We’re No.5 in USA Today/Coaches, 5 in NCBWA, 5 in Collegiate Baseball and seven in Baseball America. FSU is No.1 in Coaches and Baseball America, UVA is No.1 in NCBWA and South Carolina is No.1 in Baseball America. We’re 23-6 overall and 5-4 in SEC East. Florida and South Carolina lead the East at 6-3. Alabama and State lead the West at 6-3. We play UT-Martin tomorrow @ 7:30 PM ET/6:30 CT. In the Coaches Poll, LSU is No.4, Ole Miss is nine, State is 16, UK is tied for 19th with NC State and UT (Knoxville) is 21. UT Martin is 3-22 right now with their victories coming over Eastern Michigan, Murray State and Tennessee Tech. Walker Buehler will probably get the start tomorrow night. Walker is 4-1 with a 1.89 ERA along with 14 walks and 40 K’s. Walker putting up some nice numbers.Our team batting average is .286 (on the upswing) and our team ERA is 1.98. Need a good game tomorrow to get ready for UT this weekend. The UT Martin game can be seen on the vucommodores website and the Tennessee series can be seen on vucommodores on Friday night at 7:30 ET/ 6:30 CT. Saturday’s game is on CSS @ 7:30 PM ET/6:30 CT and Sunday’s game is @ 2 PM ET/1 CT on vucommodores.UT is 19-7 overall and 3-6 in conference. They took two out of three from Missouri, won one and lost two to Auburn at home and were swept by South Carolina this past weekend. Will have more on pitching matchups on Friday.
Pedro and the Bucs won today 1-0 on a bottom of the 10th walkoff homer by Neil Walker. Neil’s awesome. Such an enthusiastic team player. Loves playing baseball Pedro 0 for 4 with two K’s but turned a nice double play on a sac bunt attempt by the Cubs. He relayed a throw from third to first after Pirates pitcher got the ball to third for the force. There were runners on first and second with no outs. Just needs to get that bat going. Cubs had some pretty good pitching today as did the Pirates. Ryan Flaherty started at third for the Orioles which defeated the BoSox 2-1 in Baltimore. As I wrote earlier, Mike MInor is on the DL till about April 12th-13th then Mike should be good to go.
Now to DP: 7.1 innings, six hits, two runs (earned, two run homer in the eighth to pinch hitter Erik Kratz), with one walk and six K’s. Dave threw 102 pitches, 74 for strikes. That’s 74 strikes and 28 balls, well above the coveted 2:1 strike-ball ratio level. Rays won 9-2 over the Blue Jays of Toronto. Dave’s 1-0 with a 2.45 ERA now. Pitches again Saturday against the Rangers Nick Martinez, who I’m pretty sure is making his first big league start in Tampa. He was drafted by the Rangers in 2011. Game time is 7:10 PM ET/6:10 CT. Will have report on that on Sunday. Need to watch Dave today and will give more details tomorrow on how he looked, what he was throwing well, velocity of his heater, ect… Dave beat R.A. Dickey of the Jays today. The Rays hitters got to Dickey scoring six runs on five hits. Dickey walked six and struck out four in five innings. Good start for the club.
Sonny on the hill tonight in Oakland on opening night and Sonny faces Justin Masterson of the Indians. Masterson is 53-63 in his six year career with a 4.03 career ERA. Picked the A’s over the Cardinals in the Series on my regular blog, but I have to admit, my heart is with Dave and the Rays. Have the A’s over the Rays in the ALCS, and the Cards over the Nationals in the NLCS. The Rays have an excellent squad though and can get this done. Just want it for Dave and the guys so much. Will have more on Sonny and Dave tomorrow or Wednesday.