I was talking to a friend the other day in one of my classes when the baseball team came up. He asked me how the team was doing because he stopped paying attention after the opening week. When I told him they were 13-29 and 3-12 in the Pacific-10 Conference he made one of those faces that was like, “Holy crap, really?” But then he followed up with an excuse, saying the team was still young, there hadn’t been baseball in 30 years, and as it establishes itself it’ll be better.
These things are all true, but I bet if you ask any player on the team, they wouldn’t say any of those things, and rightfully so. They just aren’t playing good baseball right now. The reason their struggles aren’t being more widely covered is they have a sort of “bye year,” if that makes any sense. Everyone – the fans, the administration, the donors – are just happy there’s a program again. They figured the team wouldn’t be that good, and as long as it won a few games to make everyone feel good, things would be just fine.
However, all the pressure to win is coming from head coach George Horton and his team. They would call B.S. on anyone who said it was OK they didn’t do as well this year. Horton, who has won two national championships, is a huge competitor and the losses are killing him. I know: I’ve stood in front of him after every home loss and heard him vent his frustrations. I’ve heard him talk about Cal State Fullerton with pride, and say he’s trying to instill the same sort of mentality here.
The players are also frustrated with the way things are going. They decided to come to Oregon to play baseball and win. No one plays a sport to lose. Infielder Danny Pulfer has been an outspoken member of the team, and he’s said the mentality has been off and guys are frustrated. And just to show how confident he was at the beginning of the season, he predicted they would be over .500 for the season, and compete for the playoffs.
But before this team can even think about competing for the playoffs, there must be a change. Maybe it is just youth, and with 18 freshmen, there’s a case for immaturity and not knowing how to handle the daily grind and make adjustments to a losing streak. But I don’t buy that. This team is talented. It is loaded with good players at every position. What’s hurting them right now is all mental.
The players are letting things affect them too much. They’re pressing because they are losing, and in baseball, the harder you try to hit a home run, the more times you’ll fail.
My high school baseball coach put it best about a struggling team. He said that if a team starts making errors, or hitting badly, it’s like quicksand. The harder and harder you struggle to get out, the deeper you sink. You have to calm down and let things come to you.
Right now the Ducks have two huge problems hurting them. It started out as just a struggle to get hits, and then it was pitching. Now it’s both. From the plate Oregon is hitting .237 for the year, and .200 in conference. That’s just under three hits a game in conference. Nationally, the team’s average is ranked 287 in Division I. You know how many schools play Division I baseball? 288. Pretty bad.
Horton said they would have a hard time getting hits, but for the second ranked class in last year’s recruiting, this is pretty bad.
Pitching wise, things look great in comparison. However, once you see what the team has done in recent weeks, you’ll change your mind. The staff was so stellar earlier in the year that four weeks ago it was ranked ninth in the country in ERA. Ninth out of 288 teams isn’t so bad. Fifty-three out of 288 isn’t that bad either, however, the team has won just four games in the past month. It has had two seven-game losing streaks, including its current one. And the pitching staff has given up 114 runs in the last 15 games. Granted, the team has only scored 42 in that same time frame, so it’s kind of hard to say it’s been all pitching, but late-inning collapses and big innings by the opposing team are becoming the norm.
On Tuesday night, for example, the Ducks gave up six runs in the fifth inning to Oregon State to blow open a tied ball game. Then against Washington over the weekend it was a 0-0 tie going into the top of the ninth and the Huskies scored two runs to win 2-0.
Horton says the frustrating thing has been that his pitchers have lost their confidence because of the hitting struggles. They worry that if they give up just a single run, the offense might not be able to score. Because of that, they’re pitching tight, and nibbling at the corners of the strike zone and falling behind to hitters. That’s leading to them throwing a lot of good pitches in 3-0, 3-1 counts when guys know they’ll see a fastball.
Basically, struggles breed struggles. It’s contagious. If a few hitters are having a hard time putting good swings on the ball, it’ll move on down the order and soon guys can’t get the runner in from second. Then the pitchers pick up on the action because they feel they have to be perfect to win. It’s all really messy, and frustrating.
So what do the Ducks need? In all honesty, they need a win. And not just any win – a win where they dominate, like the 10-2 variety. They need to hit a few home runs, and everyone needs to get a hit, and the pitchers need to throw well. They need to forget about their struggles and just have fun again. Because that’s what baseball is about: having fun.
But I have a feeling that very soon we will be talking about the Ducks in a little bit more positive light. With another top 12 recruiting class on the way, the players this year growing in experience by a year, the window for the next four years is pretty wide open.
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