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.

Together Again: Country Duets Make A Comeback

If you’re like me, an aging baby boomer who hasn’t been impressed with a new country record in at least a half-dozen years, the month of February was one to celebrate. Two extraordinary albums of country duets — one by Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison, the other by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell — hit the record stores last month, two weeks apart.

Willis and Robison are sort of the first couple of what’s left of the country music scene in Austin, Texas, and their album, “Cheater’s Game,” sounds like Texas. Willis grew up in the D.C., area listening to rockabilly music. MCA Records signed her at the age of 20, but she never quite fit the cookie-cutter mold of Nashville. She escaped that suffocating climate 20 years ago and settled in Austin, where musicians may be badly underpaid, but are allowed to create freely without interference from suits and ties who never so much as tuned a guitar. Her Nashville records were surprisingly good, considering the context. Her records since arriving in Austin have been universally great, and you can argue forcefully that she currently is country music’s best female singer.

Robison grew up in Bandera, Texas, in a musical family. His brother and sister — Charlie Robison and Robyn Ludwick — are both accomplished musicians with strong bodies of recorded work. Bruce Robison has recorded seven solo albums and is an effective vocalist. He made his mark as a front-rank songwriter, however, with chart-topping hits for George Strait, the Dixie Chicks and Tim McGraw to his credit.

Robison’s songwriting allowed him and Willis to take a two-year hiatus from recording while their children reached school age. “Cheater’s Game” marks the return to recording for both of them, and is their first album together (aside from an obscure and delightful Christmas CD). It was worth the wait. The material on “Cheater’s Game” is a mix of Robison originals and contemporary covers by the likes of Dave Alvin, Don Williams, Robert Earl Keen, Razzy Bailey, Hayes Carll and Lawrence Shoberg. It oozes with subtle Texas flavor. Their cover of Keen’s offbeat “No Kinda Dancer” is an incongruent show-stopper.

Critics have been kind to “Cheater’s Game.” Willis and Robison made a well-publicized broadcast appearances on Minus In The Morning, and also appeared on Great American Country’s “On The Streets” program, and on Sirius Satellite Radio with Kris Kristofferson. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both gave favorable write-ups, and of course, the reception in Texas was overwhelmingly positive. The Austin Statesman American published a lengthy feature and review, and The Austin Chronicle and Texas Music magazine both devoted cover stories to “Cheater’s Game.”

If Willis and Robison evoke Texas on “Cheater’s Game,” Harris and Crowell bring a much wider focus to “Old Yellow Moon,” which is understandable considering the length and breadth of their stellar careers. There was a period of about two decades when Harris set the standard for female country singers, and she set it high. She combined unflinching musical integrity with impeccable taste, and demanded the same from all who worked with her. From the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s, she churned out a succession of brilliant, traditional-sounding contemporary country albums unlike anything else coming out of Nashville at the time (or, alas, since).

One of the first musicians to join Harris onstage as part of her Hot Band was Crowell, then a budding singer and songwriter from Houston, Texas. Crowell’s list of songwriting credits is staggering and includes “Til I Gain Control Again,” “Bluebird Wine,” “Amarillo,” “I Ain’t Living Long Like This” and “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues,” all covered at one time by Emmylou.

Crowell left Harris in 1977 to embark on a solo career that was a critical success but largely a commercial failure. He married Rosanne Cash in 1979, produced several of her early albums, and continued to write great songs and record great albums that no one bought. The exception was 1988’s “Diamonds & Dirt,” which yielded five No. 1 country hits. From there, Crowell’s career went straight back to the obscurity it never deserved.

Harris and Crowell re-assembled much of the original Hot Band for “Old Yellow Moon,” including James Burton on guitar, Emory Gordy on bass and Glen D. Hardin on piano. They filled in around them with an “A” list of session players — Vince Gill, Bill Payne, John Jorgenson, Steuart Smith, Stuart Duncan, John Ware. They even brought in Emmylou’s former husband and original Hot Band producer, Brian Ahern, to tie the whole package together.

The songs on "Old Yellow Moon" include a remake of “Bluebird Wine,” which kicked off Harris’s first solo album in 1975, plus three other Crowell originals. It’s the cover songs, though, that make “Old Yellow Moon” such a compelling album. Hank DeVito’s “Hanging Up My Heart” kicks of the album is fine style, and Roger Miller’s “Invitation To The Blues,” Kristofferson’s “Chase The Feeling,” and DeVito and Donivan Cowart’s bluesy and wickedly humorous “Black Caffiene” all stand out and keep things moving along.

Then there’s “Back When We Were Beautiful,” an achingly beautiful ballad written by the great Matraca Berg that brings everything to a sudden stop. Where to start with this one. No aging boomer can hear this and not have wistful thoughts about all that lies in life’s rear-view mirror and how little remains to be seen out the front windshield. It’s just a stunning song, and Harris and Crowell’s devastatingly poignant and emotional performance makes it the album’s focal point, an unmistakably classic track.

Country music has a rather difficult relationship with its traditions, including duets. If you can listen to an hour of modern country radio without throwing up in your mouth, you may come away thinking that Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Eagles were more influential figures in the development of country than, say, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams. And you’re more likely to be struck by lightning during that torturous hour than hear a duet.

And so it goes without saying that the only way you’ll hear “Cheater’s Game” or “Old Yellow Moon” on the radio is via satellite, a great and growing but still limited medium that most of us don’t have. And it’s equally likely that the last record store in your hometown went out of business before any of us ever heard of satellite radio. No matter what hoops you have to jump through to get these two albums, however, go for it. It’s been years since either Nashville (or even Austin) produced anything this good. Don’t wait for it to happen again. You might not live that long.

NC State’s 5-0 Week And What It Means

After stumbling out of the starting blocks with a lackluster performance against an under-appreciated Appalachian State team, NC State went 5-0 last week against four largely overmatched opponents and stands at 5-1 nine days into the 2013 college baseball season.

While the competition was light years from Atlantic Coast Conference caliber — a so-so Charlotte club was easily the best of the four teams the Pack blitzed through during the week — the five-game sweep was noteworthy on a number of fronts.

First, the pitching put up silly numbers: three earned runs in 45 innings and a 0.60 ERA. NC State pitchers finished the week by throwing 27 ⅔ consecutive innings without allowing an earned run. The Wolfpack allowed 20 hits in 45 innings for the week, although that one is greatly mitigated by the level of the competition and by the combined no-hitter that Carlos Rodon and Karl Keglovits tossed against LaSalle.

LaSalle was helpless vs. Rodon. It was the biggest mismatch of the season thus far. The no-hitter was so ho-hum that the most interesting thing about it was the presence of super agent Scott Boras and two of his top associates, Bobby Brower and Calvin Murray. Rodon cut through the LaSalle lineup with ease, striking out a career-best 14. He fanned the last six men he faced and nine of the last 11. Rodon walked one and allowed a baserunner on an error (you can’t fault him for that). He set down the last 14 men he faced.

Much was made of Rodon taking his first loss in more than two years in the Appalachian State game, but that concern was badly misplaced. Did anyone really think he’d go unbeaten all the way through college? What few seemed to notice was that Rodon retired eight of the last nine Appalachian State batters he faced. Tack that onto the no-hitter against LaSalle and he now has faced 31 consecutive batters without allowing a hit, striking out 16 of them. He retired 28 of the 31 men he faced in that span.

The real culprit in the loss to Appalachian State was the offense, or lack thereof. Trea Turner had two hits, including a double, and scored two runs. The rest of the lineup went 2-for-26, scored one unearned run, and had no extra-base hits. It was a miserable performance.

The hitting was hardly a juggernaut last week, but a 14-run outburst Thursday against Villanova and Sunday’s absurd doubleheader thrashing of Wagner at least allowed some players to walk with a little bit of a bounce in their step again. The Wagner doubleheader, in particular, allowed for some serious stat-padding.

The Wolfpack scored 43 runs in the twin-bill, going 34-for-81 (.420) with 12 doubles, nine home runs and three grand-slam home runs — by Turner, Grant Clyde and Brett Williams. State hitters drew 16 walks in the doubleheader and struck out just nine times. The Pack scored in 14 of 16 offensive innings. The Wolfpack’s on-base percentage for the doubleheader was .528, the slugging percentage .901.

As one-sided as the doubleheader was through 16 innings, it got much worse in the bottom of the eighth of the second game. In that blood-soaked inning, the Wolfpack went 8-for-12 with two doubles and three home runs, scoring 13 times. State hitters walked twice in the inning and hit two sacrifice flies. Wagner pitchers also plunked a pair of Wolfpack batters (running their total of HBPs for the day to seven). The first 13 State batters of the inning reached base safely, two on errors. Three hit home runs.

There were plenty of offensive heroes Sunday, the obvious one being Williams, who hit three doubles and three home runs on the afternoon. Williams drove in five runs in each of the two games, and also turned in a pair of spectacular diving catches in the outfield. Batting second in the order, Williams and a pair of late-inning substitutes, Clyde and John Mangum, combined to make the two spot in the lineup the place to be. The two hole in the NC State lineup went 8-for-10 with three doubles, four home runs, two of them grand slams, and 15 RBIs.

Turner went 4-for-8, scored six runs, drove in seven and stole a base. Sam Morgan went 6-for-10, drove in six runs, scored seven, and belted three doubles and two home runs. Clyde got three at-bats and went 3-for-3 with two homers and seven RBIs. Bryan Adametz was 4-for-7 with a double, scored four runs and drove in three.

You can point all you want to the caliber of the competition, and you’d be correct. In particular, the three teams that came to the Doak this weekend — Villanova, LaSalle and Wagner — may struggle to win 50 games between them. But after the psychological beating the Wolfpack took from the Appalachian State loss, and then having to sit and stew on it as the weather forced the remainder of the series to be cancelled, there's something to be said for building confidence and allowing players to feel good about themselves.

The competition of the past week did little to physically prepare NC State for the ACC season, but the role of confidence is as difficult to quantify in athletics as it is in economics. If self-esteem plays a big role in the success of a college baseball team — and it’s intuitive to believe that it does — then the past week did plenty of good for NC State.

The big kids show up soon enough, starting with Florida Atlantic and Coastal Carolina in Myrtle Beach this weekend, and Clemson at the Doak the weekend of March 8-10. Let the Wolfpack enjoy the cupcakes for now. There aren’t many left after this.

Tribe Offense Much Better, But The Starting Pitching Is Still Thin

Cleveland Indians fans have enjoyed a nice offseason, and we have every reason to look forward to the 2013 baseball season.

From signing Terry Francona as manager to the acquisitions of Nick Swisher, Brett Myers, Trevor Bauer and Michael Bourn, the Cleveland front office did a terrific job of overhauling the roster and vastly improving the ballclub. The team that opens the 2013 season could be a good 12-15 games better than the one that ended 2012.

That said, no one should look to the upcoming season and think that anyone other than the Detroit Tigers will be the favorites in the American League Central. The Indians lost 94 games a year ago, so an improvement of 15 games means an 83-79 record. That's not gonna get it done. So before you start ordering World Series tickets, remember that while the everyday lineup is greatly improved, the starting pitching, an utter catastrophe last year, remains a weakness.

The addition of Myers will help. A proven innings-eater, Myers should give the Tribe a chance to win most every time he takes the ball. In addition, Justin Masterson should be better than a year ago, for two reasons: 1.) He's better than what he showed in 2012, and 2.) he has a very positive relationship with Francona, dating back to his days in Boston. Francona argued hard for the Red Sox not to send Masterson to Cleveland in the 2009 deal that brought Victor Martinez to Boston, but lost that argument. Reunited with Francona, Masterson should be better in 2013.

The rest of the rotation is another story. Calling Ubaldo Jiminez's first season-plus in Cleveland a train wreck is an insult to train wrecks. Using a delivery that seems to have a dozen stops and starts before approaching his release point, Jiminez has played hard-to-get with the strike zone throughout his time in Cleveland. As a result, he was one of the worst starting pitchers in the big leagues last year, losing 17 games.

The list of candidates for the other two spots in the rotation is underwhelming. Carlos Carrasco was an intriguing prospect when acquired from Philadelphia in the Cliff Lee swindle, but he’s coming off Tommy John surgery and is a question mark at best. Zach McAllister had several decent starts in his brief time in Cleveland a year ago, but was only a marginal prospect when acquired from the Yankees in 2010 for Austin Kearns. Bauer is one of the top prospects in the game and may have the best arm in the organization, but he’s likely to start the year at Triple-A Columbus. The other names in the mix are pretty much all misfits and 4-F's: Corey Kluber, David Huff, Scott Barnes. Non-roster invitees Scott Kazmir and Daisuke Matsuzaka (also reunited with Francona this spring) look pretty good by comparison.

And so the scuttlebutt is that the Indians may be looking to trade for pitching, and the bait for such a deal would come from their outfield depth. In particular, MLB reporters and bloggers keep saying that Drew Stubbs, acquired from Cincinnati in the three-team deal that brought Bauer to the Indians from Arizona and sent Shin-Soo Choo to the Reds, would be the ideal candidate to dangle for pitching help. With the signing of Bourn, Stubbs has been displaced from center field to right, with Swisher shifted from right field to first base, and Mark Reynolds from first base to designated hitter, and that supposedly makes Stubbs a good candidate to trade.

The logic in all this is flawed on many fronts. First of all, the aforementioned defensive changes improved the Indians at every position mentioned. Bourn is probably the best defensive center fielder in the game. Stubbs, an excellent center fielder himself, is better in right than Swisher, who in turn is better at first than Reynolds. That gives the Indians above-major-league-average defense in center field, right field and first base, meaning all those moves made sense. If the pitching is suspect — and it is — then improving the defense is imperative. Trading Stubbs will hurt the defense, not help it.

The other reason the "trade Stubbs for pitching" argument makes no sense is that Stubbs has no real trade value. A former first-round draft pick, Stubbs is a superior defensive center fielder with great speed and occasional power. He steals bases at a high percentage and has 59 career homers. On the other hand, from day one in the big leagues, he's had an awful time getting on base, with a career on-base percentage of .312. His OBP with the Reds in 2012 was a dreadful .277. Forget getting on base, however. Stubbs has an awful time just making contact. With 588 career strikeouts in less than four full big league seasons, Stubbs fans an average of about once every third plate appearance.

If the Indians do trade for pitching, it will have to be for young, major league-ready pitching, meaning a pitcher or pitchers who can help the team win now, who don’t make much money, and who have years remaining before arbitration. Teams nowadays rarely trade that kind of pitching, especially not for a collection of red flags like Drew Stubbs. For Carlos Santana? Sure. For Asdrubal Cabrera? Absolutely. For Drew Stubbs? Not a prayer, at least not now.

No, the Indians are stuck with Stubbs, at least for the time being, and that's not a bad thing. If the change of scenery from Cincinnati to Cleveland helps him re-establish his career, then he can definitely help the Tribe win in 2013. Or, if he has a big year but the team's pitching is as bad as it looks and the Indians fall out of the race by late July, then they could deal him for some long-term pitching help. And if he continues to flail away at the plate and shows no sign of improvement, they'll non-tender him next winter and be done with him.

For those of you who were all hot to trade Stubbs for the 2018 Cy Young Award winner, whoever that may be, don't hold your breath. What you see in Indians camp right now is what you're likely to see on opening day. The everyday lineup will be exciting. The starting pitching, not so much. And that's still a massive improvement over last year, so don't complain. Enjoy it.

Wolfpack Baseball Drops Opener To Appalachian State

RALEIGH, N.C. — Eighth-ranked NC State looked like anything but the eighth best college baseball team in the country Friday, dropping its 2013 season opener 6-3 to visiting Appalachian State.

All-America lefthander Carlos Rodon went six innings and served up three home runs in taking his first college loss and his first loss anywhere since May, 21, 2010, the final game of his junior year at Holly Springs High School. Rodon went 11-0 as a senior at Holly Springs, 9-0 as a college freshman for the Wolfpack a year ago, and 2-0 for USA Baseball last summer, a winning streak of 22 consecutive decisions, snapped by the Mountaineers.

Rodon’s biggest bugaboo was the long ball. He gave up three of them, two on very poorly located first-pitch fastballs. He wound up tossing six innings and allowing five runs, all on home runs. He allowed five hits, two singles and three homers. He struck out eight and walked one. It wasn't a great performance, but it was far from awful.

The Wolfpack’s problem was not the pitching, but the offense. It didn’t show up. Trea Turner had two of NC State’s four hits, one of them a double he legged out after hitting a Baltimore chopper over the third baseman’s head and into shallow left field. Aside from Turner, the Pack was a woeful 2-for-26 at the plate and made Mountaineers starter Jamie Nunn look like the All-American in the pitching matchup. Take nothing away from Nunn. He threw strikes, pitched ahead in the count and hit his spots. That said, the home team helped him out immensely with a poor approach at the plate, up and down the lineup.

Appalachian State freshman center fielder Jaylin Davis got the Mountaineer offense rolling by crushing the first college pitch he ever saw, a fastball up in the zone from Rodon, for a three-run homer. Davis also split the gap in right-center for a double in the ninth, and ran down a line drive in deep center field off the bat of Turner to end a sort-of Wolfpack rally in the fifth.

NC State got nice relief outings from senior Josh Easley and junior Andrew Woeck, both righthanders. Easley, returning to action for the first time after Tommy John surgery, pitched 1-2-3 innings in the seventh and eighth before running into trouble in the ninth. Woeck followed Easley to the mound with runners on second and third and none out in the top of the ninth. He walked Preston Troutman to load the bases, then uncorked a wild pitch to score an unearned run. He recovered by retiring the next three batters, two of them on strikeouts. The wild pitch hurt, but Woeck still pitched out of serious trouble and allowed minimal damage.

Baseball America recently featured NC State on the cover of its annual college preview issue. The Pack did nothing to justify that on Friday. If anything, the State players looked as though they'd spent a little too much time reading about themselves and way too little time getting ready for the 2013 season. Coached by former NC State assistant Billy Jones, and with former Wolfpack players Michael Rogers and Matt Payne on the coaching staff, Appalachian State came ready to play, and it showed. The Mountaineers took it to the Pack from the first inning on.
Saturday’s weather forecast is not good. With rain and snow on the way, the game was moved from a 4 p.m. start time to 1 p.m., but that may be too late to miss the coming precipitation. And if it does snow and there’s any accumulation, the chances of playing Sunday will be in jeopardy. The Wolfpack needs to get back on the field to get the bad taste out of its mouth. The weatherman may not allow that.

Expectations Run High For NC State Baseball In 2013

RALEIGH, N.C. — This is a good time to be NC State baseball. Coming off a 43-20 season that included an NCAA regional championship, two All-Americans — one of them a Golden Spikes finalist, the other the NCAA stolen-base leader, both of them freshmen — three Freshman All-Americans, the ACC Pitcher of the Year, and National Freshman of the Year (and that’s just a sample), the Wolfpack enters 2013 generating a buzz like never before and with expectations this program has never experienced.

Ranked No. 8 in Baseball America’s preseason national poll and featured on the cover of BA’s college preview issue, head coach Elliott Avent’s program enters the new season in previously uncharted water. The top 10 preseason ranking is the first ever for the Wolfpack. So is the cover story in Baseball America, which the Pack shared with top-rated North Carolina, the story’s upshot being the emergence of North Carolina as a college baseball hotbed. Based on last season’s success and the avalanche of publicity generated by Carlos Rodon and Trea Turner, the aforementioned All-America freshmen from 2012, NC State has nearly doubled its season-ticket base and could sell out the season in advance. After years of counting empty seats as customers (counting season-ticket holders who didn’t actually, you know, attend the game as having attended the game), the Wolfpack’s bean counters might be able to back up their attendance figures with actual crowds in 2013.

Let’s hope that’s the case because this should be an extremely talented and balanced team that deserves all the fan support it can get. The Wolfpack returns a strong, exciting nucleus from a year ago, the backbone of which is a sophomore class that almost certainly will go down as the most accomplished class in NC State baseball history. Familiar and productive faces should be the order of the day up and down the lineup, and Rodon leads a talented pitching staff with a formidable rotation and a deep bullpen. Backup catcher will be a concern after the transfer of Danny Canela. Infield defense will bear watching with Turner moving to shortstop, Logan Ratledge likely taking over at second base, Tarran Senay moving from left field to first base, and an as-yet unnamed new face moving in at third.

Those are minor questions, though, which is what you would expect with a top 10 team. And that leads us back to expectations. In the past, NC State has always set the College World Series as one of its goals, and has come very close on several occasions. Given the hype surrounding this team, coming close in 2013 might not be good enough for some, and that’s a new kind of pressure the Wolfpack will face in the weeks and months ahead.

Asked about that at the team’s preseason media luncheon on Friday, Avent was almost dismissive.

“I hope you have expectations every year,” Avent said. “I don’t think you have expectations because somebody else gives them to you. You have expectations within the program every year. You don’t let anyone define how good you are. Hopefully that comes every year.”

There’s a great deal of truth in Avent’s words, and a healthy dose of coach-speak as well. To be certain, good teams expect great things of themselves. That’s why they set goals, and they always set them high, such as getting to the CWS. The players on this team are extremely confident and will no doubt expect great things of themselves. In that regard, Avent is exactly right.

That said, however, lofty expectations surround this team. At the media luncheon, Baseball America managing editor John Manuel handed out complimentary issues of the college preview issue and presented Avent with a mounted blow-up of the cover. That cover features a group shot of Rodon and Turner along with North Carolina All-Americans Kent Emanuel and Colin Moran in front of Durham Bulls Athletic Park, home of the 2013 ACC Championship. That’s an incredible collection of talent, four great college players, and it signals what is hopefully a golden age of college baseball for North Carolina’s Research Triangle area.

Golden age? Baseball America cover boys? Top 10 ranking? That’s a lot of hype and it’s generating a lot of expectations along with the season-ticket sales. The media luncheon was packed, which would have been inconceivable five years ago. The media treated Rodon, a potential No. 1 overall draft pick 16 months from now, like a rock star, besieging him during the player interview session.

Avent can dismiss the expectations of others all he wants. As someone who knows him well, I’m dead certain he knows that managing those expectations is vital. His players read the newspapers and troll the web. They read everything that’s written about themselves, they hear everything that’s said. The world is watching them and they know it.

The fact is, this team could have an incredible season and still not get to Omaha. That would be disappointing, but it happens. Every year there is at least one great team that stumbles and falls on the road to the College World Series. There are those who would deem that a failure for this team and that would be incredibly unfair. That’s the kind of pressure Avent needs to deflect away from his players, and he knows it.

How they handle that will go a long way in determining how successful this team will be in 2013. For the record, I expect this team will handle it just fine. This is a pretty tough bunch. At this point, however, it’s definitely a factor and it shouldn’t be ignored.

• • •

NC State followed last year’s program-making freshman class with another strong recruiting group, but one that will be brought along more at its own pace. Players returning from injury will give the Wolfpack its biggest boost in 2013. Specifically, lefthander Grant Sasser, righthander Josh Easley and center fielder Brett Williams all missed 2012 with injuries, and it’s not a stretch to say that all three could have been impact players a year ago. They’ll get the opportunity to make that impact in 2013 instead.

Williams was the Wolfpack's best returning position player from 2011 as the 2012 season began, but tore his ACL in the fifth inning of the first game and was lost for the year. His return gives the everyday lineup a significant jolt. He’ll bat in the middle of the order, brings speed and pop at the plate, and highlight-reel defense in center field.

Sasser and Easley, both coming off Tommy John elbow surgery, add quality depth to the pitching staff. Sasser has successfully filled almost every role on the staff in his time in Raleigh and will add a huge veteran presence in the late innings. Easley could be in line to start midweek games, an often thankless task that can be the difference between going to a regional and hosting one, between being a regional host and being a national seed. The Wolfpack plays 14 midweek games this season and needs to win as many of them as possible.

Sasser, a delightful sixth-year senior who baffles hitters with an assortment of offspeed junk that would make Jamie Moyer envious, was in rare form at the media luncheon. Holding court with members of the fourth estate and talking a mile a minute, Sasser gave the normally fast-talking Avent his money’s worth when it came to cramming as many words as possible into a single minute.

“For me, it’s kind of weird, and everybody asks me that, and I’m kind of glad I went through it,” Sasser said of his elbow injury and subsequent surgery. “I didn’t mind the process. It was a long process. After going to Dr. [James] Andrews and getting the surgery, we found out that [the injury] actually happened in high school and I pitched through that, so I was fortunate enough to learn how to pitch because of that. But going through the process, I had family members going through it, and there are millions of baseball players that go through it, and they say that they’re so worried about it, but going into it I said I would give it all I’ve got and not be soft about it, and if I throw it out, I throw it out. And I threw a lot. I threw all last season. Even when we travelled, like when we went to Florida State. I probably threw too much, but now, my arm has never felt stronger. In the past four years, five years, it was always waking up and asking, ‘How bad does it hurt today?’ Since having the surgery, I’ve felt great and, knock on wood, I’ve thrown well in scrimmages and done really good, and it’s felt good, so I’m just trying to keep my rehab up and keep doing the things I have to do to prepare for the season. It feels good so far.”

The above 234-word soliloquy comprised the answer to one question and took just 58 seconds to deliver. Maybe he has gills because it didn’t appear that Sasser took a single breath during that entire stem-winder of a speech. Grant Sasser’s fastball may not register on a radar gun, but when it comes to words per minute, he’s in a class by himself.

Avent no doubt is thrilled to have Sasser back in the bullpen, maybe in part to get him out of the dugout. Avent probably doesn’t need the verbal competition in there, especially during games.

• • •

For 16 years at NC State and eight years at New Mexico State before that, Elliott Avent’s teams used Louisville Slugger TPX bats. That marriage ended after the 2012 season, and the Wolfpack will use Rawlings bats and gloves in 2013. The players are happy.

“I like them better than the TPX,” catcher Brett Austin said, echoing the feelings of many of his teammates. “They’ve got good weight distribution, and I think they have more pop.”

No doubt the folks at TPX have charts and studies to show that their bats have comparable weight distribution, are just as lively and have just as much pop as any bats on the market, and it’s entirely possible that the unpopularity of Louisville Slugger among hitters, not just at NC State, is largely psychological. So be it. Perception is reality, and once a player gets a notion in his head, there’s no dislodging it. And it’s just as possible that the Rawlings bats are genuinely better. Who knows?

No bats were more unpopular than Nike among college hitters, and Nike finally relented in 2012 and allowed schools with Nike equipment contracts to use other bats, freeing players at those schools to use any bat they wished. Most took advantage of the opportunity.

At North Carolina, a longtime Nike school, hitters used every bat imaginable in 2012, including TPX. Nike bats were hard to find at Boshamer, with one exception. Colin Moran — the same Colin Moran on the Baseball America cover with Rodon and Turner and arguably the best hitter in college baseball — never switched from Nike bats and batted .365. He missed about 20 games after punching a bathroom door in the dugout and breaking his hand during the Tar Heels’ series with the Wolfpack, but when Moran used a bat instead of his bare hands, it didn’t matter what bat he used.

Still, perception is reality. Patients given placebos in controlled medical experiments often feel relief from symptoms. Given a bat they believe to be better than the one they’re currently using, hitters are likely to hit better. That’s just the nature of the beast.

“I think it may have gotten in our heads a little last year with the old bats,” Austin admitted, “but we’re happy with the new bats this year.”

Whatever works.