Blogging with the Devils

The University of Tennessee is expected to introduce Todd Raleigh of Western Carolina as its new head baseball coach at a press conference on Thursday, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel is reporting.

Arizona State’s Pat Murphy was contacted by a search firm representing UT, but that is apparently as far as the Volunteers’ interest went.

Murphy, whose Sun Devils (49-15) finished fifth at the CWS after an 8-7, 10-inning loss to UC Irvine on Tuesday, said that no other schools have contacted him in regards to a coaching vacancy.

UT fired coach Rod Delmonico, a veteran of 18 seasons, earlier this month after the Volunteers went 34-25 and failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament. In this decade, Delmonico took UT to a pair of CWS appearances but also missed the NCAAs five times.

Delmonico made a reported $180,000 annually. As a result, it’s uncertain if Tennessee could have offered Murphy enough money to lure him from ASU, where he has four seasons left on a contract worth $272,000 a year.

Raleigh, who has coached at Western Carolina for eight seasons and taken the Catamounts to the NCAA tournament twice (2003 and ‘07), is certainly a better budget fit.

ARIZONA STATE: LF Tim Smith, 1B Brett Wallace, 2B Eric Sogard, DH Kiel Roling, C Petey Paramore, CF Matt Spencer, RF Ike Davis, 3B C.J. Retherford, SS Andrew Romine.

Left-hander Brian Flores (11-2, 3.86 ERA) takes the mound for a second straight evening.

Analysis: Smith returns to the leadoff spot, where he batted late in the regular season. Romine was at the top for the first two weekends of the NCAA tournament, then Retherford in the two previous contests in Omaha. Roling and Paramore, who are a combined 1-for-13 in the CWS, fill the Nos. 4 and 5 positions, while Davis, 3-for-5 with a home run the last two games, drops a spot in the order, to seventh.

UC IRVINE: 1B Taylor Holiday, SS Ben Orloff, 2B Cody Cipriano, LF Matt Morris, RF Bryan Petersen, DH Jeff Cusick, CF Ollie Linton, C Francis Larson, 3B Tyler Vaughn.

Right-hander Eric Pettis (4-0, 4.36 ERA) is the starting pitcher.

Arizona State wins tonight. Then wins tomorrow night against Oregon State behind freshman Mike Leake.

Beyond that, my crystal ball is foggy.

But there you have it.

Needing to defeat UC Irvine today to stay in contention for its first national championship since 1981, the Arizona State baseball team will wear the same uniform those College World Series winners donned.

The Sun Devils have taken the field at Rosenblatt Stadium for pregame warmup in vintage duds (modeled by Barry Bonds in the photo above, although he was not on the ‘81 team), replete with gold socks and caps, maroon stirrups and white shoes.

Bonds will have a presence, however, as a No. 24 jersey will hang in the Sun Devils’ dugout during the game. He is the co-holder of the CWS record for consecutive base hits, with eight in 1984.

ASU last wore the vintage look during a series against Oregon State at Packard Stadium last year, as part of a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ‘81 championship team.

I have long contended that the 1970s and ’80s look suits the Sun Devils much better than the old-style jerseys that the team has worn since the start of the postseason. Perhaps today’s game will set a new uniform trend, especially if ASU wins.

The Sun Devils will be the designated visiting team and bat first. The wind blowing in from left field appears to be weaker than it was in the first game between North Carolina and Louisville, but, of course, that could change.

There’s not much analysis of Arizona State’s situation in the College World Series. The Sun Devils must win three games in three days in order to advance to the best-of-three championship series, a demanding task given the precarious situation their starting pitching is now in.

ASU faces UC Irvine in an elimination game at 4 p.m. (Arizona time) today. Brian Flores (11-2, 3.81 ERA), who started and threw just 21 pitches on Monday, will take the mound again today.

After Flores and Josh Satow struggled in Monday’s loss against Oregon State, the question emerged: Have too many innings piled up for the ASU starting pitchers? It’s hard to say.

Satow has thrown 133 2/3 frames this season, Mike Leake 124 2/3 and Flores 119. They have carried ASU in the NCAA tournament, with closer Jason Jarvis logging the only mentionable relief time until Monday’s game got away.”

It’s been a long year for those guys,” coach Pat Murphy said.

As much as Satow works off of his changeup, that pitch becomes much less of a weapon if he is not hitting his fastball inside. When Satow’s fastball is not working, hitters can wait for the soft stuff over the plate.

On Monday, Satow missed on a fastball to Mike Lissman in the second inning, and the Oregon State outfielder deposited the ball over the left-field fence to make the score 6-1 in the Beavers’ favor.

“Josh hasn’t thrown well since, let’s be honest, it’s been a while,” Murphy said. “I’m talking about the crisp stuff that I know he has. I just haven’t seen it. He hasn’t had a fastball inside (in a game) in I don’t know how long. He had it in the bullpen the other day.”

Then again, the tournament schedule resulted in all three starters being well-rested coming into the CWS. Flores, in fact, had logged a grand total of two innings of relief between his June 1 start and Monday’s game.

So, were struggles against Oregon State the result of too much work throughout the season, or too much rest as of late? That uncertainty is an example of complexity amid baseball’s overall simplicity.

Right-hander Scott Mueller pitched the last 2 1/3 innings for the Sun Devils, allowing just one hit and striking out three. He displayed the terrific stuff that prompted the Baltimore Orioles to select him in the 21st round of the draft.

But Mueller’s inconsistency limited him to just 13 appearances before Monday. He had not pitched since May 25, when he allowed three runs without recording an out against Arizona.

Jarvis, the winning pitcher in ASU’s 5-4 opening-round victory against UC Irvine on Saturday, could pitch multiple innings today if needed. But if Flores has another bad pregame warm-up and struggles out of the box, Murphy’s pitching options will become frighteningly thin.

With a true freshman, right-hander Eric Pettis (4-0, 4.36 ERA) on the mound for the Anteaters, this would be an ideal opportunity for ASU’s high-octane offense to get back in gear. The Sun Devils are not getting much out of first baseman Brett Wallace (0-for-8 in the CWS), designated hitter Kiel Roling (0-for-6, four strikeouts) and shortstop Andrew Romine (0-for-5).

“We’re not going to give up,” second baseman Eric Sogard said. “We’re going to stay out there and play every pitch and do what we can to get on base. We’re still here to play.”

“I am not an anteater!”

Arizona State faces UC Irvine for the second time at the College World Series today, which means that the Aardva, er, Anteaters will constantly put memories of 1970s Saturday mornings in my head.

Incidentally, after that blog entry on Saturday, I was asked: Isn’t anteater just another name for an aardvark? I had to admit I didn’t know. Which brings us to the zoology lesson of this year’s College World Series: The two are, at best, cousins in the animal kingdom, with the anteater belonging to the Pilosa order, the aardvark the Tubulidentata.

Anteater:

Aardvark:

The elimination game between ASU and UC Irvine is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. (Arizona time) today. If the Sun Devils are to move on at the CWS, they will have to make the Omaha Anteaters extinct.

Somehow, UC Irvine’s 5-4 victory over Cal State Fullerton Monday took a College World Series-record 5 hours and 40 minutes. Sure, it went 13 innings, but 5 hours and 40 minutes for a 5-4 game? That’s ridiculous.

Especially when you consider that Southern California’s 21-14 victory over Arizona State in the 1998 title game took 3 hours and 59 minutes.

That game took so long, I almost missed my flight going home that night. I furiously drove my rental car to the airport curb, grabbed my luggage, ran inside and threw my car keys at the girl behind the rental car counter while I yelled, “Bill me later.”

I made my flight by five minutes.

Thank goodness Irvine and Fullerton weren’t playing that day.

I know ESPN pays a pretty penny to televise the College World Series and can dictate the starting times of games, but it was ridiculous to start Monday’s Arizona State-Oregon State game just 50 minutes after the end of the UC Irvine-Cal State Fullerton marathon.

The 50 minutes weren’t enough time to clear the stadium of the fans who watched the afternoon game, then get the evening’s fans in. As a result, thousands of people were still outside the stadium or stuck in a traffic jam on the concourse when the game began.

ESPN got what it wanted — an earlier starting time — but CWS officials did a disservice to the fans. Shame on them.

ARIZONA STATE: 3B C.J. Retherford, 1B Brett Wallace, 2B Eric Sogard, DH Kiel Roling, C Petey Paramore, LF Matt Spencer, RF Ike Davis, CF Jarred Bogany, SS Andrew Romine.

Left-hander Brian Flores (11-1, 3.74 ERA) is the starting pitcher. Coach Pat Murphy went with Flores over Josh Satow because he felt that Oregon State would use a lot of left-handed hitters against Satow, lessening the effectiveness of his changeup.

Analysis: If form holds true, Bogany will start the game in the field and, the first time his spot in the order comes up, be pinch-hit for by Tim Smith. If that happens, Smith will likely go into left field, with Spencer sliding to center.

OREGON STATE: CF Chris Hopkins, 2B Joey Wong, SS Darwin Barney, LF Mike Lissman, DH Jason Ogata, C Mitch Canham, RF Braden Wells, 1B Jordan Lennerton, 3B Lonnie Lechelt.

Right-hander Mike Stutes (10-4, 3.93 ERA) will take the mound.

UC Irvine 5, Cal State Fullerton 4, 13 innings.

At five hours and 40 minutes, it was the longest game in College World Series history. It ended at 6:48 p.m. Omaha time, about 45 minutes after Arizona State and Oregon State were originally slated to throw their first pitch.

With the required minimum of 50 minutes between games, the ASU-OSU contest is expected to begin at approximately 5:37 p.m. (Arizona time).

Brian Flores, who one-hit Oregon State in May, will be the Sun Devils’ starting pitcher, an ASU spokesman indicated.

The winner advances to Wednesday, where it will have a chance to clinch a spot in the best-of-three championship series. The loser plays an elimination game on Tuesday against a UC Irvine squad that needed just three pitchers to get through the marathon against Fullerton.

ASU defeated UC Irvine 5-4 in an opening-round game on Saturday.