Accolades Abound as The Commies Travel to Western Kentucky

The awards and national recognition for the Commies seems to keep piling up, deservedly so. The Commies garnered another No. 1 National Ranking on Monday, this time from the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll. This is in addition to Collegiate Baseball having Vanderbilt ranked No. 1 for a third consecutive week. Another poll, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Poll, that has had Vanderbilt at the No. 1 spot, will be released later this week. In addition, Collegiate Baseball, named David Price as their Pitcher of the Week after his 13 strikeout performance last Friday against Xavier. The Commies won that game 3-2 on Pedro Alvarez’s sixth home run of the season.

Freshman lefty, Mike Minor (1-0, 1.84 ERA), who has been spectacular for the Commies, will take the mound at 4 pm today in Bowling Green, Kentucky as the Commies take on Western Kentucky who is 5-4 on the season.

I’ve scoured the web and I can’t find a whole lot on the Hilltoppers, but this much I do know. On the season, they’re hitting .293, led by Jack Ambrose (.625 in 4 games played) and Troy Frasier (.462 in 8 games played). There are two players who are perfect on the season, probable Pinch Hitters, C.J. Wamsley and Adam Rusnock who are both perfect at the plate so far. Of the players that have played in all nine games, their leading hitter is Terrence Dayleg at .308.

The Hilltopper pitching staff is averaging nearly 7 runs a game with a team ERA of 6.44. They’ve given up a total of 105 hits and walked 33 in 81 innings pitched, and only struck out 63. Matt Ridings leads the team with 13 strikeouts; the same amount Price manages to mow down in one game. The Hilltopper staff has given up 58 earned runs (61 total). Opposing teams are hitting .321 as a team against them and they have given up 8 long balls this season. Needless to say, if I were to compare these stats with our staff, there wouldn’t be much of a comparison…but let’s do it anyway.

Through 126 innings, our team ERA is 2.43, lead by newly appointed starter, Mike Minor (who’ll be pitching today). The Commie arms have only given up 34 earned runs (40 total), on 94 hits and only 31 walks. Opposing batters are hitting a measly .205 against us and oh yeah, we have 143 strikeouts thus far this season, or 1.13 an inning. They only given up 1 home run.

Offensively, the Commies look to continue the recent tear they’ve been on. Here are just a few notes on the probable starting line up for today’s game:

No. Pos. Player Avg. Notes
17 C/DH Shea Robin .250 Hitting .500 against lefthanders.
28 1B Brad French .370 7-for-16 (.438), HR, 5 RBI last five games.
8 2B Alex Feinberg .286 12 RBI third most on team.
22 SS Ryan Flaherty .442 8-for-19 (.421), 1 HR, 5 RBI last five games.
24 3B Pedro Alvarez .467 11-for-20 (.550), 3 HR, 6 RBI, last five games.
40 LF Jonathan White .304 3-for-4, 3 RBI against Xavier (3/4).
1 CF David Macias .280 Hit by pitch team high seven times.
3 RF Dominic de la Osa .333 6-for-13 (.462), 1 HR, 4 RBI last five games.
5 DH/ C Andrew Giobbi .421 6-for-14 (.429), 1 HR, 7 RBI in 4 starts last week.

(I apologize for the lack of spacing in the table above, have quite figured out tabs yet.)

You can get the entire 2007 Stat sheet here.