Oregon @ San Diego (Ducks win series 3-0)

[UOducksTK1]

Game 1: W 6-3 (W Anderson 3-0)
Game 2: W 10-7 (W Housey 2-0)
Game 3: W 6-4 (10) (W Moen 1-1)
Game 4: Rained out

[ducksvb6]

UOducksTK1,

Thanks,
We are trying to have all Ducks in San Diego attend the Saturday March 19th game.

[EncinitasDuck]

UOducksTK1,

Thanks,
We are trying to have all Ducks in San Diego attend the Saturday March 19th game.

Where is the game?

[duckscribe]

Ducks play the Torreos at the University of San Diego campus.

[ducksvb6]

http://www.sandiego.edu/maps/

Enter the east USD campus entrance off of Linda Vista Drive. Parking is free at the Cunningham Parking Structure. It is about two blocks from the field. Check the attached map.

UO is notifying local members of the Alumni Association. I've sent about 20 e-mail invitations + phone calls to local Ducks. We are shooting for a strong turnout.

Weather is excellent.

[oregontrack]

Damn finals week, this is a long layoff. Even though we've been terrible in them, I miss the midweek games...

Well, that was a damn huge sweep last week. We're over .500 now, and we have 18 OOC games left. We really need to stop messing up, and we need to keep winning; with the Pac-10 as loaded as it is, it's just unrealistic to expect the Ducks to ride the .500 train all year and "turn it on" in conference play. Last year's Pac-10 standings:

ASU 20-7
UCLA 18-9
Wazzu 15-12
'Furd 14-13
UO 13-14
Cal 13-14
Zona 12-15
OSU 12-15
UW 11-16
USC 7-20

Almost everybody was hovering around .500, save the very top and very bottom of the conference. We're a good team, but so is everybody else in this league. It's going to be the same way this year.

If we can win both remaining series before ASU (let's say we win both 3-1), and beat San Fran, that's 15-9. That's not great, but it's better than being 12-12, with a trip to play a series against a top 10 program. The key to the season from there will be to NOT get swept at any point; naturally, win all the series you can; and win those remaining OOC games. We've got two left with Portland, one with OSU, neither of whom we've proven we can beat with any sort of consistency. Gonzaga, Seattle, etc., we gotta win those. We're not going to win 40 games again this year, but we can get into the Tournament with a 35-27 record (or whatever) with our SOS and projected RPI.

[Coastal Duck]

ot - I'm with ya on winning the ooc games - as we have discussed before. Maybe you could put in perspective the road we have to travel to get to a regional (I think it would take one helluva miracle - and an offensive outburst - for us to hope to host).

Maybe explain how the RPI and the SOS work together, where do we stand currently, where are some of the other PAC-10 teams standing now? When is UDubya gonna give up the sport? Stuff like that.

I, for one, appreciate your knowledge of the game - any insight from your view is always welcomed.

[oregontrack]

Right now our RPI (135) and SOS (151) suck, but they'll skyrocket once we get into Pac-10 play and get 3 games apiece with ASU, UCLA, Wazzu, Stanford, Cal, Zona, and OSU, all of whom should be in the top 25-30 by the time the season is over. Going off of memory, our RPI was somewhere near the 100 mark going into Pac-10 play last year, and we ended up #27 (I think?) at the end of the regular season even though we were under .500 in conference (13-14). RPIs right now are kind of hard to go by, UCLA, for instance, is a legitimate national title contender but they're only #92, behind a terrible Seton Hall team who is well under .500 (among others).

We're 8-7 right now, with 18 OOC games and 27 Pac-10 games left. Using last year as a barometer, if we go 13-14 in conference I think we'd need to go 13-5 in our remaining OOC games. That'd put us at 34-26, with an RPI probably in the high 30s/low 40s. Cal was a #2 or #3 seed in the Norman regional last year at 29-23 and a #41 RPI. That's probably what we're shooting for.

[oregontrack]

STARTERS:

Tyler Anderson (2-0, 1.23) vs. LHP James Pazos (1-1, 3.00)
Madison Boer (2-0, 0.58) vs. TBA
Christian Jones (2-1, 4.21) vs. TBA
TBA vs. RHP Dylan Convey (1-1, 5.21)

^ from GoDucks.com, that's probably as official as we're going to get. "TBA" for us in the fourth game will almost assuredly be Kuedell, but it IS kind of interesting that's still up in the air. I know we have a game Wednesday against San Fran, but I would imagine Kuedell would handle Monday's game and we'd go with Housey/McGough/insert-reliever-here to work the Wednesday game. We did that a number of times last year.

I don't know what's going on with San Diego's starters. Their innings-leaders so far this year are Calvin Drummond (1-3, 3.90), Convey, and Paul Paez (1-1, 4.42) but I don't know if they're "TBA" because there's an injury, or San Diego simply hasn't decided who will start which game, or what. It looks like their game one starter, Pazos, has only started one game, but has made six relief appearances.

San Diego is not hitting very good as a team (.224), and they have almost no power (5 HRs -- 4 by one player, Kris Bryant). We can relate, though; we're only hitting .218 as a group, and 3 HRs. Good thing we only allow the opposite a .218 BA; San Diego allows opponents a .293. I guess that's why we're over .500 despite pedestrian offensive numbers, and San Diego is 4-11.

Looking around the San Diego athletic website as I'm taking in the Madness:

San Diego had the #2 recruiting class in the NATION this past year, and also had a top 5 recruiting class in the '08 season. Who wouldn't want to play baseball in San Diego?

San Diego was a unanimous #1 pick to win the WCC again, which they did last year en route to an NCAA Tournament pick, despite losing 10 players to the MLB Draft.

Last year, San Diego was ranked #17 and riding an 8 game win streak when they came to PK and lost 13-4 to the #22 Ducks.

[thomas time]

Need another strong weekend, hopefully another sweep. At least the blown games were early in the long season, and hopefully are a thing of the past going foward, espically in conference games.

[UOducksTK1]

STARTERS:

Tyler Anderson (2-0, 1.23) vs. LHP James Pazos (1-1, 3.00)
Madison Boer (2-0, 0.58) vs. TBA
Christian Jones (2-1, 4.21) vs. TBA
TBA vs. RHP Dylan Convey (1-1, 5.21)

^ from GoDucks.com, that's probably as official as we're going to get. "TBA" for us in the fourth game will almost assuredly be Kuedell, but it IS kind of interesting that's still up in the air. I know we have a game Wednesday against San Fran, but I would imagine Kuedell would handle Monday's game and we'd go with Housey/McGough/insert-reliever-here to work the Wednesday game. We did that a number of times last year.

I don't know what's going on with San Diego's starters. Their innings-leaders so far this year are Calvin Drummond (1-3, 3.90), Convey, and Paul Paez (1-1, 4.42) but I don't know if they're "TBA" because there's an injury, or San Diego simply hasn't decided who will start which game, or what. It looks like their game one starter, Pazos, has only started one game, but has made six relief appearances.

San Diego is not hitting very good as a team (.224), and they have almost no power (5 HRs -- 4 by one player, Kris Bryant). We can relate, though; we're only hitting .218 as a group, and 3 HRs. Good thing we only allow the opposite a .218 BA; San Diego allows opponents a .293. I guess that's why we're over .500 despite pedestrian offensive numbers, and San Diego is 4-11.

Looking around the San Diego athletic website as I'm taking in the Madness:

San Diego had the #2 recruiting class in the NATION this past year, and also had a top 5 recruiting class in the '08 season. Who wouldn't want to play baseball in San Diego?

San Diego was a unanimous #1 pick to win the WCC again, which they did last year en route to an NCAA Tournament pick, despite losing 10 players to the MLB Draft.

Last year, San Diego was ranked #17 and riding an 8 game win streak when they came to PK and lost 13-4 to the #22 Ducks.

I'm really confident with our 3 first starting pitchers. And that's incredible, I didn't know San Diego had such strong recruiting classes. Let's just hope San Diego doesn't decide to get hot against us.

[oregontrack]

Change of plans, rain expected tomorrow in San Diego so the double header has been moved to today.

I really hope San Diego doesn't get hot against us, too. They've lost 8 of 9 but have played some really, really good teams in that span (#3 Oklahoma, #19 UConn, Coastal Carolina, #15 Cal) and played #2 Vandy really well in all three games of an earlier series. Their record is deceptive, IMO.

[oregontrack]

3-0 Ducks, top 5

Pulfer with a lead-off triple in the 3rd and we failed to get him home (sigh), but Healy and Petersen led off the 4th with singles and Kyle Garlick hit his first HR as a Duck for the 3-0 lead. Anderson is Anderson, 4 innings in the bag and only 1 hit allowed.

[oregontrack]

5-0 Ducks, top 7.

Anderson's still sitting on 1 hit.

[oregontrack]

Well, buckle your seatbelts: Anderson leaves with a 6-0 lead after 8, and someone named Jimmy Sherfy came to the mound for the 9th. Two quick hits later, he gives way to Porter Clayton. Now San Diego has scored 2, they've got 2 on, and there's only one out.