University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Baseball Mailbag
June 8, 2007 | Baseball
June 8, 2007
By Adam Lucas
The first week of the Baseball Mailbag was a rousing success. Thanks to all the fans of the Diamond Heels for the great questions. There wasn't enough space for all of them, but we'll also tackle a couple that didn't make the column on tonight's expanded pregame show on the Tar Heel Sports Network.
As always, of course, Jones Angell and I will also be in the booth answering your emails throughout the game.
My first question is about the relievers... Matt Danford and Rob Wooten. In the past 2 season Matt has been the long reliever for us, but lately it looks like Coach is just using him for some spot duty and Rob has become the long reliever. Is the answer because Rob is just performing better or is there a nagging injury with Matt that we don't know about?
Second question: Pairings for the Super Regionals. It doesn't look like (not to me anyway) the NCAA pairs the regionals according to seeding. My question is why aren't the Super Regionals paired 1 vs 16; 2 vs 15 and so on like that?
Thanks for the answers and thanks again for installing the Baseball Mailbag.
Danny Williams
Danford's last five outings have been for two innings or less. But other than a terrific 3.1 inning stint against Western Carolina, Wooten has also primarily been a short reliever--32 of his team-high 38 appearances have been two innings or less. Danford is healthy, but the staff also believes he's best used once through the order. It's also worth noting that three outside factors have impacted the way the bullpen is used: 1. The variety of arms in the `pen, which creates more flexibility; 2. The fact that the Carolina starters have largely done a good job of working into the middle and late innings, which negates the need for long middle relief, and 3. Andrew Carignan's expanded role, which has taken him from exclusively a one-inning pitcher to a player comfortable with occasionally going two innings or more.
The answer to your second question is that the NCAA baseball tournament doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If Carolina is the third national seed, it stands to reason their super-regional opponent should be the equivalent of the 14th seed. That's not the case, as South Carolina is significantly better than several teams left in the field. But the NCAA isn't necessarily striving to get the 8 national seeds to Omaha. They're striving for geographic diversity. It's important to them to have representation from the west coast rather than an all-east coast or all-southeast College World Series. Your opinion on whether that's fair probably corresponds to where you live. It does seem to dilute the idea that the baseball tournament is crowning the "best team" in much the same way the old basketball format--which actually assigned teams to regionals based on geography during the UCLA heyday--penalized the east coast teams.
Was wondering when they demolish the stadium, will there be a chance to get something as a memory of the stadium? Are they going to sell parts of the stadium at some time?
Linda Colhoun
As you've probably heard by now, the next time after this weekend the Tar Heels take the field at Boshamer Stadium, it will be a dramatically different stadium. "Saving" part of the stadium for public sale is a tricky issue. It's been a popular avenue to sell pieces of basketball courts, but you can't really sell the Boshamer infield. And because fans haven't had specific seats over the last 30 years, there's not the same demand for individual seats that there otherwise might be.
In other words, don't expect a Boshamer yard sale.
I have noticed that Drew Poulk has not played in recent games after being a starter early in the season. Is he injured or just not earning playing time?
Mike Durham
Poulk started 23 games for Carolina in the outfield this year. The main problem for the freshman is a glut of outfield talent. Reid Fronk is a fixture in left field. Seth Williams is a veteran who has made some spectacular plays in center even when his bat hasn't been clicking, and he's the kind of hitter who can instantly get hot and make a difference in games. The real issue for Poulk has been in right field, where it might have been logical to assume that he would platoon with the left-handed Tim Fedroff. But Fedroff has simply been too good--and has shown a mastery of some of the little things that Poulk, like most freshmen, has occasionally struggled with--to take out of the lineup. The Flagtown, NJ, product has posted a .363 batting average (good for second on the team) and .536 slugging percentage (fourth on the team) on the way to second-team All-ACC honors.
It's great to hear that as many loyal UNC supporters as possible will pack Boshamer for the Super Regional, especially against a team like South Carolina and the fans they will bring. Who are "groups closely associated with the Tar Heel baseball program" who were allowed to purchase tickets?
George Meyer
Chapel Hill
This is a popular question. Members of the Carolina baseball booster group (the Diamond Heels), Rams Club members from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia with at least 500 points, Boshamer Stadium renovation donors, season ticket holders, Old Leaguers (the former player organization), and purchasers of last weekend's regional tickets all received an email enabling them to purchase tickets. As you might expect, those groups quickly snapped up every available ticket.
That has led some fans to wonder why the "general public" didn't get a chance to buy seats. First and foremost, the number of available tickets is simply limited by the size of Boshamer Stadium. Carolina is required by the NCAA to issue the visiting team 600 tickets, and rules mandate that those tickets must be between first and third base, which means 600 of the Boshamer grandstand seats will be occupied by South Carolina fans. Then the families of the Tar Heel players and coaches must be accommodated. By the time all those requests are filled, you're looking at less than 1,000 grandstand tickets for the "groups associated with the program," which is a miniscule amount considering the demand.
The athletic department has tried to be creative with Boshamer space to accommodate more UNC fans for this weekend's games--the area that formerly housed the tarp now contains three rows of temporary bleachers, and some bushes were removed on the grassy bank area to create more general admission space.
There's a misconception out there that Carolina is "catering to the big donors" with this weekend's games. That's not true--any member of the general public could have purchased regional tickets for last weekend, which would have put them on the email list for the super-regional. There comes a time when demand passes supply and the ticket office has to try and determine the most fair way to distribute tickets. Once that happens, someone is bound to feel left out. That's not a problem for events like the ACC Tournament or the Carolina-Duke basketball game, when everyone understands the priority system. But this is new territory for Tar Heel baseball. Fortunately, it will be less of a problem in the new Boshamer, when stadium donors will have seating rights corresponding to their giving levels. In most ways, overwhelming demand is a great problem to have. The ticket office took great pains to make sure that they weren't squeezing out anyone they could readily identify as an established Carolina baseball supporter.
Do you honestly think that the Tar Heels can beat the Gamecocks? They have owned us in the past, and let's face it the SEC is usually much stronger than the ACC in baseball. I doubt they will be intimidated in Boshamer Stadium (in fact it would not surprise me if a third of the stadium isn't USC fans). They seem to have had some ups and downs with their pitching and their hitting is streaky. They have, however, had one of the best records in college baseball this decade, and are one of only two teams - Miami being the other - to advance to a super regional seven out of the eight years that super regionals have been in existence. I know we are strong, having and were but a few breaks away from a national championship, but they have had more success over the past few years than we have. The Gamecocks make me nervous. Your thoughts?
Name withheld
We're withholding the above emailer's name to protect the guilty, but this email is a great example of how people underestimate the power of the internet (or maybe underestimate the intelligence of the Mailbag staff). The above email was supposedly written by a Carolina fan. However, it sounds a little fishy, doesn't it? Fortunately, that "fan" used his personal email address, which was easily traced to a business, which contained profiles of all the primary partners. The profile of the above emailer listed--within the first paragraph of information--the fact that he had attended South Carolina undergrad, South Carolina graduate school, and was born and raised in Columbia. It's just amazing what you can find on the Internet these days, isn't it? Maybe they don't have Google in Columbia.
That being said, no matter how foolishly it was presented, it's a fair question. The facts are well-known--the Gamecocks ended Carolina's season for three straight seasons earlier this decade. But it's also a fact that the Carolina program wasn't at the same level it is now, and all those games were played in Columbia in front of a very hostile crowd. It's up to the Boshamer crowd to create the same environment that rocked in the late innings of the regional from the first pitch starting Friday at 7 p.m.
It's pretty simple: these are two of the best teams in America, and the difference between them this weekend is likely to be tiny. "We're going to be in a dogfight," Mike Fox says. "These games are going to come down to one at-bat or one pitch or one play. These are two very evenly matched teams and I hope our crowd is going to help us.
"We're going to have to attack them offensively. If we try to be too careful, we're going to get ourselves into trouble. And we know we're going to have to score some runs to win."
How did Coach Fox decide on the 25 players on his playoff roster? This
year Carolina has used many pitchers, somewhere around 13 I believe,
but not all 13 are on the roster. I've been forced to follow the games
from outside of Chapel Hill, and cannot see who takes the field or
dugout at the Bosh.
Audrey Peck
Chapel Hill
Narrowing the active roster to 25 is one of the most painful parts of the postseason for any head coach. Carolina's in-season roster contained 39 players--that's 39 players who went to every practice, attended every home game, and sweated in every weightlifting session. Then, beginning with the ACC Tournament, 14 of them have to be sent home. NCAA rules don't even allow the non-roster players to be in the dugout, which seems unusually cruel for an organization that purports to have the best interest of the student-athlete at heart.
Rosters can be adjusted after each round of the postseason. In fact, Carolina made a change for the super-regionals by adding left-handed pitcher Matt Cox, who has had some very significant outings against left-handed hitters this season.
Filling a postseason pitching roster is tricky--you're not necessarily seeking the 11 or 12 best arms. Instead, a team wants to fill certain roles. Carolina's four primary starters--Robert Woodard, Alex White, Luke Putkonen, and Adam Warren--were obviously going to make the cut. But a pitcher who can eat up some innings in middle relief or fill a spot start in an emergency situation (illness, injury, etc.) is also important, which is why Mike Facchinei--who has impressed the coaches recently in practice--worked his way back onto the postseason roster.
Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
