Sunday, April 02, 2006

SLUMP BUSTED, SERIES WON, BEACH SEEKS TO BUILD ON THE CARPENTER’S GOOD WORK

If you are still searching for the words to describe the past two baseball games for Long Beach State you might try, efficient, effective and opportunistic. Building on Friday’s “112 really hard pitches," by Jared Hughes, Mr. Weathers said that Saturday’s 126 throws by Andrew Carpenter were, “what we have got to have from those guys.”

Slump busted and series in hand, today will like be a committee of mostly freshmen and sophomores but Weathers said he wanted to sleep on it and told his team as they left the yard he would let them know the plan Sunday when the come to work.
Back to the adjectives above, the 6-2 win was equal parts of Carpenter, Evan Longoria’s 3 for 5, including a two-run home run and production from designated hitter Sean Boatright and shortstop Danny Espinosa (each went 2 for 5 with an RBI.) Other than a mistake pitch that UCI designated hitter Jaime Martinez hit almost to the flag on #14 at Rec Park, Carpenter stifled the Anteaters on four hits in a another complete-game gem, his third of the year. The result upped the LB record to almost even at 14-15 overall (2-0 Big West) while dropping UCI to 18-12 overall and 0-2. As for as the opportunistic stuff, the D Bags scored one in the first, thanks to an error on a pickoff attempt and Boat’s hustle infield single. The Niners scored twice more seizing another opportunity in the second using another UCI boot and a Robert Perry RBI. Carpenter earned at least cautious praise from Weathers. “Andrew was good, but I don't think he was as good early as he has been. He gained some momentum in the fifth and sixth and I thought he really ended up well. Irvine is a pesky team that really takes good at-bats. They are tough outs and he was good." If AC was just “good” maybe we will let you fill in the blanks on the work of Longoria who continued solid defense, has now homered in three straight games and is 4 for 8 in the series, four RBI and four runs. That’s a line that will make any opponent black and blue even without the promotion.

SPRING FORWARD DUST-- Some folks are still calling the BWC race a “24 game sprint” but since Davis doesn’t count for two more years isn’t it really a 21 game sprint…Bonus Hughes-ing…much has been made of Jared’s plunking of opponents but through Friday (nine games each) our guy had hit ten and CSUF’s Wes Roemer had plunked 15…last JH bit, perhaps his best game was the 2-1 loss at Nutwood Tech, scouts said he good enough stuff to get through the bottom third of many major league teams…and while we are counting stuff CSUF and LB are tied at the top of the BWC table after Saturday’s play…UC Davis 7, Riverside 5 (10) ; Fullerton 6, Northridge 1; and UOP and SLO split a DH, UOP 11 and 3, SLO 9 and 6…another scoring note, it looks like the Bags may be asked for sympathy from of all people the chippy WSU Shockers who lost their sixth game in seven outings yesterday to Creighton…."It's like everything in the world that can go wrong, goes wrong," Clean Gene Stephenson said…been there done that…Pacific opens the league’s newest park later this month but UCI will break ground for a two story baseball clubhouse on April 18 at 5:00 p.m. prior to the UCI-USC game…the facility, which will be built behind and over the third-base dugout, is designed to cover 6,500 square feet and will include coaches' offices, a team meeting room, team and coaches' locker rooms, an equipment room, training room and an umpires' room….no word yet if this umpiring crew will be invited in…where are they--the Tulsa Drillers opening day shortstop is Troy Tulowitski, Colorado's first pick in the June draft last year…out with injuries he hit .only 266 with 4 homers for Class A Modesto but that was in a mere 22 games…UC Davis has a ways to go in baseball so they drafted UCD men’s basketball forward Phil Rasmussen as a relief pitcher and he’s pretty tall (6-7) and pretty good

Name dropping to fill…those four LB players who nest behind home plate with camera, clipboard and radar guns are 49er pitchers of the future, lefties Hunter Hewitt and Russ Lowell and their personal protectors Bobby McMurray and Chris Haendel…they never break a sweat but have broken a couple of pencils…catching up on shout outs…to Hayley’s friend Rio and to the Struble family section…that should be good for some Easter treats or at least a bag of seeds—DR. DAN

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