Though I don’t know how good Omaha is, 3-0 is a good start against anyone. I watched a lot of college baseball this weekend, including all three of the Wave games on either ESPN 3 or YouTube, and there was a lot to like. I also watched the series between ECU and George Mason. ECU eventually took two of three games, but George Mason, a below average team in recent years, gave them all they could handle, winning convincingly 7-3 on Friday and losing 4-3 in the last two games. Still, both teams looked pretty sharp, and the pitching looked a lot better than what we exhibited or faced. Fast balls were faster, breaking pitches were sharper, and control, though not great, was better. Nonetheless, it is very, very early in the season.
For the Wave, the most positive thing from my perspective was the contribution of the freshmen. Chun, Johnson and Wachs went a combined seven for 20 (.350) with one HR. Those seven hits are as many as Tulane Freshmen combined for over the two previous years of the Uhlmann era. For interest, Lombardi, as a freshman, got seven hits in 2023. That’s the entire contribution of Tulane Freshmen hitters during those two years. As an added bonus, John Paul Sauer, the only freshman to pitch this weekend, threw one inning with a walk and two Ks. Last year, no freshmen pitcher or hitter for that matter played in a game.
Hitting was obviously the key to our weekend’s success, with a team batting average of .323. Those who started at least one of the games hit a combined .356. Again, I don’t know how good the pitching was. It didn’t look that good from the centerfield camera, but starters hitting .356 should be a confidence builder regardless.
From the mound, Flacca threw a solid five innings and Cehojik was spectacular for five before running off the rails in the sixth. Still, both appeared to be throwing well. Others who I thought looked good, along with the aforementioned Sauer, were Gavin Smith, Lombardi, Montiel, and Clements. The latter two were particularly impressive. After those, it was a train wreck with the other six guys throwing 9.1 innings, allowing 19 hits, 10 walks, 3 HBPs, and 15 earned runs for a 14.46 ERA. Even if I thought Omaha was a good hitting team, that would be bad, really bad.
While the jury is obviously still out on every aspect of the team, I’m even more unsure about our defense. We only had three errors over the weekend, all throwing errors—two by Jackson Linn in left field and one by Nate Johnson at first base, But I thought a couple of other times, we could have made plays but didn’t. That coach Uhlmann makes so many defensive substitutions even when the game is still in doubt, suggests that in some cases, our best defenders are not our starters. Will that be a problem as we get into the season? We’ll see.
As for team speed and base running. It looks like we have speed at most positions, and I thought we were aggressive on the base paths without overdoing it. Rasmussen was out at third base trying to stretch a double, but it took a perfect relay and throw to get him. Still, an old axiom of baseball is to not make the first or third out at third base. Anyhow, I liked the aggressiveness.
Overall, I’m encouraged and, like I said at the beginning, it’s hard to be upset with a 3-0 start. The two weekday games in front of us, against teams likely better than Omaha, will give us some more data points as we dip deeper into our pitching staff. We need to clean up prior to the conference season to ensure an at-large post-season bid.
Roll Wave!!!
