Baseball regional starts today, Ealey to Jax State, SCarolina in the heat

So the Diamond Dogs today start their road toward Omaha by taking on a school located in OMAHA. In fact Creighton has played 18 games this season at the new home of the College World Series-TD Ameritrade Park. Yes, Rosenblatt is no more which is kind of sad. Anyway, Creighton is a very tough opening opponent. They have an ace pitcher named Jonas Dufek, 11-1 2.17 era will start today against UGA. Game is set to start at 4pm eastern. Of course UGA will counter with our own ace in Michael Palazzone, 10-4 3.20 era. Creighton finished the season with a 44-14 record while we of course finished a game above 500 but enough to get in at 31-30. Check out these stats, pulled from Rivals Oregon State writer Jerry Perry, to give you an idea about the 4 teams in our regional.

	OSU (1)	Creighton (2)	Georgia (3)	UALR (4)
Overall Record:	38 – 17	44 – 14	31 – 30	24 – 32
Conference Record:	17 – 10 (T-2nd)	15 – 6 (1st)	16 – 14 (4th)	10 – 20 (8th)
Home:	20 – 7	23 – 5	15 – 13	14 – 11
Away/Neutral Sites:	18 – 10	21 – 9	16 – 17	10 – 21
Last 10 Games:	4 – 6	9 – 1	6 – 4	5 – 5
Last 5 Games:	0 – 5	4 – 1	3 – 2	4 – 1
RPI*:	31	29	17	156
SOS*:	31	115	1	80
ISR*:	14	25	32	157
*RPI, SOS, & ISR numbers via boydsworld.com

I think one thing that jumps out at you, besides Creighton's W-L record, stength of schedule. Now, in a regional you throw that out the window but certainly you can see that UGA and OSU would be the favorites based on the competition we have faced. Meaning, neither team is going to be intimidated by facing Creighton or Little Rock or each other for that matter. Also interesting is OSU comes in having lost 5 straight.

Now look at the offensive numbers.

Offensive Comparison
	OSU (1)	Creighton (2)	Georgia (3)	UALR (4)
Runs/Game	5.73	5.33	4.80	5.20
Batting Ave.	.266	.269	.277	.275
OB%	.366	.357	.340	.365
SLG%	.380	.406	.384	.389
HR/Game	0.45	0.64	0.59	0.59
BB Per Game	4.42	3.43	2.67	4.11
K’s Per Game	7.13	6.60	7.05	7.20
Stolen Bases	50 of 64	66 of 90	45 of 59	51 of 76

UGA has the highest batting average which is surprising to me but score the fewest runs. Bottom line though, none of the 4 teams are truly offensive teams. I mean, remember, Creighton strength of schedule is 115, and their offensive numbers are not substantially better than ours playing the toughest schedule.

Now looking at pitching and defense

Pitching & Defense Comparison
	OSU (1)	Creighton (2)	Georgia (3)	UALR (4)
Team ERA	2.93	3.38	4.99	5.84
Opponent Bat Ave.	.243	.240	.293	.306
Team WHIP	1.19	1.24	1.54	1.74
HR Allowed/Game	0.29	0.31	0.77	0.68
BB Per 9 IP	2.67	3.27	3.50	4.84
K Per 9 IP	7.46	7.18	6.23	5.10
Fielding %	.971	.980	.974	.973
Stolen Bases Allowed	16 of 35	45 of 69	110 of 132	57 of 87

Here is where you see the top 2 seeds seem to be further ahead. Now, considering Palazzone has a 3.20 era, the rest of our staff is obviously not on that level. But, again, the OSU numbers are FAR more impressive than is the Creighton numbers based again on competition. OSU plays some VERY good schools in the PAC, a 2.93 team era is OUTSTANDING.

My personal opinion here, it should be either OSU or UGA winning this regional. IF UGA can win today, I think they will have a shot but I simply can't see us making it through the losers bracket because of our lack of pitching depth. I think OSU clearly has the advantage pitching wise, plus they are at home so I look for the Beavers to take it but you never truly know and that is why they play the games.

Washaun Ealey has found a new home, that being Jacksonville State in Alabama. This year the Gamecocks will play at Kentucky, you may remember that WE rushed for 5 touchdowns last year against UK so he gets another shot as he will be able to play right away. Too bad Jax State is not continuing their rivalry with GT, I would LOVE for Ealey to run all over the bumble bees. Anyway, I wish him the best and I hope he does well. I think we will survive just fine without him however.

Mark Richt made mention several times on the road doing his speeches that the UGA/SCarolina game would be a night but come to find out, the game will NOT be a night-maybe you could say early evening. It was announced yesterday that ESPN will televise the game on Sept 10th at 4:30. Course the Boise State game will start at 8pm on Sept 3rd. Also, it was announced the UGA/UF game will be on CBS with a 3:30 kickoff on Oct 29th. Back to the SCarolina game, WOW, it is going to be smoking hot for that game. For me personally, I do not like the 4:30 kickoffs because it conflicts with my daughters cheer schedule more than likely but, maybe I will get to see the second half. I just can't believe it is so close to football season.

Well, all for now and I will be away at the beach next week, so no blogging more than likely unless something big breaks. Thanks for reading and Go Dogs!!