With the first baseball season of the new era in the books, players and coaches alike were disappointed.
A 14-42 record wasn’t what most had envisioned when they signed up to play in Eugene, but one thing that everyone agrees on is that being thrown into the mix right away was the best thing Oregon could have done.
The Ducks could have played a non-Pacific-10 schedule to slowly work their way back into the game, but head coach George Horton said that he wanted the challenge right away.
Third baseman Danny Pulfer agreed.
“I would not do anything over,” Pulfer said. “If we were to go back and say, ‘let’s play an independent schedule,’ I would say that’s weak. That’s for teams that don’t want to man up and do it. No one came here and said that they didn’t want to play in the Pac-10.”
But the team took a lot of hard hits this year. The Ducks lost their last 13 games of the season, and 27 of their last 29. They finished second to last in hitting in the nation with a .227 batting average and the team’s once-celebrated pitching staff fell to 81st in the country with a 5.07 ERA.
“Some of the results came early then the second was just a miserable grind,” Horton said. “We actually got more incompetent playing the game of baseball. Never in my career has my team regressed like that. It’s a little confusing to me. I think it’s toughness, and it will be easier to instill in them next year when we have them all year long.”
The Ducks did consistently falter down the stretch, and they were unable to get over the top with one hit. Center fielder Caleb Tommasini said that’s something that will be better next year because the team now knows what it takes to play Division I baseball.
“We know what a Division I team looks like,” Tommasini said. “They’re going to get ready. It’s a good foundation. We know what we have to be and we have all the routines set in place so now the guys can focus on getting better as players without the extra stuff.”
“D-I is a different game,” Pulfer said. “It’s a man’s game. In high school you can muscle balls that you can’t here. It’s just a battle of getting stronger and getting more mentally tough and grinding it out.”
The team did learn a lot, but it was also a learning experience for Horton and his staff. The skipper had never tasted defeat quite as much as he did this season, but he says now that the program is back, he can finally be himself.
“I learned about my assistant coaches and how to communicate with them,” Horton said. “I learned about my team and what buttons to push with them. It was an ongoing learning environment the entire year. It was miserable going through it, to be honest with you. They’re going to get the real me next year, like it or not. That doesn’t always mean good and easy.”
Another piece of the puzzle that will be complete is the new stadium. Although the Ducks played a full home schedule at PK Park, it wasn’t close to being done. Crews started Sunday by tearing down the temporary bleachers and breaking ground on the permanent seating with a covered roof.
Horton is excited because he won’t have to watch over his players all the time.
“We’ll have our own facility where they can hit on their own,” he said. “We can stretch the hours the NCAA allows us to practice by them coming here and working out on their own. It will make a big difference in the quality of team we put out on the field next year.”
And the team that he does put out will be quite different. Tommasini and first baseman Andrew Schmidt are graduating, and with a new class coming in, the team hopes to have a few more power hitters in the order.
“We need to add hitters,” Horton said. “Strength. I think toughness. We need guys who can swing the bat. We have nice kids, but the problem is they might be too nice. We need good kids who will run through anyone who is in their way.”
All the players would welcome a big bat in the lineup, but they go into this summer planning to work on their own games so they come back next fall ready to go.
“Next fall is going to come up quick,” Pulfer said. “We’re all going to play summer ball around the country. We know what we have to work on to improve. We’ll be ready to win next fall.”
Horton’s goal is to still be playing in June next year. He said it felt weird because he thought the season was too short.
“I don’t ever want to be thinking about next year on May 24 again,” he said. “That’s the first time in my career where that’s happened. They pay me a lot of money, and I should work deep into June. The way this second half went, I realized we have a bigger step to take for next year than I thought we would. But that’s OK. I’m not afraid of that.”
Pulfer even declared that next year fans would see a completely different team. Whatever the case, it won’t be hard to improve on 14 wins.
“Next season starts tomorrow,” he said. “Actually, it starts right now. I expect next year to be a lot different. Probably opposite. I expect to be talking about our regional game coming up this time next year. Questions like that will be more entertaining to answer than about our 14-42 season.”
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