NC State And The College World Series: The Sequel?

NC State took 45 years after its first trip to the College World Series to make a return trip to Omaha a year ago. The plan in West Raleigh is to reduce the gap between trips two and three to just 12 months.

That’s certainly an attainable goal. The Wolfpack returns a talented and experienced nucleus from last year’s CWS team, led by All-Americans Carlos Rodon and Trea Turner. Rodon (10-3, 2.99 ERA, a nation-high and school-record 184 strikeouts in 132 ⅓ innings) and Turner (.368/.455/.553 with 13 doubles, seven home runs and 30 steals while playing most of the season on a broken ankle) are elite talents at critical positions — starting pitcher and shortstop, respectively. Both figure to be taken high in the first round of the 2014 MLB draft, with Rodon the likely first overall pick.

Beyond those two, center fielder Jake Fincher (.313/.399/.553 with 14 steals), catcher Brett Austin (.251/.333/.361) and second baseman Logan Ratledge (.250/.309/.307) return to provide veteran leadership and production up the middle. Fincher, Austin and Ratledge, like Rodon and Turner, are juniors and should figure prominently in scouts’ plans for the 2014 draft.

That nucleus alone is reason for optimism as 2014 approaches, but the Wolfpack has its question marks as well. In particular, how well can head coach Elliott Avent navigate the 2014 schedule without the incredible bullpen that pulled State’s fat out of the fire time after time a year ago?

How good was NC State’s bullpen in 2013? Consider: During one 18-game stretch, from March 1-27, Wolfpack starting pitchers failed to pitch the required five innings to qualify for a win 14 times. They failed to get out of the fourth inning 11 times, and failed to get out of the second inning nine times. The average outing by a starter in that stretch was less than three innings. NC State went 10-8 in those games. In games in that stretch not started by Rodon, the Pack was 8-6. That’s how good the Wolfpack bullpen was.

NC State’s bullpen was deep, versatile and talented. For the season, Wolfpack relievers were 31-5 with a 2.57 ERA and 19 saves. In 315 innings — approximately 4 ⅔ innings per game — they limited opposing hitters to a .210 batting average. Lefthander Grant Sasser (3-0, 1.03, 8 saves) and righthander Chris Overman (1-1, 0.33, 6 saves) anchored the back end of the pen and were money in the bank all year. Opponents batted .193 against Sasser, .110 against Overman. Setting up those two, Josh Easley was 7-2 with a 1.31 ERA and a save. He held opponents to a .228 average.

It wasn’t just those three. Andrew Woeck (6-1, 3.09) and Ryan Wilkins (4-1, 3.82) came up huge in long relief roles. Travis Orwig (3-0, 1.56) and D.J. Thomas (2-0, 2.89) were reliable lefty specialists. Ethan Ogburn was 2-0 and didn’t allow a run in 11 relief innings covering three outings, including the Super Regional-clinching victory over Rice. Whenever NC State’s starters got in trouble, which was almost every time Rodon didn’t pitch, or so it seemed, Avent was able to go to the bullpen and shut the other team down cold.

Not this year. Overman, Sasser, Easley, Ogburn and Wilkins all were seniors. Orwig had Tommy John surgery after the season and will not pitch in 2014. Woeck and Thomas are all that remain from that group, and both could wind up as midweek starters, a situation still to be determined.

The candidates to fill the many empty spots in this year’s bullpen are largely untested. True freshmen Ryan Williamson, Joe O’Donnell, Cody Beckman and Cory Wilder all came highly touted, but are untested freshmen. Ditto for redshirt-freshman Johnny Piedmonte. Sophomores Brian Donovan, Will Gilbert, Karl Keglovits and Jon Olczak combined to pitch 30 ⅔ innings in 2013.

Replacing seniors with freshmen and seldom-used sophomores is a tried and true way to keep coaches awake at night, but that’s the life Avent will have to lead this season. The less he exposes his bullpen with the game on the line, the better NC State’s chances of success. And the best way to protect his bullpen is for the starting pitchers to pitch deeper into games and for the everyday lineup to score more runs.

We’ll exempt Rodon from this discussion. He was not the problem. A two-time first-team All-American and the early favorite to win the 2014 Golden Spikes Award, Rodon is already the best pitcher in the country, and could be pitching in the big leagues before the season is over. It’s the rest of the rotation that Avent will have to worry about.

Logan Jernigan, a strong-armed but erratic junior righthander, was 1-1 with a most-deceptive 1.56 ERA last season. A potential high-round draft pick this coming June, he began 2013 in the weekend rotation and promptly pitched his way out of it. Despite a great arm and raw stuff comparable to Rodon’s, Jernigan’s failure to throw strikes dogged him early in the season. After failing to pitch out of the first inning of a start March 19 vs. UNC Greensboro, he challenged a cement wall in the clubhouse to a fistfight. The wall won, Jernigan broke his pitching hand, and Avent was short a starting pitcher for about five weeks.

Jernigan returned a humbled and noticeably wiser pitcher. Instead of trying to throw the ball through the catcher, umpire and backstop, he concentrated on making quality pitches. When he got in trouble, he threw softer instead of harder. Avent limited Jernigan’s innings as he made his way back from the injury, allowing him to ease into a more prominent role as the season went along. He responded with a 2.70 ERA in 13 ⅓ postseason innings, including an excellent start against eventual national champion UCLA in the College World Series. He limited hitters to a .196 batting average during the postseason.

Jernigan pitched this past summer at Harwich of the Cape Cod League and continued to harness his control and add polish to his game. It’s still something of a work in progress, but his command was better this fall than at anytime during his college career. If he continues that in the spring, the combination of Rodon and Jernigan will give NC State a 1-2 starting punch as good as, if not better than, any in the nation.

Freshman lefthander Brad Stone (3-2, 5.49) moved into the starting rotation March 10 in the finale of the Clemson series and steadily improved as the season progressed. He fashioned a 2.77 ERA in 13 postseason innings over three appearances, two of them starts. His stuff doesn’t overwhelm hitters the way Rodon or Jernigan’s do, but he keeps hitters off balance with a good assortment of pitches. He struck out 60 in 60 ⅔ innings and limited hitters to a .234 average. He was second on the staff in starts (13), innings pitched and strikeouts.

With a week remaining in fall practice, Rodon, Jernigan and Stone looked like an outstanding weekend rotation. The midweek spots were another story, with all the aforementioned bullpen candidates also hoping for a chance to start. That narrative most likely will have to wait until preseason practices open in February.

Scoring more runs shouldn’t be a problem either. In fact, it’s hard to imagine NC State scoring fewer runs than it did in 2013. The Wolfpack batted an anemic .277 as a team last spring, scored just 5.3 runs per game, and slugged just 29 home runs, fewest by a Wolfpack team in more than 30 years. This year’s team doesn’t figure to be power-laden either, but the returning nucleus of juniors, augmented by several newcomers and improved veterans, should have no trouble putting more runs on the board.

The best news is that Turner looks fully recovered from the broken ankle, which bothered him all spring and summer, and into the fall. He still had an All-America season but prior to the injury, suffered on the last play of the first conference game of the season, March 8 vs. Clemson, Turner was playing at a level that would have had him in the running for the Golden Spikes Award. For those old enough to remember, think Nomar Garciaparra at Georgia Tech in 1994, only with plus speed. The injury robbed Turner of much of that elite speed — he stole 56 bases as a freshman to lead the nation — and his defensive mobility, especially on plays to his right. He wasn’t the same player after the injury. With a week left of fall practice, he looked fully recovered, and that’s extremely bad news for the rest of the ACC.

Outfielder Bubby Riley, a transfer from Delgado Community College in New Orleans, has hit the ball with authority all fall. He’ll play left or right field. Chance Shepard, a sophomore catcher and outfielder, was the most improved player on the squad through late October, hitting for average and power. Sophomore outfielders Brian Taylor and Will Nance also showed flashes of power at the plate. With a strong veteran nucleus around them, true freshmen Preston Palmeiro and Andrew Knizner — the front-runners at first and third base, respectively — can develop at their own pace without any pressure to carry the team. Both look perfectly at home on a baseball field and should hit more than well enough to stay in the lineup.

The bullpen is an enormous concern, and it should be. There is, however, abundant reason for optimism at Doak Field. If Jernigan, Stone and the everyday lineup are as improved as they appear to be, NC State will feature strong starting pitching, speed up and down the lineup, adequate power in the middle of the order, and strong defense up the middle of the diamond. In other words, this team could be every bit as strong as the one that finished fifth in the nation and broke NC State’s 45-year College World Series drought.

End Of An Era In Detroit: Don’t Blame Jim Leyland

Detroit’s ugly exit from the 2013 American League Championship Series no doubt caused some of the faithful to second-guess manager Jim Leyland, especially some of the late-inning moves he made with his bullpen. But let’s be fair. Leyland, who retired as manager today after a terrific career that included eight exceptional seasons with the Tigers, didn’t exactly have many good options in that bullpen. In fact, he really didn’t have any. Detroit’s bullpen stunk.

The autopsy of the 2013 Detroit Tigers should conclude with two questions:

1.) How do you spend $150 million in payroll on a Major League Baseball team and decide somehow that you don’t need to spend any of that on a bullpen?

2.) Who makes such a decision and thinks it’s a good idea?

Not the manager, that’s for sure. The answer to both questions is general manager Dave Dombrowski, an accomplished and highly respected baseball executive whose feet nonetheless should be held to the fire for the makeup of Detroit’s relief corps. Tigers closer Joaquin Benoit won’t be mistaken for Mariano Rivera anytime soon, yet he was easily their best reliever. The dropoff after Benoit was immense. If the Tigers had just two competent relievers to pitch the seventh and eighth innings and bridge the gap between their other-worldly starters and the often-shaky Benoit in the ninth, then St. Louis would be heading to Detroit and not Boston for Game 1 of the World Series.

The bullpen wasn’t the only glitch in the construction of the Detroit roster. The Tigers’ everyday lineup had to be the oldest and least athletic in all of baseball. Aside from shortstop Jose Iglesias, acquired from Boston at the trade deadline July 31, and center fielder Austin Jackson, the Tigers are slow and plodding. And aging.

Third baseman Miguel Cabrera, the best hitter in the game, is an unathletic 30 years old. He limped down the homestretch with some sort of leg or hip injury that serious compromised his production, and went 11-for-42 in the Tigers’ two postseason series, homering twice and driving in seven runs.

Right fielder Torri Hunter, 38 years old, was 9-for-45 with two RBIs in two postseason series. Second baseman Omar Infante was 8-for-39 and looked every one of his 31 years. Slugging first baseman Prince Fielder — 29 years old but going on 39, at least 50 pounds overweight and as nimble as a three-legged elephant — went 9-for-40 in two postseason series without an RBI or a home run.

In fairness, it should be noted that Detroit got production from two of its aging hitters. Designated hitter Victor Martinez, now 34, was 17-for-42 in the postseason with four doubles and a home run. Shortstop turned outfielder Jhonny Peralta, 31, served a 50-game sentence for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, but returned for the playoffs and was 11-for-33 with four doubles and a homer. And that was it. The rest of the Detroit offense was thoroughly punchless.

Given the makeup of an awful bullpen and a broken-down lineup, Leyland did a terrific job managing this team as far as he did. Sure, he had the best starting pitching in the American League, and starting pitching wins in October. But he also had a bad bullpen and a station-to-station offense that didn’t hit. Bad bullpens lose in October. So do slow lineups that fail to keep the line moving. The Tigers were fatally flawed and none of that was Leyland’s fault.

In eight years in Detroit, Leyland managed the Tigers to a pair of World Series. He might have won both if his team hadn’t clinched the ALCS so quickly. While the Cardinals in 2006 and the Giants a year ago played out a full slate in the NLCS and went into the World Series with momentum, the Tigers spent nearly a week each time sitting, watching and growing stale from inactivity. No amount batting practice, simulated games or scrimmages against your instructional league team can make up for not playing real games. The Tigers paid for it both times. Maybe they’d have lost anyway, but after buzzing through the ALCS without breaking a sweat either year, Detroit came out flat, played horribly in both World Series and got blown out.

Jim Leyland’s legacy in Detroit should have nothing to do with losing the 2006 or 2012 World Series, or the 2013 ALCS. Leyland should be remembered as the guy who took over an awful team and immediately made it a winner. In the three years before he took over as skipper in 2006, the Tigers lost an average of 100 games a year, including a horrific 43-119 season in 2003. They went 95-67 his first year. The Tigers had one losing season under Leyland, won three division championships and came within a game of first place twice. They averaged 88 wins a year and won a pair of American League pennants.

His eight years compare favorably with the best managerial performances in franchise history. That, and not this year’s ALCS flameout, should be Jim Leyland’s legacy in Detroit.

Reviews: McCartney’s New; The Band Live At The Academy Of Music

You can make a pretty convincing argument that no artist of his generation has made as much inconsequential music as Paul McCartney has in his post-Beatles career. It’s almost inconceivable, in fact, that a musician of his talent and stature could mix near-classics such as Ram and Band On The Run with birdcage liner like Wings Wild Life, Wings At The Speed Of Sound, Back To The Egg, Pipes Of Peace, and Give My Regards To Broad Street.

You can make an equally convincing argument that since 1997, McCartney has recorded some of the most impressive and creative music of his solo career, long after a great many Beatles fans stopped paying attention. Beginning with Flaming Pie in ’97, McCartney has been on a creative roll that includes such four- and five-star highlights as 2005’s Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, 2007’s Memory Almost Full, and 2008’s Electric Arguments, by his alter ego band, The Fireman. Ever creative and experimental, McCartney also has strayed from the beaten path with pleasing results, especially on Electric Arguments, the oldies rocker Run Devil Run in 1998, and the American Songbook collection Kisses On The Bottom a year ago. His latest album, New, released earlier this week, could rank as the best record of this late-life McCartney renaissance.

For New, his first album of new rock material in six years, McCartney employed four young, contemporary producers — Paul Epworth (Adele), Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse), Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin), and Ethan Johns (son of Glyn Johns, who produced Let It Be before it was given to Phil Spector to butcher) — and the result is a contemporary album that sounds more vintage than new.

New crackles with energy. The love songs are anything but silly, the rockers have bite and kick, and the lyrics have unusual heft and depth. Of particular note, several songs on New harken back to McCartney’s days with the Beatles. Two jump out right away on first listen. The hook-laden toe-tapper of a title track bounces along like a modern-day “Penny Lane” with some tasty Beach Boys doo-wop thrown into the coda for good measure. “Early Days,” on the other hand, is a wistful look back at McCartney’s early musical partnership with John Lennon. McCartney is 71 now and at times his voice sounds frail, especially on this track’s many falsetto passages, but he wears it well. “Early Days” is a memorable track.

“Early Days” also is a bit of an admonishment to all those revisionist historians who’ve tried to denigrate McCartney’s true role in the Beatles. That revisionist history took on a life of its own after Lennon was murdered in December 1980. McCartney had to deal with it for decades afterwards as Lennon was needlessly exalted as a musical saint while McCartney was derided as unworthy, a usurper of Lennon’s great gifts. It had all the unbelievable elements of an Ayn Rand novel, but thousands of intellectual lightweights swear by Rand, and millions of serious music fans bought into the "Lennon was the Beatles" theory.

To prove McCartney’s unworthiness, the Lennonistas skewered his solo career for not measuring up to his legendary work with the Beatles. Well, of course it doesn’t measure up. What did you expect? The same can be said of Lennon’s solo output. In fact, the only Beatle who ever made an album that surpassed his work with the Fabs was George Harrison, whose first post-Beatles release, All Things Must Pass, will stand forever as the greatest Beatles solo album. George’s solo career was every bit as uneven as McCartney’s or Lennon’s, and he never approached the quality of All Things Must Pass again. Neither Lennon nor McCartney ever reached that height as a solo performer in the first place.

New is not the Beatles and not as good as the Beatles, nor was it intended to be. It will, however, remind you in places of the Beatles, and McCartney is the one person left on the planet with the musical credibility to pull that off. Even when New veers away from the Beatles references, it’s still a challenging and compelling listen. Even at 71, McCartney is still producing excellent music. Based on his track record of the last two decades, New should not be overlooked.

By the way, if you’re a Beatles fan and you’ve never seen McCartney in concert, do yourself a huge favor and go. He tours constantly so opportunity shouldn’t be an issue. His voice isn’t quite what it was 10 years ago, but he can still hit the note and can still carry a song. His touring band is fantastic, easily the second-best band he’s ever played with. His shows routinely last nearly three hours, without an intermission. Best of all, the set list is about two-thirds Beatles classics. It’s a high-energy, life-changing experience.

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The Band was probably North America’s greatest rock group. Their first two albums, Music From Big Pink and The Band, rank among rock’s most iconic recordings. Blessed with three incredible lead singers and tempered by about a decade of constant touring, first as Ronnie Hawkins’ touring band and later as Levon and the Hawks, the Band was without equal on stage.

In 1972, they released their live masterpiece, Rock Of Ages, recorded the week of Dec. 28-31, 1971, at New York City’s Academy of Music. Exquisitely performed and recorded, and featuring a horn section comprised of some of New York's finest jazz musicians, Rock Of Ages ranks among rock’s all-time great live records, right up there with At The Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers Band, Get Yer Ya-Yas Out by the Rolling Stones, Live Rust by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and Live At Leeds by the Who, to name a few. When the expanded deluxe edition of Rock Of Ages came out in 2001, an impossibly great album became impossibly perfect.

Or so it seemed.

Robbie Robertson, guitarist and self-proclaimed leader of the Band, always loved the performances but never cared for the sound on Rock of Ages, so he, his son Sebastian, and collaborators Bob Clearmountain and Jon Castelli went back and remixed and remastered every track from all four shows. The result is a stunning new five-disc box set, The Band Live At The Academy Of Music 1971.

The set’s first two discs include what the producers believe to be the best performance of each song the Band played during their four-night stand at the Academy. The third and fourth discs are the complete New Year’s Eve show, uncut and uninterrupted. The fifth disc is a DVD of 27 video tracks, two of them previously unreleased. The box set also includes a 48-page hardcover book and retails for a rather pricey $99. Luckily, the first two discs were released as a two-disc package for $20, a tremendous bargain that comes highly recommended.

The sound on The Band Live At The Academy Of Music 1971 is shocking, a significant and wholly unexpected improvement over Rock Of Ages. The performances on the two-disc set are not all the same as those used for Rock Of Ages — many are significantly better — but all are timeless masterworks of one of the great rock units of our time.

By the way, those of you who believe The Last Waltz to be the Band’s great live album, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. The Last Waltz was a great event and made for an interesting movie, but the Band was beset by internal problems by that point. In particular, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson were at loggerheads with Robertson over numerous issues, from songwriting credits and royalties to Robertson’s unilateral decision to stop touring and effectively break up the group. The mood within the band was acrimonious, and the plethora of guest performers on The Last Waltz was a distraction, not an enhancement.

The 1971 concerts at the Academy of Music, on the other hand, marked the end of a truly great era for the Band. They didn’t play live again for more than a year and didn’t release another album of original material until 1975’s Northern Lights-Southern Cross. They were never the same. Drugs, alcohol and group in-fighting took a steep toll, and that toll was clearly evident by The Last Waltz.

Live At The Academy Of Music 1971, by comparison, is the Band at their very best.

And their very best was very great, indeed.

Mattingly Leaves ‘Em Scratching Their Heads In Atlanta

Without question, the number one qualification necessary for a baseball manager is not game strategy but the ability to manage people.

A manager has to create an atmosphere in the clubhouse that allows his players to relax, be themselves and perform on the field. He has to have his players’ backs and shield them from the media and the front office, and above all he has to have their trust. That’s the formula Joe Torre brought to The Bronx as manager of the New York Yankees in 1996. Torre’s deft handling his clubhouse and the way he served as a shield from egomaniacal owner George Steinbrenner and the cannibalistic New York media allowed a talented but underachieving roster to become a championship dynasty.

Others have followed in the Torre mold, including Terry Francona in Boston and Cleveland; Charlie Manuel in Philadelphia; Davey Johnson in New York with the Mets, in Baltimore and Washington; Clint Hurdle in Pittsburgh; Ron Washington in Texas; to name but a few. Each of the aforementioned has been second-guessed about game strategy at one time or another, but each turned difficult clubhouses into peaceful workplaces for their players, who responded by playing championship-caliber baseball. That’s not a coincidence.

Game strategy ranks a distant second. If X’s and O’s mattered more than managing the clubhouse, Bobby Valentine would be a Hall of Famer instead of a serial train wreck. At some point, though, every manager has to make crucial decisions during the course of a game, decisions that can lead directly to wins or losses. At what point does a lack of strategic acumen become a detriment?

That is the question to ponder when considering the curious case of Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly. Mattingly has a big reputation as a calming influence in the clubhouse. He steered the team through a turbulent first two months of the season as a raft of injured players returned to the lineup. His players seem to recognize his steady hand and love playing for him because of it. Suffice it to say, however, that Game 2 of the National League Division Series in Atlanta was not Donnie Softball’s greatest moment as a big league skipper.

In three seasons as manager in LA, Mattingly’s in-game moves have left many observers scratching their heads in wonder. Opposing skippers have managed circles around him at times, especially Bruce Bochy of the rival San Francisco Giants. No one, however, ever played Mattingly the way the Atlanta Braves’ Fredi Gonzalez did Friday night in a crucial, series-tying 4-3 victory for the Braves.

Let’s start by establishing that the Braves may well have won this game without Mattingly’s assistance. After falling apart like a state-fair kitchen appliance on Thursday, the Bravos played a superb game Friday night, especially defensively and on the mound. Starting pitcher Mike Minor outdueled Dodgers ace righthander Zach Greinke, and Atlanta nursed a 2-1 lead into the seventh inning.

The game got away from the Dodgers in the seventh. Almost without trying, Gonzalez maneuvered Mattingly into forsaking two very favorable pitcher-hitter matchups in order to get a left-on-left matchup against Jason Heyward, one of the most dangerous hitters in the Atlanta lineup. Mattingly could have had hard-throwing righthander Chris Withrow — who came into October on a roll — pitch to Jose Constanza. That’s right, THE Jose Constanza. Perhaps thinking the lefty-hitting Constanza was Roger Maris circa 1961, Mattingly immediately went to his bullpen for struggling lefthander Paco Rodriguez. Gonzalez responded by yanking Constanza in favor of Reed Johnson, a righthanded hitter. This time, Mattingly apparently mistook the banjo-hitting Johnson for Mickey Mantle and had Rodriguez intentionally walk him to load the bases for Heyward. Predictably, Heyward hit a two-run single up the middle for a 4-1 lead, ballgame.

Opposing managers should drool at the thought of facing Constanza or Johnson in a big situation. Mattingly got them both to the plate in the same inning — the same at-bat, no less! — of a postseason game, and passed on both to face Heyward. With the bases loaded. All because he wanted a left-on-left matchup.

Insane.

In 236 career plate appearances, Constanza has a .278 batting average with six extra-base hits. In 2013, he batted .258 with no walks, no extra-base hits, no nothing, in 31 plate appearances. Johnson, an 11-year veteran and a .282 career hitter, also was a non-entity in 2013, hitting .244 with eight extra-base hits and 11 RBIs in 136 trips.

Heyward had an up-and-down season and missed a month after taking a fastball in the face in August, but he is a dangerous hitter with a bunch of power — 99 doubles, 73 homers and a career .443 slugging percentage in less than four full seasons. He hit 22 doubles and 14 homers in 104 games in 2013.

The Dodgers entered this series heavily favored and still hold the upper hand, with two of the remaining three games in Los Angeles and Clayton Kershaw — the best pitcher on the planet — waiting as a fallback should the series go all the way to a fifth game in Atlanta. After facing Kershaw and Greinke, possibly the two best starters in the NL, the first two games, the pitching matchups are much more even for Atlanta in Games 3 and 4 at Dodger Stadium. Normally the road team wants a split in the first two games of a series. All things considered, the Braves had to feel good going to the West Coast with a split at home.

The Braves might have won Game 2 anyway, but the giftwrapping, complete with greeting card, ribbons and a big bow, were compliments of Don Mattingly.

Braves Outfield Does The Puig

From the time he was called up from the minors on June 3, Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig has astounded observers with his Bo Jackson-esque physique and physical skill-set. The 22-year-old Cuban defector can pretty much do it all, a proverbial five-tool player, and all five tools are well above big-league average.

As gifted as Puig is, however, he also has displayed an alarming lack of fundamental polish, compounded by an exuberant playing style that at times causes him to try to do too much. He’s thrown out baserunners at third and home with his cannon arm, but he’s also overthrown cutoff men and given opponents extra bases. He’s gone from first to third effortlessly on routine grounders through the infield, but he’s also run into outs and run his team out of innings by taking dumb chances. He’s run down balls in the gaps with seemingly impossible diving catches, but he’s also run over teammates in the outfield, teammates much better positioned to make the catch and calling for the ball all the way. They've learned to get out of the way when they hear him coming, but that's hardly the solution.

The talk around the Dodgers most of the year was that while Puig didn’t cost them a single regular-season game with his boneheaded plays, things could be much different in the postseason, when the opposition is less forgiving and the games matter so much more.

One game into the postseason doesn’t provide much of a sample size, but it’s ironic that in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against Atlanta, Puig was a central figure in the Dodgers’ 6-1 victory while the Braves outfield committed numerous costly fundamental blunders. Puig had two hits and was hit by a pitch in five plate appearances, scored a run, and doubled a runner off first base on a fly ball to right field.

Meanwhile, Braves outfielders Evan Gattis and Justin Upton both turned singles into extra-base hits by diving after uncatchable balls. Both runners scored. Center fielder Jason Heyward overthrew the cutoff man twice on pointless throws to home plate, allowing runners to advance from first to second base. On both occasions, the runner who advanced into scoring position wound up scoring.

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez attributed the leaky play of his team to being overamped, and that’s understandable. It was the first game of the postseason, the first postseason game for many of his players, and the less-than-sellout crowd (not selling out home playoff games is a longstanding Atlanta tradition) was loud and raucous, at least for the first few innings. Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-out, two-run homer in the top of the third, taking most of the starch out of the home crowd.

It was an inopportune time for the Braves to have a sloppy game. Dodgers lefthander Clayton Kershaw, arguably the best pitcher on the planet and a lead-pipe lock for the NL Cy Young Award, was simply outstanding. Kershaw lost his fastball command in the middle innings, and the Braves hitters, armed with a good game plan, made him work and had his pitch count up to 77 through four innings, to 91 through five.

Having a good game plan and executing it are two different things, however. Kershaw adjusted and went more to his curveball and slider, resulting in 12 strikeouts in seven innings. He fanned nine of the last 11 men he faced. He allowed just three hits and walked three, despite not being able to throw his fastball over the plate consistently. It was a ridiculously impressive performance.

No series is ever decided in one game, and this one is far from over. But the Braves have a tough hill to climb to get back into it. Zack Greinke, very nearly as good as Kershaw this season, is on the mound tonight for Los Angeles. This is not quite a win-or-go-home situation for Atlanta, but the Braves don’t want to go to LA down two games to none. Even if they recover from an 0-2 hole and force a deciding fifth game, Kershaw would be there waiting for them.

UNC Bias Or Just A Bad Baseball Decision?

Bad weather is part of baseball. Ideally you want to play every game on the schedule, but sometimes Mother Nature intervenes and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Then again, maybe you can. North Carolina was scheduled to play Boston College a three-game series this weekend at BC’s Eddie Pellagrini Diamond. With the field already saturated by several major snowstorms, and with cold, rain and possibly more snow in the forecast, the Atlantic Coast Conference intervened and moved the series to Chapel Hill.

In so doing, the conference opened Pandora’s box. There is a perception around the ACC, fair or not, that the league office has a strong bias towards the University of North Carolina. The perception is largely nonsense, but it’s not without foundation.

ACC commissioner John Swofford graduated from UNC, class of 1971. He was quarterback on the UNC football team from 1969-71 and was in the UNC athletics administration from 1976-97, the last 18 years of that time as the Tar Heels’ very effective and very influential athletics director. In addition, the conference has more than its share of UNC graduates in the executive offices.

However much ACC officials wish to protest accusations of UNC bias, moving the Carolina-Boston College series to Chapel Hill only feeds the perception that the league will do whatever it has to do to protect the Tar Heels, even at the expense of the rest of the conference.

No one questions that the field at BC was unplayable. Eddie Pelagrini Diamond is borderline unplayable when it’s bone dry. Ice and mud only complicate an already bad situation. That’s not the point. The point is fairness. What is the justification for moving the series to Chapel Hill, and will the same justification be used the next time a series at BC is threatened by weather? And make no mistake, every series at Boston College is a threat to be affected by bad weather.

Clemson goes to BC the weekend after next, March 29-31, and NC State will be there the weekend after that. What happens if another major storm hits New England the week preceding one of those series and dumps 6-8 more inches of snow in the Boston area? Don’t think for a second that it couldn’t happen. It could happen in May. Will the conference approve moving either of those series? How can you justify moving the UNC series because of the weather but not subsequent series that face the same unplayable conditions? At the same time, how many of Boston College’s home series can you move before it becomes a competitive disadvantage for the Eagles?

Don’t look now, but even if this situation doesn’t arise again in 2013, the chances of it happening in the future increase significantly a year from now when Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Louisville join the ACC. Admittedly, all three of those schools have vastly superior facilities than BC and are therefore better equipped to deal with something like this, but those three newcomers all will bring serious winter-weather issues to a league used to warm weather by late March.

Word is that most of the league’s coaches were unhappy at the decision to move the UNC-BC series, and justifiably so. With North Carolina off to a torrid start and sitting atop the national polls, it seems like piling on to give the Tar Heels an extra home series.

Looking at the big picture and not focusing on either UNC or BC, the smart move would have been either to find an alternate site in the Boston area or, failing at that, let nature take its course. That’s baseball. 

The ACC opted instead to focus on the smaller issue of this one series and let the genie out of the bottle.

If the people in the ACC office seriously want people to believe they’re not biased towards UNC, then there’s only one way to deal with this issue once it arises again, especially if it arises again in 2013. We’ll see if that happens. In fact, we’ll be watching very closely.

Addendum: William & Mary and Northeastern played a three-game series this weekend, at Northeastern's Friedman Diamond in Boston. Meanwhile,

the final game of the BC-UNC series in Chapel Hill was rained out. 

Talk about irony. Friedman Diamond's surface is field turf, whereas Pelagrini Diamond's surface is natural. But that's another issue for someone else to consider.

Great, Or Merely Misplaced, Expectations?

Five weeks into the 2013 college baseball season, NC State may be the nation’s most perplexing team.

Picked in or near the national top 10 in virtually every preseason poll, the Wolfpack’s season has been a succession of sudden lurches and stumbles, one step forward, one step backwards, one step sideways. Whereas most national contenders are hitting their stride in late March, NC State is wobbling along at 16-6, wondering why the engine is misfiring and throwing oil.

There are plenty of reasons for this. Let’s focus on three of them, in reverse order:

3.) The injury to Trea Turner. Turner sprained his left ankle on the final play of the first ACC game of the season, a 10-5 loss to Clemson at Doak Field. At the time of the injury, Turner was arguably the best player in the country, batting .464 with five doubles, two triples, five home runs, 18 RBIs and 26 runs scored in 14 games. He had eight steals in as many attempts. After a one-year detour to third base in 2012, Turner moved back to shortstop this season and was excellent there as well. Turner carried the offense the first three weeks of the season. At times, he was all the offense NC State had. Turner is supposed to be out 4-6 weeks but may return a week sooner than that. The sooner the better.

2.) Overlooked personnel losses from a year ago. NC State’s preseason expectations were based in large part on the performance of last year’s freshman class, the best in the nation. Unfortunately, most of us either forgot or failed to notice that the Wolfpack lost several great players from a year ago. Replacing them has been easier said than done.

Shortstop Chris Diaz batted .346 with a team-high 25 doubles in 2012. He was second on the team with 56 RBIs and 55 runs scored, and third in slugging at 479. Diaz also stole eight bases and was absolutely rock solid defensively at shortstop. The freshmen got all the headlines, but Diaz was, without question, NC State’s best and most valuable player.

Right fielder Ryan Mathews batted .327 with 16 doubles, 17 home runs and 62 RBIs, staggering numbers in the BBCOR bat era. An absolute terror the second half of the season, Mathews slugged .628 and was a PRESENCE in the middle of the lineup, something the current NC State team sorely lacks.

First baseman Andrew Ciencin batted .278 with 14 doubles, five home runs, 41 runs scored and 36 RBIs. More important than Ciencin’s offense, however, was his leadership. A two-year captain, he was an acknowledged team leader almost from the day he stepped on campus. Lack of senior leadership is another issue the current Wolfpack faces.

Given the glitz and glitter of last year’s freshmen, it was easy to overlook the workmanlike excellence of Diaz, Mathews and Ciencin. And if losing those three wasn’t enough, catcher Danny Canela left school in December. High-maintenance, overweight and out of shape, Canela was a baseball savant, a hardball natural who somehow batted a team-best .348 while unable to see clearly out of his right eye, his front eye (Canela is a lefty batter). He hit 18 doubles, six home runs, and added 46 RBIs.

The quartet of Diaz, Mathews, Ciencin and Canela batted .326 and accounted for 305 hits, 73 doubles, 30 home runs, 190 runs scored and 200 RBIs. Their great seasons allowed the freshmen to flourish without the burden of carrying the team on their own. They have that burden now and it’s not going all that well.

1.) Horrific starting pitching. If anything, NC State expected its pitching to be a strength, with a solid weekend rotation of Carlos Rodon, Logan Jernigan and Ethan Ogburn, backed by a deep, versatile and talented bullpen.

Rodon is the focal point of the staff and team, so let’s start with him. At 2-2 with a 5.04 ERA, he hardly looks like the guy who was 9-0 with a 1.57 ERA and 135 strikeouts as a freshman. His velocity, normally in the 92-96 mph range a year ago, has been more like 87-90 this time around. Complicating things, his command has been off, leading to deep hitters’ counts and five home runs in 30 ⅓ innings. He allowed two home runs in 114 ⅔ innings in 2012.

Rodon shouldered a heavy workload last spring, then pitched all summer with Team USA. With nine new pitchers on the roster to evaluate, plus two others coming off injury, the coaches gave Rodon a needed break in the fall and let him swing the bat but not pitch. That inactivity, combined with unusually cold weather in the early season, is the probable cause of his drop in velocity. He appears healthy. His slider certainly looks healthy, perhaps even better than a year ago. Rodon has 54 strikeouts and opponents are hitting .183 against him. He threw a no-hitter (with two innings of relief from freshman Karl Keglovits) against LaSalle. So Rodon isn’t hurt, and he’s not the problem. He's not the problem, but he's not the solution, either.

Giving Rodon a hall pass does not excuse him or the rest of the starting pitchers for the mess they've created. After posting a 4-1 record and a 2.33 ERA in eight games in February, the starting pitching spun out, hit the wall and exploded in a fiery crash the moment the calendar turned to March. The coaches are still working at extinguishing the flames. Wish them luck.

In 14 games so far this month, NC State starting pitchers failed to survive the second inning seven times. In four of those seven games, head coach Elliott Avent had to yank his starter in the first inning. A starting pitcher is required to pitch at least five full innings to qualify for a win. In 14 games thus far in March, NC State starters qualified for a win just three times, twice by Rodon and once by Ethan Ogburn. The starters' ERA in March is 7.22. Their average start has been 2 ⅔ innings.

So there you have it. Three essential issues facing NC State baseball in 2013. Issue No. 3, Turner’s injury, will take care of itself. Issue No. 2, the absence of Diaz, Mathews, Ciencin and Canela, is not going away. How well the Wolfpack addresses Issue No. 1, the starting pitching, will most likely determine what kind of season this turns out to be. There is still more than enough talent on the roster to win the conference championship, host an NCAA regional and reach the College World Series.

Because of the awful starting pitching, however, a tipping point is rapidly approaching. If the starters can’t do better than 2 ⅔ innings per start or a 7.22 ERA, then the bullpen, the team’s one true strength, will soon blow out as well and this team pass the point of no return.