18-6, 5-1

[oregontrack]

a nice weekend. i know arizona has fallen to 0-6 in the pac-12, but if you consider all six of those losses are to #1 oregon state or a fringe top ten team like us, and the record becomes kinda/sorta excusable. they were 15-5 just two weeks ago, now they're 15-11. i fully expect arizona to find their way back to the tournament this year.

the pitching was outstanding. reed and thorpe were in complete control, irvin was fine / sherfy kind of threw up all over himself in the 9th, turning a big lead into a nail biter. friday's game was straight out of a george horton wet dream, a dominant ace + electric defense + small ball'ing our way to a pair of runs. the bats started to come out saturday and sunday. i like the tweaks to the line-up. i think moving payne to the 9 hole and moving alto up to the 2 is worth considering, HOWEVER, if thomas keeps hitting like he is, i don't mind payne batting behind him because it'll give him plenty of sacrifice opportunities.

our rpi is #17. we have two full months of season to play, so don't take this as tournament watching, but if the goal is to host a regional (or better yet, get a national seed) we're in fairly good position despite not really having any defining series wins. arizona is our best accomplishment so far, but their rpi is somewhere in the 100s. if we can knock off a couple of the conference powerhouses -- osu, ucla, asu, stanford -- and win the ones we're supposed to, we should certainly be in consideration.

fullerton is #3, vandy is #4 in the rpi, for those wondering.

oregon state is #1.

really though, just keep winning. we have portland tuesday, and washington thursday/friday/saturday. all are certainly winnable. we could be 22-6 before a brutal april begins -- @ asu, @ cal, ucla, stanford -- so it's important to take care of business before the wins start getting harder and harder to come by.

[DAT#6]

Thank you for the informative post.

[UOducksTK1]

Getting these next four games will be important. That road schedule DOES look gnarly. Hopefully with a good week, we can sneak into the top 10.

[Coastal Duck]

What is our record vs. UDubya? (I must be looking in the wrong place.) Seems like they give us more trouble than some of the other contenders.

So far they are 6-16 overall and 2-4 conference; 4-4 at home, 2-12 away. The won the USC series (their first series win) last weekend 2-1 finishing with an 8-3 win on Sunday. They were swept @ UCLA the weekend before, although game 1 went 15 innings (they were shut out the final 18 innings).

All 3 games will be night games (6pm, 6pm and 7pm) with the Sunday game on the PAC-12 Network.

[Elduderino]

OSU is nasty.......and it makes me ill.

[RanDux]

20-6, 6-1