BB: OAC: Ohio Athletic Conference

Started by Ralph Turner, January 09, 2006, 11:38:52 PM

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Ralph Turner

#3000
Thanks Dr. Acula...

I am trying to get a feel for "math" in the OAC.

In the ASC, we play 3-game series. That breaks down into these "rules" when playing these teams.  The conference season is eight 3-game series. (The top 8 teams of 11 go to the post-season. McMurry and Belhaven are re-classifying and provisional.)  When you are playing...

Bottom third teams:  At home, must get the sweep.  On the road, better not regret failing to sweep.  (Some bottom third teams in the ASC still have an ace who might beat any of your top 3 starters. Their weaknesses are the other starters and bullpen.)

Middle Third:  At home, must win series. +1 if you sweep. On the road, winning the series gives you +1!

Top Third:  At home, win the series. On the road, win 1 of 3;  2 of 3 on the road, +1!

Can you outline the "rules" for the OAC?  Thanks.

Dr. Acula

The OAC does a full round robin regular season with a single DH format.  The reason the math is important from day 1 is because only the top 4 teams (out of 10) make the conference tournament.  Leaving 6 teams out coupled with the way the OAC is typically aligned competitively often means there is very little difference between #4 and #5-7 or even #8.  There are ups and downs for most of the schools, but nearly every year the conference is a dog fight just to make the top 4.  The "math" not to oversimplify it is basically you need to sweep #9 and 10 and go .500 against everyone else.  11-7 nearly always lands you in the top 4.  So my point with JCU today was that most years Cap is in the bottom 1/3 so at WORST you have to split with them.  Likely you need to sweep them.  So you may be 2 games back of the top 4 out of the gate.  That's not a great spot.

Many years ago the regular season was just an 18 game corination for Etta, but those days are gone.  The conference is top to bottom much more competitive.  As a fan I can't complain about that!

Ralph Turner

Thanks. Makes sense and I now have a metric to follow the season...  11-7.

Dr. Acula

Congrats to freshman Collin Skufca on picking up his first collegiate W in his first start.  He went 6 allowing 1 ER in Mount's 4-2 win over Thiel yesterday.  First inning nerves probably contributed to 3 free passes in the frame, but he settled down and pitched very well after that. 

Dr. Acula

#3004
Mount @ BW is the lone DH today.  Everyone else pushed to Monday due to predicted weather I think.  BW moved start time today up to 11 AM because of it.

Late inning drama in game 1.  As expected Lovick and Mary were locked up in a good pitchers duel.  Both threw well with Lovick taking a no hitter to the 6th.  He departed after 7 in a 2-2 game.  Mount got a 2 out 0-2 solo homer from Keleman in the 9th to take a 3-2 lead, but BW answered with a leadoff solo shot from Taw off Mary in the bottom of the 9th to end his day on the mound.  Mount bounced back with a clutch 2 run single from Stanziano in the 10th and Taylor pitched a 1-2-3 frame to get the W by 5-3 score.  Interestingly BW used Cody in relief of Lovick and he threw around 60 pitches so I'm not sure what they'll do in game 2 now.

Mount completed a big sweep winning 4-1 in game 2.  My thoughts are pretty much unchanged from last weekend...Mount has excellent starting pitching at the top of the rotation and a couple dangerous bats, but overall their lineup is just not overly potent (.270 team avg).  They've done a good job of guys coming up with big hits when needed, but it's a dangerous game to play when you don't hit for a high team average and you also don't hit a lot of XBH.  It puts immense pressure on executing to score runs.

The other concern is the question mark of what you have behind Mary, Skladan and Taylor.  In 4 OAC games you've used 2 starters and 1 reliever total.  That's fantastic news because it means your guys are pitching well (and efficiently), but at some point you're going to need the pen beyond Taylor.

All that being said it's a great day to be a Raider because you're sitting at 4-0 having played 2 of the top contenders.  That's just outstanding work out of the gate.  These guys know how to win close games and as a fan I love the excitement.   

Dr. Acula

It's always fun to tune into WMOA for an Etta DH.  Makes my work day a little better every time.  Also, Etta took game 1 at Berg 6-1.

Jim Dixon

Quote from: Dr. Acula on April 02, 2018, 05:00:14 PM
It's always fun to tune into WMOA for an Etta DH.  Makes my work day a little better every time.  Also, Etta took game 1 at Berg 6-1.

Hard to find a game actually going on this story week.

Dr. Acula

Looking at the Musky roster to see where a couple guys are from.  Noticed that they have 5 kids from the same HS in Chino, CA.  I wonder what the connection is there?  Gotta be a former Fish coaching at that HS or something because I don't know how else you end up in New Concord otherwise.

Jim Dixon

Quote from: Dr. Acula on April 05, 2018, 01:49:40 PM
Looking at the Musky roster to see where a couple guys are from.  Noticed that they have 5 kids from the same HS in Chino, CA.  I wonder what the connection is there?  Gotta be a former Fish coaching at that HS or something because I don't know how else you end up in New Concord otherwise.

Or an alumni who had a good experience.  I suspect the two p;layers who are juniors helped recruit the three who are currently freshmen this year.

Dr. Acula

Quote from: Jim Dixon on April 06, 2018, 12:04:19 PM
Quote from: Dr. Acula on April 05, 2018, 01:49:40 PM
Looking at the Musky roster to see where a couple guys are from.  Noticed that they have 5 kids from the same HS in Chino, CA.  I wonder what the connection is there?  Gotta be a former Fish coaching at that HS or something because I don't know how else you end up in New Concord otherwise.

Or an alumni who had a good experience.  I suspect the two p;layers who are juniors helped recruit the three who are currently freshmen this year.

No doubt, Jim.  I'm sure those upperclassmen had a hand in the 3 newbies.  Thompson is a good guy so I can certainly see an alumnus recommending Musky too. 

Dr. Acula

BW is really getting their money's worth on that new all turf field this spring.  They got their DH in yesterday while everyone today was of course PPD thanks to the snow.  The Jackets swept Wilm to move to 3-3.  That now gives us 7 teams at .500 currently when you add BW to the half dozen at 2-2. 

Dr. Acula

Wow.  Just watched the 9th inning of the Etta/Cap game and Grice has to be beside himself.  The ump just stole a split from Cap.  Etta batter takes strike 3 on a full count to end the game, but the ump was evidently too much of a coward to ring him up in Pioneer Park to end the game.  Just frozen behind the dish as the Cap infielders are jogging off the field only to realize the guy really wasn't going to call it.  Of course, the kid then steals 2nd and scores on a bloop single to tie the game and the next kid singles to score the winning run.  You knew that was going to happen though.

Dr. Acula

ONU sweeps Mount in very ugly fashion as my Raiders played their worst games of the year.  My concerns from earlier were problematic.

Quote from: Dr. Acula on March 31, 2018, 01:57:05 PM
My thoughts are pretty much unchanged from last weekend...Mount has excellent starting pitching at the top of the rotation and a couple dangerous bats, but overall their lineup is just not overly potent (.270 team avg).  They've done a good job of guys coming up with big hits when needed, but it's a dangerous game to play when you don't hit for a high team average and you also don't hit a lot of XBH.  It puts immense pressure on executing to score runs.

The double edged sword of you getting to use your top two guys is that you face the opponent's best guys.  The team average continues to dip (.263) and two key guys from the 2017 middle of the order, Scott and Keleman, are struggling at the half way point (both below .250).  This lineup just isn't good enough for those two to not be run producers.

Quote from: Dr. Acula on March 31, 2018, 01:57:05 PMThe other concern is the question mark of what you have behind Mary, Skladan and Taylor.  In 4 OAC games you've used 2 starters and 1 reliever total.  That's fantastic news because it means your guys are pitching well (and efficiently), but at some point you're going to need the pen beyond Taylor.

They had to go beyond Taylor and it wasn't pretty.  Game 1 the rest of the bullpen surrendered 8 earned in 2 IP.  It was just an all around bad day for the staff.  Mary and Skladan both had less than A+ stuff for them, Taylor may have come out okay in the box scores, but he allowed inherited runners to score in both games I believe and after that?  Not so good.  Martin just didn't have it (0.1 IP, 6 ER).

The other item that reared its head this week is defensive lapses.  Too many errors.  Mount was down 3-1 in game 1 because they gave up 2 runs on a passed ball.  If the stats are correct Wood has NINE passed balls in 15 games (I know he had two yesterday when I was listening).  You'll live with that if your catcher rakes, but if he's hitting .188 he needs to be a defensive star. 

With Etta's sweep they now sit atop the OAC at 5-1.  Mount needs at least a split tomorrow, but I'm afraid they're going to have to score quite a few runs to get it.  Also, I'm interested to see who starts these games.  Satovich got his first start on the mound last week so maybe that was a test run to see how the knee feels on the mound.  With the complete log jam developing Mount really needs to stay above it heading into Berg Saturday.

Dr. Acula

Mount escapes Tiffin with a split today to regain their legs a little after Etta just bludgeoned their staff for 29 runs in their sweep earlier this week.  The good news is that Mount is sitting at 5-5 heading into JCU and the Raiders' schedule was very front loaded.  Their last 6 games are with the 8th-10th place teams currently.  The better news is that Scott and Keleman are really heating up.  Both guys are delivering XBH and driving in runs which completely changes the look of the offense.

The bad news?  The last 7 games the opponents' scores have been 9, 15, 9, 7, 22, 10, 11.  And that includes 4 starts from Mary/Skladan.  The top two will go again against JCU on Wednesday.  If Mount comes out with at least a split they've got a solid shot at the OAC tourney.  With JCU at 6-4 it'd be fantastic to get vintage Mary/Skladan, sweep them and put the Streaks in the rear view for good (their schedule down the stretch is the toughest). 

Dr. Acula

How the OAC tourney race is shaping up.  (School/record/remaining opp.)

1)  Ott (11-3, BW, Etta)
2)  Etta (10-4, JCU, Ott)
3)  ONU (9-5, Musky, Wilm)
4)  BW (9-5, Ott, JCU)

5)  Mount (6-6, Wilm, Cap, Musky)
6)  Berg (7-7, Wilm, Cap)
7)  JCU (7-7, Etta, BW)

At this point barring something crazy I'd say that Ott, Etta and ONU are locks.  I don't see any of them finishing worse than 12-6 with their remaining schedules.  Mount is playing Wilm today which should move them to 8-6 (if it doesn't then they don't deserve to be in this discussion).  Mount has a couple things going for them in the fight for 4th.  First, they swept BW so they would win a tie with BW.  Second, they also swept the leader Ott which I believe is the tie breaker after H2H and would give them the nod in a tie with Berg or JCU whom they split with.  All of the above assumes teams win the games they should on paper and we all know in the OAC that is highly unlikely.  Should be an interesting last couple of weeks.