University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Little Things
June 26, 2006 | Baseball
June 26, 2006
By Adam Lucas
OMAHA--This is why we love the game of baseball.
Really, it is.
Not right now, of course. Right now there is no love. There is only pain. Right now there is only being ahead 5-0 with the national championship a mere 18 outs away.
There are those people who say the game of baseball is too slow to be interesting. Those people do not understand the game. Those people do not understand how a 5-0 lead can turn into 7-5 in the length of time it takes to draw a breath.
From the outside, the game looks so big, with the fancy strikeouts and titanic homers. But it's the little things that make the big ones possible.
Bill Rowe will get credit for his three-run homer that gave the Beavers the lead and capped the inning. That was the big blow. But it would not have been possible without a series of little things that combined to open the floodgates.
Against a team like Oregon State, the Tar Heels could potentially survive one little thing gone awry. Maybe two, considering the 5-0 lead. But let them start to pile up and the Beavers are too good, too opportunistic, not to take advantage.
"When we opened the door, they took advantage of it," head coach Mike Fox said. "We couldn't prevent the big inning."
Maybe the warning signs were there early and we just didn't want to see them. Robert Woodard speared a hard-hit grounder that could've scored two runs to hold OSU scoreless in the first. Bad Beaver baserunning in the second cost them another potential scoring opportunity, and they stranded two more runners in the third.
Those little things, those signs, didn't seem important then. After all, the score was 5-0! Chill the champagne and set up the parade route. Woodard, the most competitive of all the Carolina pitchers and a player who understands that with a 5-0 lead you make the opposition hit the ball to beat you, was on the mound.
Tyler Graham: hit by pitch.
John Wallace: single.
And then maybe the biggest at-bat of the game. Chris Kunda, a scrappy player who has been the best defensive player from any team in Omaha, fell behind 0-2. This is where Woodard usually thrives. He finds a batter's weak point and pierces it.
This time, though, Kunda turned it into a seven-pitch at-bat and worked a walk.
Little things.
The walk loaded the bases and set the wheels in motion for a seven-run inning. In the span of just a few minutes, Oregon State went from staring the end of their season in the face to boasting a firm grip on the best two-of-three national championship series.
"That inning happened pretty quickly," Fox said. "It was very uncharacteristic of Robert."
"I didn't show the mental toughness I usually have," Woodard said. "I'm very disappointed."
Disappointment seemed to settle like a cloud over the Tar Heels after the fateful fourth inning. Two painful defensive miscues--they weren't charged as errors, but they were at least as costly as any ground ball through the legs--combined to spark a four-run Oregon State inning in the sixth, and by then the outcome seemed obvious.
The Beavers operate like a steely-handed surgeon. When they bunt, they don't just bunt. They bunt perfectly. Every time they have needed one in this championship series they have laid it down within inches of the line and at exactly the right velocity.
The term "small ball" is a little misleading. To some people, it implies playing for just one or two runs. But Oregon State showed Sunday night that it can lead to offensive explosions if executed properly.
Little things.
Carolina's season comes down to Daniel Bard Monday night at 7 p.m. Eastern. Between now and then, there will be endless analysis of what might happen.
That analysis means absolutely nothing. No one, not a single person, has any clue what will happen. One of the biggest factors in the game--the direction of the Omaha wind, which has played a major role in the College World Series--won't be known until game time.
Here's what we do know, though. Carolina gets to play one baseball game for the national championship and every other team in the nation except for one will spend all day Monday wishing they could be in that position. Until the Tar Heels take the field at Rosenblatt Stadium, they know only one thing for certain:
Little things will be big.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
