Friday, March 11, 2005

PLEASE RESET YOUR BASEBALL CLOCKS AS THE DIRTBAG OFFENSE HAS BEEN DELAYED

If you don’t mind we will pick up this afternoon’s game as of 9:18 pm. Friday because that’s what Coach Mike Weather’s would like to do. You see it took that long before the Dirtbags “came alive and we’d like that ninth inning to carry over to Saturday.” It was in the that inning that Houston starter Matt Farrington (3-0) finally blinked giving up a leadoff single to Chuck Singlinger, Farrington exits and reliever Justin Vaclavik enters and he gives up a hit to Brandon Godfrey. The Coogs then stiffened and only a fielder's choice would cut the Houston lead to 2-1. Tom Wolf grounded out to end the baseball contest but auditions for a permanent spot in the starting lineup are still open. “I thought that Chuck and Brandon (three of the five LB hits) helped us but nobody else seems to want to claim a job out there” Weathers sighed. “We were slow making some decisions and got ourselves out of position and against a guy who can keep you off balance offensively that won’t work.”

So what about the return around first of April of sluggers Troy Tulowitzki and Danny Mocny? Weathers’ wasn’t biting, “When they do come back it’s only two guys, we still need seven others producing.” Ironically one veteran press boxer almost called the result in the first inning, “when you tell them that Ramos only game up a couple of hits what somebody is going to say is, ‘yeah, but did the Dirtbags win?’ Ouch, but the pitching truth is true. Niner ace Cesar Ramos allowed just two runs and six hits over 7.2 innings and four of them were infield bleeders. After he left Brian Anderson ran his scoreless innings streak to 20.2 consecutive over two years and is closing in on his career-best 23.0 scoreless innings mark set in 2002 and 2003. The rest of the mound plan has Marco Estrada (3-0, 2.16) trying to maintain perfection this afternoon against Kevin Roberts (1-0, 3.32), while tomorrow Jared Hughes (1-1, 2.61) will oppose Houston’s Brad Lincoln (1-2, 6.55).

BIG DANCE DUST--In honor of my uncle Lance Ito I did count to ten before assembling these hoop opinions. Men’s department. LBSU had more talent on the court than UCSB since the three most talented Gauchos (Cook, Brown, and Goettsche) were in street clothes along with their freshman flash. (Devine)…Coach Williams tricked the Beach brass by jumping out of their zone for a hustling man-to-man…ladies ready to wear will not include NCAA jewelry but there is a strong chance that a Beach bid to host a WNIT game next week in the Pyramid will be granted late Sunday night…hopefully taking better care of the basketball will also be in their future…more hoop handicapping I am worried about the nation’s longest winning streak, that 22 game run by Pacific, because of their case of nervous in the tourney turnovers. The Tigers hit 73.1 percent (19-of-26) of their free throws, and enjoyed a 38-24 advantage on the boards, but committed a season-high 23 turnovers in beating CSUN…Utah State is very unforgiving when you get careless…And our angry but faithful USC reader Jeff Clement objected to being on our not-hot list Friday night and went 2-for-3 with two home runs and four RBI as the Trojans defeated the No. 23/21 Texas Tech Red Raiders, 6-1…so no more snide comments on the following Big West brothers…Fullerton 15, Tulane 1; Oregon State 4, Northridge 1; UC Irvine 9, Wichita State 4; Riverside 5, Sacramento State 2; Santa Barbara 14. LMU 7; and Portland 10, Pacific 9…on Niner scoreboard 49er tennis team won four singles matches, including three which went three sets, en route to a 4-3 win over Loyola Marymount, in men’s v-ball Long Beach rallied from an 0-2 deficit to defeat UC San Diego, 3-2, and the No. 25-ranked Long Beach State softball team defeated Indiana, 5-0 in the first day of the LBSU Invitational…that ought to make you feel better, now back to your baseball game already in progress.--DR DAN

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