Nice win in frigid conditions in Hammond Wednesday, with Tulane rallying from a 3-0 deficit to win 5-3 while its bullpen held Southeastern scoreless after Will Clements departed in the first inning. Not much can be gleaned from a game in weather like that, but it would have been easy to go through the motions with that early deficit, and Tulane fought back. from its first deficit of the year and is now No. 1 in the nation in RPI, which is cool but means absolutely nothing at this point.
Loyola Marymount swept Seattle 10-3, 17-11 and 12-6 over the weekend, lost to Cal Poly 9-1 on Monday and beat future Tulane opponent Long Beach State 7-4 on Tuesday, all at home. The Lions were were picked sixth out of nine teams in the preseason West Coast Conference coaches poll and last made the postseason in 2019, when thy won the WCC tourney and advanced to the championship game of a regional at UCLA. They have gone 20-29, 20-34-1, 29-24 and 24-30 in the past four years. The only time they ever made the CWS was 1986, when they beat LSU in their opening game in the Tigers' first CWS appearance.
Since I wrote a little about myself in the basketball post, I might as well do it about baseball, too. The only time I played baseball was when I 6 or 7 in the Carrolton Boosters League and before T-ball existed or coach pitch existed. Kids pitched, and the results were comical at times. I was the youngest player on my team and started off well, but after getting hit a couple of times, I became scared of the ball and did next to nothing at the plate for the rest of the year for the Cincinnati Reds (we took names of MLB teams). Then I broke a finger when a girl across the street accidentally dropped a stone on it while we were playing and missed the last third of the season. I played softball recreationally in high school and after college, but I never stepped on a baseball field to play again.
That said, I attended probably 200 Tulane baseball games from 1980 to 1986 before I went off to college. Since my father had a staff card (he was the Episcopal minister for the Tulane campus), I got in free to every game back then and would bike to the ballpark right after I got home from school on weekdays to catch the second game of the doubleheaders (which started at 1 p.m.) or the end of the single games (which started at 2). As a total sports junkie, I went to almost all of the weekend games, too and attended every game at the 1982 regional at UNO (watching Augie Schmidt and Brian DeValk hit solo homers in the top of the ninth to break a tie in the opener and watching a balk send in UNO with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth of the elimination game after the Wave tied it with a double to the right field wall in the top of the ninth, but the would-be go-ahead run was thrown out at the plate by a perfect throw and relay) and almost every game at the 1986 regional in Baton Rouge, including the Monday finish of the game suspended near the end by rain. I went to a lot of games at Florida my freshman year since the field was a two blocks walk from my dorm, but since no one wanted to go with me, I lost interest and never enjoyed them as much as the Tulane games even though Florida made the CWS for the first time ever my sophomore year. I covered the Florida baseball team for the student newspaper in 1990 and for my job the next four years before it became too much and I stuck to football and basketball for the last 13 years I was there.
Anyway, I feel like I am more familiar with and understand college baseball as much as almost anyone alive because of all that time spend at the ballpark, although my knowledge is lacking in some areas. I would be afraid to do a radio broadcast because I struggle to tell the difference between off speed pitches or recognize different types of fastballs. I've never pitched in my life.
I talked to Jay Uhlman, Anthony Izzio and Michael Lombardi yesterday.
UHLMAN
On comeback:
"I would be lying if I said I didn't have flashbacks from last year when we were down 5-0 in the first and almost came back and won, but Clem did such a nice job the weekend before, and for our guys to pick him up like he picked them up was really huge. Our bullpen had different degrees of cleanliness, but guys that maybe were teetering finished the job and then we had some really spectacular outings in there."
On Lombardi's five Ks in six batters faced while earning the save:
"He did that last year, so he kind of likes the mound there. It was coming out good and he had it all working. Benbrook was spectacular, and Montiel got balled on some pitches that were strikes and changed counts, and the old him probably would have gone south, but he did not implode and just jammed it in there and did a really nice job, so I'm really proud of those guys. Getting (Garrett) Payne out there and (Wes) Burton out there and getting Gavin Smith back out there, they were tremendous, and there was never a sense of panic. We just kind of did what we do."
On how cold it felt:
'I spent 13 years in Reno and I would tell you that's the only place on Earth I've felt like that. It was really cold."
On Lombardi's development as a pitcher rather than just a thrower:
"He would tell you that he hasn't really gotten to the point where it's just wherever he wants to throw it. Last night was like that. That's the vision you see of him. If he can do that every time, he's a Big Leaguer. He's working his way into that. When your jobs are split by two different times of the game, it's really difficult. That's the reason not a lot of people outside of Shohei Otani do it, but when we think of Mike on the good side of that, that's what we see. He's probably not thrown as many strikes as he'd want to in his career."
On his smarts helping him carry the double load (he was member of National Honor Society in high school):
"He's a special kid. Not only is he really good at school, but he's a really heady baseball player, very cerebral, thinks the game like a coach. We are grateful to have him in the program."
On bunting him to score run with 3-0 deficit:
"You had the potential for him to hit into a double play, and we needed something to break the ice, and he was able to execute that and scored one and moved one up. That was a big part of it."
On his scouting report for Loyola Marymount:
"They are going to be well coached, West Coast-style. They'll be a little different that way. They've got some runners. They'll bang it pretty good and their starting pitching is really good. They are 4-1 for a reason. It will be a fun weekend of competitive, good baseball."
Loyola Marymount swept Seattle 10-3, 17-11 and 12-6 over the weekend, lost to Cal Poly 9-1 on Monday and beat future Tulane opponent Long Beach State 7-4 on Tuesday, all at home. The Lions were were picked sixth out of nine teams in the preseason West Coast Conference coaches poll and last made the postseason in 2019, when thy won the WCC tourney and advanced to the championship game of a regional at UCLA. They have gone 20-29, 20-34-1, 29-24 and 24-30 in the past four years. The only time they ever made the CWS was 1986, when they beat LSU in their opening game in the Tigers' first CWS appearance.
Since I wrote a little about myself in the basketball post, I might as well do it about baseball, too. The only time I played baseball was when I 6 or 7 in the Carrolton Boosters League and before T-ball existed or coach pitch existed. Kids pitched, and the results were comical at times. I was the youngest player on my team and started off well, but after getting hit a couple of times, I became scared of the ball and did next to nothing at the plate for the rest of the year for the Cincinnati Reds (we took names of MLB teams). Then I broke a finger when a girl across the street accidentally dropped a stone on it while we were playing and missed the last third of the season. I played softball recreationally in high school and after college, but I never stepped on a baseball field to play again.
That said, I attended probably 200 Tulane baseball games from 1980 to 1986 before I went off to college. Since my father had a staff card (he was the Episcopal minister for the Tulane campus), I got in free to every game back then and would bike to the ballpark right after I got home from school on weekdays to catch the second game of the doubleheaders (which started at 1 p.m.) or the end of the single games (which started at 2). As a total sports junkie, I went to almost all of the weekend games, too and attended every game at the 1982 regional at UNO (watching Augie Schmidt and Brian DeValk hit solo homers in the top of the ninth to break a tie in the opener and watching a balk send in UNO with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth of the elimination game after the Wave tied it with a double to the right field wall in the top of the ninth, but the would-be go-ahead run was thrown out at the plate by a perfect throw and relay) and almost every game at the 1986 regional in Baton Rouge, including the Monday finish of the game suspended near the end by rain. I went to a lot of games at Florida my freshman year since the field was a two blocks walk from my dorm, but since no one wanted to go with me, I lost interest and never enjoyed them as much as the Tulane games even though Florida made the CWS for the first time ever my sophomore year. I covered the Florida baseball team for the student newspaper in 1990 and for my job the next four years before it became too much and I stuck to football and basketball for the last 13 years I was there.
Anyway, I feel like I am more familiar with and understand college baseball as much as almost anyone alive because of all that time spend at the ballpark, although my knowledge is lacking in some areas. I would be afraid to do a radio broadcast because I struggle to tell the difference between off speed pitches or recognize different types of fastballs. I've never pitched in my life.
I talked to Jay Uhlman, Anthony Izzio and Michael Lombardi yesterday.
UHLMAN
On comeback:
"I would be lying if I said I didn't have flashbacks from last year when we were down 5-0 in the first and almost came back and won, but Clem did such a nice job the weekend before, and for our guys to pick him up like he picked them up was really huge. Our bullpen had different degrees of cleanliness, but guys that maybe were teetering finished the job and then we had some really spectacular outings in there."
On Lombardi's five Ks in six batters faced while earning the save:
"He did that last year, so he kind of likes the mound there. It was coming out good and he had it all working. Benbrook was spectacular, and Montiel got balled on some pitches that were strikes and changed counts, and the old him probably would have gone south, but he did not implode and just jammed it in there and did a really nice job, so I'm really proud of those guys. Getting (Garrett) Payne out there and (Wes) Burton out there and getting Gavin Smith back out there, they were tremendous, and there was never a sense of panic. We just kind of did what we do."
On how cold it felt:
'I spent 13 years in Reno and I would tell you that's the only place on Earth I've felt like that. It was really cold."
On Lombardi's development as a pitcher rather than just a thrower:
"He would tell you that he hasn't really gotten to the point where it's just wherever he wants to throw it. Last night was like that. That's the vision you see of him. If he can do that every time, he's a Big Leaguer. He's working his way into that. When your jobs are split by two different times of the game, it's really difficult. That's the reason not a lot of people outside of Shohei Otani do it, but when we think of Mike on the good side of that, that's what we see. He's probably not thrown as many strikes as he'd want to in his career."
On his smarts helping him carry the double load (he was member of National Honor Society in high school):
"He's a special kid. Not only is he really good at school, but he's a really heady baseball player, very cerebral, thinks the game like a coach. We are grateful to have him in the program."
On bunting him to score run with 3-0 deficit:
"You had the potential for him to hit into a double play, and we needed something to break the ice, and he was able to execute that and scored one and moved one up. That was a big part of it."
On his scouting report for Loyola Marymount:
"They are going to be well coached, West Coast-style. They'll be a little different that way. They've got some runners. They'll bang it pretty good and their starting pitching is really good. They are 4-1 for a reason. It will be a fun weekend of competitive, good baseball."