Let’s Say Something. Anything.
Well, there’s been an unfortunate delay in the process for going live with the SBN site. An unfortunate power outage in Texas beyond our control. The evil Machivellian machinations of Mack Brown? This random blogger with no added insight into the situation and a paranoid personality certainly thinks so!
"I’m a gonna get you California blogging community! First, I took your Rose Bowl and now this."
We are being told it will be fixed soon and the move can be made as soon as possible. But while we wait, we didn’t want to have another content-less day roll by, shortchanging the readers of this blog. So, I thought we could look a little bit more in depth at recent games by ace pitcher Tyson Ross. He’s our best starter, a potential draft pick, and he Ks a ton of dudes. Last year against *snicker* Oral (!!!!!) Roberts, he struck out 16. 16! If Cal is to have long term baseball success this year, he has a key role to play.
Given the setup of college baseball, having Ross pitch (and win) on Friday was huge. That guaranteed win from the Ace meant that all we had to do was win one of the next two games to take the series. Our poor midweek record showed that Cal’s depth was not as hoped for. And for a while Tyson Ross was that Ace, cutting down all in his path. Earlier this year, he was nigh unstoppable racing out to a 5-0 record. In that 5th win, he shut down the defending national champions, Oregon State.
But let’s look at some games since then.
The first game since he won that 5th game was against USC. Always an important game to defeat those Trojans. Plus, we were ranked 5th at the time. What happened?
California IP H R ER BB SO
Ross, Tyson 4.0 10 6 6 3 6
Ouch! Cal ended up losing that game 17-1, much to the delight of OJ Mayo and his promoter, I’m sure. The less said about this game the better.
The next game was against UDub. Tyson’s line looked like this:
California IP H R ER BB SO
Ross, Tyson 7.0 9 4 4 3 5
4 ER in 7 IP is a step in the right direction from the USC game. However, it is not at the level of "Ace" needed by this Cal baseball team. Further, look at the hits and walks. If I’m doing the math correctly, that comes out to a WHIP of about 1.70. For you fantasy junkies out there, that just plain ain’t good. WHIP is basically the amount of runners you allow on base. Walks and Hits over Inning Pitched.
Here, Ross was lucky and/or timely in his strikeouts to only give up 4 runs. With a poor WHIP like that, he probably had men on base all the time.
Ok, so by that point, Cal had fallen to 8th in the nation, but then moved back to 7th. Nothing to sneeze at. We headed out to Tempe to take on the #6 team, ASU. Big matchup. Time for Ross to shine. Here are his numbers from his game against ASU.
Cal Golden Bears IP H R ER BB SO
Ross, Tyson 5.1 8 9 8 5 5
Ai! Cal ended up scoring 7 runs in that game, but it wasn’t enough. The WHIP balloons up to 2.5+ and well, you don’t need to do too much analysis with this line. Just look at the K/BB ratio of 1.0.
Then, we entered May with a game against Arizona. By this point, we were ranked 16th and Arizona was ranked 20th. So, it’s still a quality opponent (as really they all are in the Pac10). Ross needs to come through more than ever! And he does!
California IP H R ER BB SO
Ross, Tyson 8.0 11 3 3 3 5The WHIP is still high. 1.75 by my calculations. But he’s able to Houdini his way out of trouble. 8 IP with only 3 ER is solid. He’s also been keeping up the strike outs the entire time of this rough stretch. Never fell below 5, which was his saviour in some cases.
And now the Stanford game. Ross pitched a great game, but unfortunately didn’t factor into the decision.
California IP H R ER BB SO
Ross, Tyson 8.2 5 3 3 2 5While this game doesn’t look too much better than the previous one (both 8+ IP, both 3 ER), look at the hits. 11 to 5. That drops the WHIP to sub 1.00. This is really the first good game here. The first dominant performance. The first Rossian game that harkens back to the earlier portions of the season.
Earlier in the season, Ross was keeping both the walks and the hits down. With his usual 5+ Ks, he was just dominating the opposition. But as the walks and the hits started to rise, even his strikeouts weren’t enough. In some situations, he was able to avoid the big inning and keep his team in the game. And in other situations, they just got to him. Ross is a young pitcher, but one with promise.
Hopefully, he will learn from some of his mid-season failures as we enter post-season play. As of yesterday, Cal was ranked 13th in the nation. This is definitely a talented team with an exciting playing style.
Now, there is a break in the schedule (I’m guessing for finals). The next game isn’t until May 23rd. It is against UCLA. Besides the general enjoyment of facing off against UCLA, this is a key game in working towards a post-season run. And hopefully you will take in a game in Berkeley on what is promising to be a beautiful Memorial Day weekend.
Hopefully, Ross will put the USC game and others of its ilk behind him. Hopefully, he can build off of the Stanford game to end the regular season on a high note. Man, I sure do say hopefully a lot.
So, enjoy this post while we all wait for the SBN staff to finalize the details with the new website. We are as excited as you to open shop and the second it is ready, we will tell all y’all. Until then, GO BEARS!
