was very unlike us to commit so many errors and what’s worse is that it continued. This is what ended up sealing our fate.
This brings me back to the matchup though. When you look at the offenses of Cal and South Carolina one is much more imposing than the other. The Gamecocks play big time SEC nut up or shut up power baseball. To me this is not the kind of team Will Roberts would excel against. Yes there is something to be said to roll out some fluffy nancy finesse pitcher to frustrate that kind of lineup but that’s not the pitcher will is. He throws hard it’s just in the zone. That being said it set up perfectly for South Carolina to put pressure on the defense by hitting the ball hard, which they did, and the defense cracked for the first time all season. I would much rather have seen Will get the start in Game one. I understand you don’t take anyone for granted but when you look at the matchup I firmly believe Cal is a much better matchup for a pitcher of Will’s style. No one on Cal jumps out off the page and intimidates you. They play a west-coast small ball style. A style that is much more conducive to Will’s style, one that will not rope a double off the center field fence if you make a mistake, but rather dump in a single that can be controlled. No one on Cal is hitting a screamer down the line that Proscia can’t handle, that’s not their approach. The appropriate starter for South Carolina would have been Danny. Power for power that might be a good matchup but Danny has the offspeed stuff that could easily neutralize the overaggressive approach of any SEC style team.
I’m not going to say that O’Connor was the only reason we lost because he wasn’t. If the usually sure handed Prosica grabs that ball at third and we roll through the first unscathed it’s a different game. Hell if we score a run in the 5th with the bases chucked it’s a different game. But we didn’t and South Carolina had all the momentum. Now all we can do is hope Tyler Wilson can rise to the challenge and defeat Cal, who according to an ESPN report has Jesus Christ on the mound with the Pope and the President of the United States in relief for the next game. Hopefully they’ve run out of montauges for this game and we can actually hear about the game instead of how terrible California’s state budget is.
Great post, Mike!
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