Arena NCAA Baseball/Softball

Wingo was solid vs Clemson. As his Clemson dad watched

 

From what I've heard, Wingo has at least one other family member who went to USC. Not his dad, though

6-0 now in the middle of the fifth. Gotta start wondering how long Cooper will be able to go tonight.

EDIT: Speaking of Blake Cooper, he has been dominant tonight on 3 days rest. 7 IP 1 H 0 R 8 K. Not bad at all.

 

1 win away!

 

ONE WIN AWAY!

 

lol... so, I went to bed in the eighth 'cause I figured South Carolina had things under control. What a riot. I won't be able to watch the beginning of tonight's game, but I may be there later on to make things interesting at the end.

Oh, and you know the "Not Top 10 Plays" on ESPN SportsCenter weekends? They could likely fill all ten spots with stuff from last night's game. That game was just a mess.

 

Amazing stuff from Blake Cooper last night. Defense not so amazing either way, but USC capitalized on their chances and UCLA didn't - that was the difference.

Looks like Tanner's gonna roll the dice and start Michael Roth, the lefty who spent most of the season in the pen as a situation lefty facing one or two batters per outing again... I'm a little nervous about it because he's not used to starting and going deep, and this will be 3 days rest since he dominated Clemson for that complete game. However, I've been saying this all postseason: I'm not going to second guess Ray Tanner. We had Whit Merrifield leading off and Jackie Bradley batting second almost all season, then Evan Marzilli suddenly takes over the leadoff spot starting in the regionals. How's that worked out? Pretty darn well. Michael Roth as the starter against Clemson? Complete game, 3 hits. Blake Cooper making his second consecutive start on 3 days rest? 8+ IP, 3 hits. Dyson on short rest in the second Clemson game? Yeah, that worked out nicely too.

So come on, Gamecocks, and win this one for Bayler Teal.

 

Last night was the first time I had heard the story... simply heartbreaking. I hope they can win it all for Bayler, too.

 

Incidentally, for all those who watched last night on ESPN and listened to their announcers.. was there a noticeable bias? I had the TV muted and the Gamecock radio announcers on (as I've done for the entire CWS with the exception of the second Clemson game as I was watching at a friend's birthday party that evening) so I didn't hear it personally, but apparently ESPN ticked off a bunch of USC fans by being very UCLA-biased...people were emailing some of the local radio people about it, etc.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit - Carolina's used to getting that kind of treatment, plus the stuff ESPN has online is UCLA-slanted

 

Eh... to say I was "listening" to anything last night would be a stretch. It is baseball, after all.

If I noticed anything, it seemed like the announcers had a real love-fest over Gerrit Cole half the time. I really don't think they even mentioned once just how horrible game he was having. They seemed very forgiving of his performance. That was something that stood out to me, though there may have been other things there that I wasn't listening to.

 

That definitely wouldn't surprise me. The whole pre-championship series hype was "UCLA has an awesome group of starting pitchers and there's no way an offense like SC could touch Cole or Bauer or Rasmussen"

Heck, they did a preview that broke the matchups down into 8 categories, and who has the advantage in each:

Catcher: USC
Middle infield: UCLA
Corner infield: USC
Outfield: USC
Starting pitching: UCLA
Relief pitching: USC
Coaching: USC
Intangibles: USC

That's 6/8 in favor of the Gamecocks. Then immediately after going through that, they picked UCLA. Of course, that pick was heavily based on assuming Cooper would be a bust in game 1 on short rest... yeah, that didn't quite work out that way

Incidentally, the delay between radio and TV is rather amusing. I've done this before, several times, and its usually about a 1-2 second delay, maybe 3 seconds, tops. Enough that its noticeable but not a huge difference. At the beginning of the CWS (Oklahoma game 1 and ASU) it was ~8 seconds. In the first Clemson game, it was just under a whopping 12 seconds delay. Last night I didn't time it, but it was closer to 12 than it was to 8

 

Yeah, the announcers were all over Gerrit Cole and his love affair with the Yankees. They did mention that he had some very unlucky breaks (which is true), but luck can't be the excuse for all of them.

They also did mention that South Carolina did get unlucky that a few of their longballs didn't go out of the park due to the wind, so it evened out a little bit.

 

Keep in mind that this is an online poll done by the Columbia, SC paper... but still, the results are quite interesting: http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/29/1356247/did-gamecocks-get-the-respect.html#ixzz0sHNeRzeH

Poll question: Did Gamecocks get the respect they deserve?

The web was buzzing last night and again today with USC fans questioning the CWS game-calling by ESPN in the 7-1 win over UCLA.

Was the word "luck" used too much? Was it ridiculous to suggest that Gamecocks not steal a base in the seventh inning to avoid "waking a sleeping giant?"

Did they really say it was the best "nine-hit game they had ever seen pitched?"

Did EPSN give Gamecocks enough respect?

Results (so far):

Yes, the game-calling was even-handed: 10% (332 votes)

No, the Gamecocks weren't given the credit due: 90% (2857 votes)

Just a little bit lopsided.

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Wow, I've got the radio on right now and a Clemson fan just called in to say he's pulling for South Carolina tonight (!) because Orel Hershiser was so ridiculously lopsided last night, particularly in his comments about Blake Cooper. Wow. (Though I have to wonder how the heck that works, given that he's a Clemson fan...)

 

My dad and I watched the game on ESPN last night, pretty much from start to finish, and yeah, the pro-UCLA bias was very clear to both of us:

USC only scored the runs they did because of "bloops," errors, and luck. It was the best 9-hit pitching performance they'd ever seen. Gerritt Cole is a god among men, and all those runs scored on him really weren't his fault. The defense made a lot of errors for him. But speaking of errors, USC made a whole bunch of defensive errors too!--just in case you guys forgot. UCLA has won 106 national championships (USC only 1, LOL) in all sports but never in baseball. There's an empty spot for the Bruin baseball team in their workout room, so guess who we're hoping wins this thing. Oh, and USC shouldn't be stealing bases so late in the game--it might make UCLA angry. And you wouldn't like them when they're angry. Also, Cole is just wonderful, in case we hadn't mentioned that yet.


Yeah, that was the general gist of the commentating last night. I'm not even kidding. (I even made a post in this thread addressing them early last night.)

@R...J: Muting the TV and putting on the Gamecock Radio Network is actually sounding like a damn good idea!

 

As I said earlier, there is a significant delay... but IMO, its worth it. Its funny, because I'm really not a fan of Andy Demetra calling baseball games (he frequently makes McCarver-level comments, and I've caught him mixing up the baselines ) but Tommy Moody's great.

I DVRed most of last night's game (forgot to have it set beforehand, so I hit the record button 2-3 innings in), so I might hear the comments at some point when/if I watch it again.

 

My dad used to infuriate my mom by watching a game on TV, muting it, and playing the same game on the radio instead since in general radio announcers go on less tangents than their TV counterparts.

So if I were to bounce the suggestion to him tonight, I'm sure he wouldn't object.

 

Radio announcers can't go on as many tangents - there's no image backing them up so they have to focus on describing what's happening.

About 40 minutes until first pitch

Oh, and I checked the DVR - it retroactively recorded last night's game, so I have it in its entirety

 

Exactly.

Those TV announcers start talking about things like stuff going on in their hotels, on the flight over, interviewing family members during the actual game, etc., etc.

As for us, we're breaking out my old 1994 boombox to listen to Gamecock Radio while watching the game!

 

Niiiice. I've got my alarm clock/radio on in here, plus my parents stereo system pumping the radio around the house - easy to hear anywhere

 

Eh, now I'm not so sure about this. Maybe it's a connection on our TV or satellite or something, but the radio is a good 5-7 seconds ahead of what's happening on the screen, which makes watching it pretty awkward (i.e. an entire play will have transpired on the radio before you even see the pitch on-screen).

And SC was fortunate to get out of that inning unscathed. I hope that 9-inning game against Clemson wasn't a fluke for Roth.

 

Its a lot closer today than it was yesterday or in the first Clemson game.

But you're right, we were lucky to get out of that unscathed. Roth looks tired still from Friday and is struggling with his control. Also consider that UCLA shifted their lineup to be heavily right-handed in response to Roth's getting the start.

Mata's been in the bullpen already, I think we'll see him pretty soon. It would be nice if Roth could go another inning or two, though.

 

Still flying by the seat of our pants, I suppose. Roth has done good damage control so far, but I think it's just tempting fate if we leave him in there. Hopefully we'll see one of those relief pitchers come in for the 4th here.

Also, I timed it: There's more than an 8-second delay between my radio and TV.

 

It was almost 12 seconds

4 scoreless for Roth. Still 0-0 going into the bottom of the fourth. Time for the Gamecocks to get some runs.

EDIT: Roth gives up one in the top of the fifth. That's probably it for him - I expect to see Mata next inning.

 

Do you guys think UCLA is getting prefferential treatment from the announcers? It seems they really want UCLA to win. It seemed that way the whole CWS.

 

rech: I've had ESPN muted and the Gamecock Radio announcers on the radio turned on the whole series (minus the second Clemson game, when I wasn't at home)... but that definitely seems to be a common opinion. See some of the posts earlier today

 

@RJ: They should've taken him out earlier, IMO. And if we keep stranding runners on base, we'll never win this game.

@rech: I definitely noticed that last night. Hence why tonight we've got the TV muted and are listening to the Gamecock Radio Network instead while watching the game.