Some days I have a little nagging worry that I’m forgetting something – I’m sure lots of people do – but, I swear I can literally feel it sitting right there in the back of my brain, kind of pressed up against my skull. Many of those days it never goes away (probably because I’m not actually forgetting anything), but sometimes I’m sitting there at my desk and I start to think…hmm, it’s mid-February. It’s a beautiful day. It’s…is it? Oh my god, it is!
IT’S BASEBALL TIME!!!
Continue readingWell, here we are, the final series of the 2018 Towson baseball season, though perhaps the first to be played completely underwater. The first game, scheduled for yesterday, has already been cancelled and today’s game has been moved up to beat even more rain expected in the Baltimore area tonight. Tomorrow’s contest, the final of the season and Senior Day, is definitely in jeopardy as well, so stay tuned to Twitter and Towson’s website for scheduling info.
With yesterday’s rainout, combined with a William & Mary loss to Elon, Towson is assured of not finishing in the Colonial Athletic Association basement. If the Tigers could win both of the last two games, they would actually tie their final opponent, James Madison University, in the conference standings. Depending on how other games go, those teams (Towson, JMU, and William & Mary) would end up being the only CAA teams to finish with a losing conference record. It was a deep, competitive conference field this year.
JMU came into this weekend on a two game winning streak. Prior to that, however, the Dukes had lost seven straight and 10 of 11 games. On offense they are basically on par with the Tigers, hitting for a little more average and slugging, but still scoring slightly fewer runs than Towson, albeit in three fewer games. They strikeout quite a bit, which Towson does not, and walk somewhat rarely, which Towson does do well (second in the CAA coming into the weekend). So the bats, much like the weather, are a wash.
Play ball!
It is a bittersweet realization that the regular season for Towson is almost over, after another up and (mostly) down weekend. Personally, the sweetness comes from knowing I have nearly made it through my first attempt to cover a college baseball team. Also, to be honest, it is a relief to soon get some of my time back. With a full-time job, a family that will shortly expand to three kids, and training for a half-marathon – along with other hobbies – I do feel myself getting stretched thin. Or maybe that’s just all the running.
But still, I do wish it wasn’t quite over. While I’ve had a great deal of fun with this project and learned a tremendous amount, it would have been fun to cover a fairy tale ending where the underdog picks themselves up and roars past the finish line ahead of all others. Or just qualifies for the conference tournament (if I’m reading this correctly, only the top six teams get invites). Of course, the players and coaches would have liked that even more, especially the seniors who will finish their college careers this coming weekend. Hopefully they can take pride that they got to compete at a level that the vast majority of us never could.
Thirteen weekends into the college baseball regular season, it’s probably not going to surprise you that Towson is playing yet another private, liberal arts university with a beautiful, historic campus. Apparently you can’t toss a baseball on the east coast without hitting one of those things. This weekend’s opponent, Elon University, is mostly notable for transforming itself from a tiny, religious school into one of the more highly ranked private universities in the southern U.S. They even wrote a book about it.
Their mascot is the Phoenix, which references a 1923 fire that burned much of the campus. It’s a great improvement over their previous mascot, the Fighting Christians, which, even given their proximity to Blue Devils and Demon Deacons, is wildly unimaginative and more than a little awkward. How many times did people have to say things like, “Boy, those Devils really killed the Christians this weekend,” or “How do you think the Christians will do against the Bears?”
Don’t even ask about the Tigers.
I don’t always know what I’m talking about, but sometimes it seems that way. After lamenting the Tigers inability to get good performances from all of their players synced up, wouldn’t you know that Dean Stramara has a great start and Towson hits two home runs to take a 6-2 lead, only to see Gavin Weyman have his first rough appearance in nearly a month, including the first two homers he has given up all season, and eventually fall to the University of Maryland Terrapins in extra innings, 8-7. Some of this is just a matter of inconsistency, but sometimes it just feels like this team is a little snake-bitten.
Look, I love baseball, but I HATE tigers.
Despite losing two of three games, this was a much better weekend than the one before, as the Tigers played much tougher against one of the Colonial Athletic Association’s best. The College of Charleston jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first inning in Friday’s game, but Towson held them to two runs the rest of the way. Unfortunately, the offense couldn’t come all the way back, leaving the home team on the short end of an 8-3 score. On Saturday, the Tigers tied the game at five runs apiece after four innings, but the Cougars pulled away for a 13-5 victory. All of Charleston’s runs came against guys who, at times this season, have been Towson’s best pitchers, Michael Adams and Dean Stramara.
That’s been one of the great shames of this season for Towson. At the end of the season, the Tigers pitching numbers are going to look bad, but for assorted stretches they have gotten excellent performances from their starters. Just never at the same time. At the beginning of the year it was David Marriggi and Gavin Weyman pitching well, as Adams struggled to find a rhythm and Alex Cuas struggled. Then Adams went on an extended streak of fantastic pitching, but it was just as Weyman hit a downturn for several weeks. Now Weyman (being featured in more of a “piggyback” relief role) and Cuas have been excellent for several weeks, but Marriggi and Adams have hit a skid at the same time. Similar things have happened in the bullpen, as guys like Stramara, Jake Pecilunas, and Matt Watters, among others, have juggled stretches of excellence with hiccups that eventually cost Towson games and will skew their season stats at the end of the year.
Pictured: Not, in fact, a 2018 Towson pitching performance.
This is going to be a quick preview, as I much as I would love to wax poetic about Towson’s opponent this weekend, the College of Charleston. It’s a college. It’s in Charleston. I’m going to go to at least one of the games this weekend, so I’ll have a more extensive series recap with some photos and video.
The Cougars baseball team is in second place in the Colonial Athletic Association (12-6 in conference play, 30-15 overall), but are only 5-8 on the road (that’s right, they’ve only played 13 of 45 games on the road. How’s that for some scheduling?!). Charleston has a powerful offense, showing up in the top three of just about every statistical category in the CAA, and are the only conference pitching staff with an ERA under three (2.86, though it is a more middle-of-the-pack 3.13 in conference play). They don’t have any highly rated MLB draft prospects that I can find on any list, they’re just a very good college baseball team. Towson will have it’s work cut out for it this weekend.
If there was ever a weekend you wanted to baseball, baseball, this would be a good weekend to baseball.
Perspective is an important thing, which can be difficult to remember when dealing with sports. Especially in these days of endless news cycles, instant gratification, and hot takes delivered in 240 characters or less, perspective is easily forgotten. At best, it’s easily forgotten; at worst, you will be openly mocked for having it. Baseball, of all sports, should have some built-in immunity, with it’s long seasons and unavoidable ebbs and flows, but even this most pastoral of games is infected with the need to assign grand meaning to each and every game. It shouldn’t be that way. Great teams lose three or four times in every ten game stretch. Great hitters make outs 65-70% of the time. Failure is built into the fabric of the game.
I’m writing this partially because I’m a Cubs fan and, even after going 5-2 on their last home stand, everything I read this week is doom and gloom, all because those two loses happened to be the last two games. The five wins preceding that have been completely disregarded. Even the best writers, the ones I leaned on during the truly “dark” seasons of recent past, are timidly asking permission to share some home run videos. This is a team that has gone to three straight league championship series, won the World Series the year before last, and, even though it’s played about as poorly as you could imagine this team playing, is three games above .500 and just won five out of seven games. And people are freaking angry about that. It’s insidious and I can’t stand it.
But the other reason I’m writing this is because I was given a huge dose of perspective this week. I won’t go into many details, and I will let you know up-front that everything is okay now, but I spent all day Wednesday at the hospital with my wife, who is twenty-seven weeks pregnant. There can’t be many things as jarring as the text I got that morning telling me she had to go to labor and delivery. I could think of a few, but I’d prefer to not.
All of the tests came back normal. The crisis was averted. Mother and baby are fine, and it will still be another six or seven weeks before I meet my son.
If you think losing a baseball game is a bad thing, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. Baseball is a wonderful distraction. It’s one for which I’m thankful. But, in the big scheme of things, it’s really not important. Remember that the next time your favorite team loses a game, or a series, or is having a crappy season. Remember that the next time you feel the urge say someone sucks, because they struck out, or walked a guy, or dropped a throw. If your team loses, take a minute to think of the good things you have going on in your life. If you don’t feel there is anything good going on in your life, try appreciating the game for the wonderful distraction that it is. Be thankful that it’s there to draw our mind away from the real burdens and injustices of this world. It can do that for you, no matter what the scoreboard says.
Let’s talk about some baseball.
Towson begins the last month of the 2018 regular season today, taking on George Washington University in a home game at Schuerholz Park. It is a beautiful day for baseball and you have no idea how badly I want to skip out on work and go catch the game, but, alas, I am a responsible adult. Sixteen year-old Dylan is very disappointed in me right now (this happens a lot).
The Tigers played GWU earlier this year (apparently they play every 22 games) and dropped a road contest 13-2. One thing these two teams have in common is that neither can seem to beat UMBC, going a combined 0-3 when playing the Retrievers. The Colonials are 24-18 on the season, but only 5-5 in their last 10 games. Towson just wrapped up a 7-12 April that saw them lose their last five games of the month. The Tigers have shown when they play sound, error-free baseball, they are capable of beating a lot of teams. On the flip-side, they can have games where the wheels come off and lose to just about anyone. Time to shave those goatees and let the good Tigers out.
Evil looking S.O.B., ain’t he?
It was a weird weekend Boston for Towson, as the Tigers dealt with rainy conditions, last minute rotation changes, and deep, talented Northeastern batting lineup. Looking back, the first two games of the series will almost certainly be considered the low point of the season, as many of the incremental improvements the team has made took steps back and they were drubbed by a combined score of 45-8. At least they got the two point conversion. But, in the face of that adversity, this Tiger team showed resilience, and some great pitching, and nearly pulled out a win in the finale, before falling 2-1. As I’ve written before, they don’t count moral victories in the standings, but they do show something about the fabric of a team. It was a game they could have easily turned tail, but the Towson competed instead. It’s a brick that might be a little chipped, but you can still add it to the wall.
Continue reading
