Friday, March 05, 2010

HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS AND OTHER EARLY SEASON 49ER FACTS AND FIGURES

Baseball fans, more than most other folks, are obsessed with stats. The seasons are long, the players are many and the trigonometry of trends, tendencies and talent will intersect in whatever way you want. This weekend the numbers are all about the student athletes from Washington (4-4) and Long Beach (3-4) who still have high hopes for restoring past glory.

The visiting Huskies, under new field boss Lindsay Meggs, are in the midst of a stretch of eight straight road games after a two-game split at Oregon Tuesday and Wednesday. The Ducks won the first game 6-2, and the Dawgs countered with a 5-3 victory on Wednesday. Last season Washington, who wearied of the leadership of Ken Knutson, head coach from 1993 through 2009, pulled the skipper switch. . Knudson concluded his UW career with the most coaching wins in UW baseball history, and 15th-most in Pac-10 history, a career overall record of 584-399-2. In came Meggs, just 46 years of age, who has been busy building the Indiana State baseball team, a conference partner of next weekend’s visitors, Wichita State. In 2009, Meggs beat out Gene Stephenson as the Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Yea. His pitching selections are Forrest Snow, a junior righty who does a bit of everything, a scoreless inning in relief Tue. at Oregon ... worked a scoreless 9th inning for the win Feb. 26 vs. Fresno State ... also threw 0.2 scoreless IP Feb. 27 vs. Bulldogs and started Feb. 21 vs. Missouri (4.1 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, with Saturday’s selection sophomore lefty Brandon Rohde who worked 0.1 IP in relief (no runs) Wed. at Oregon, picking up first college win ... first college start Feb. 27 vs. Fresno State (no decision: 3.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 1 K). the Sunday punch will be Andrew Kittredge, a soph righty who their media guy says “Suffered the loss despite good outing Feb. 28 vs. Fresno State (8.0 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K) ... started and picked up the win opening day vs. New Mexico State (6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K)

The Niner trio is the usual Friday to Sunday lineup of Thompson, Gagnon and Pinder but two other guys have caught the coaches eyes. They are freshman Nate Underwood who struck out five in four innings during his first collegiate start against the wood bat swinging Japanese travelers and Eddie Magallon who strung together some good innings as the “Tuesday” starter. Steve Tinoco has been the offensive inspiration (13-for-18, improving his season average to .500 and leading the team in hits and RBI) but Miami transfer Joey Terdoslavich has doubled and homered in his last two games.

SCATTERED DUST--The Huskies began the year in Tucson playing three games in a tournament, picking up wins over New Mexico State and Gonzaga. The Huskies followed with a Friday night victory over the Bulldogs at home against Fresno State, but have since lost three of their last four games. Caleb Brown leads the regulars with a .452 average in the early part of the year, having started all eight games and leading the team with 14 hits. Pierce Rankin leads the Huskies in RBI with 10 and has one of the team's three home runs this season. Recap of the USC game was all about the “five big flies.”… and when you note that the Trojans had runners on, and the Dirtbags didn't you understood why Coach Weathers said that "Blair Field looked pretty small tonight,”...Long Beach State returned to Blair Field Wednesday but the mental and physical mistakes from Tuesday were unpacked along with the wood bats. It was close for a while then the Bags got the yips and the white suited Japanese kids, their Rising Sun flag fluttering in the evening breeze…The Big West, 34–31 vs. OOC, has been less than spectacular thus far and the line up this weekend won’t exactly impress the pollsters: In mostly afternoon games it will be Cal Poly vs. Utah Valley; Fullerton at Arizona; Connecticut at Northridge; Seattle at Pacific; St.Mary's at UC Irvine; UC Davis at Sacramento State; Santa Barbara at Stanford and Riverside vs. Florida International…last stat, 2609 Oregon fans, without butane, still made a nice racket in their new yard last weekend and seem to be the Cinderella of the Northwest this season.—DR. DAN

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