2023 college baseball/softball thread

At some point it becomes a strategic decision. This game is lost, and now you need to win three games in the next two days. You've already played two games and burned through a couple of your best arms. There are 11 guys on the roster who have thrown at least 28 innings, but they've probably used about half of them by the end of the second game.
So do you use someone you're going to need to win those next three games, knowing you're probably still going to lose 9-3 even if they shut them down? Or throw a young guy like that to the wolves knowing you probably wouldn't use him in those games anyway? There's no real difference in losing 15-3 than there is 9-3.
Everybody has a role, and that becomes his role — to help the team by eating a few innings and saving the rest of the bullpen.

 

Would have been nice to see. Instead I conked out for good when it was 6-5 because, surprise, I’m not 20 any more. Thanks for nothing Worldwide Leader.

 

An Ivy League school has never made it to a super regional. You have to go back to 1983 to find a time when one even made a regional final under the old format (Harvard lost to Maine in the Northeast Regional final that year). So Penn getting out of that bracket and into a super would be something.

 

Under the current 64-team regional format, Yale went 2-2 and made it to the finals of the 2017 Oregon State regional. Defeated Nebraska, lost to OSU, eliminated Holy Cross, then was eliminated by OSU.

 

Maybe the Ivy League does it right, who is to say. But the Ivy League hamstrings its baseball programs. The regular season didn't open until Feb. 24, a week later than everyone else in D1. It ended on May 14, a week earlier. Then it had the tournament. Penn played 43 regular-season games, most D1 programs played 56, and it had almost two full weeks off before the start of the NCAA tournament.

Penn plays at Tommy Lasorda Field. Who knew?

Again, maybe they do it right, and kids who go there know it is what it is. Is there really a need for 56 regular-season games?

Ivy League does what it wants. Banning its football teams from the FCS playoffs is wrong, though. Can you imagine the uproar if it said the women's soccer team can't participate in the NCAA tournament because of finals? There would be a Title IX lawsuit the next day.

 

Why is Clemson running out a pitcher making his first start in an elimination game?

 

Looks like they were trying to put together a bullpen game and save their No. 3 for tonight. It didn't work, but it didn't not work, either. The guys they used only gave up three runs (two earned) and four hits. Can't imagine their third starter could've done much better than that. When you lose 3-2 it's hard to blame the pitching.

 

How do they have nobody else? So bizarre.
Similarly, UNC got a two-run pinch-hit double today from a guy with 11 previous ABs all year.

 

The NCAA baseball tournament is weird, man. Arkansas throws one of its two best starters (8-1, 2.69 ERA) vs. TCU. Frogs lead 14-1 in the top of the third.

 

Hogs shouldn’t pitch to the dude who is 2 for 2 with 8 RBIs.

 

At 4:10 pm Eastern, there are weather delays in Fayetteville, Baton Rouge, Auburn and Tuscaloosa.

 

I don't know the weather forecast in Pigville, but if for some wacky reason they can't resume play today and can't play tomorrow, I think Arkansas, currently trailing 14-1, advances by virtue of its No. 1 seed.