Coach Horton likes to talk about a former team of his that struggled to start off the season. It was a Cal State Fullerton team that was 15-15 through the first 30 games of the season, including two series in which they were swept by No. 5 Stanford and No. 1 Texas.
Horton was at his wit’s end. He had no clue what to do and, as a last resort, he brought in a sports psychologist to try to right the team. After that meeting, Horton realized part of the problem had been the fact that he had been thinking and doing negative things. He had been getting on guys for screwing up, instead of finding a reason to compliment them.
So he made a change. Horton held a team meeting and told his players that from that point on they would catch each other doing things the right way. They would focus on having fun again and being positive.
The rest of the season Cal State Fullerton went 32-7. They went 19-2 in conference, and 11-2 in the post season and marched to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., where they beat Texas twice to win the 2004 championship.
Why is that story relevant? Horton is making a lot of parallels between that 2004 team and this year’s Duck team. Oregon is struggling hitting the ball, and is 11-15 going into Pacific-10 Conference play.
The Ducks have one player batting above .300, and they’ve been outscored 112-87 this season. And most telling of all, the Ducks have scored two or fewer runs in 10 of their 15 losses.
Senior Caleb Tommasini, the lone player hitting over .300 at .327, says it’s about believing in one’s self.
“I really just think its confidence,” he said. “Sometimes all you have to do with a guy on third and one out is hit a ground ball somewhere, and even though we know that, we try too hard and strike out or pop up. You have to be confident that when you step up to the plate, you’re going to put a good swing on it. Don’t worry so much about placing the ball.”
That mirrors what Horton has been saying, and it showed in Tuesday’s game against the Portland Pilots. In the last three innings, the Ducks struck out six times with the score 3-1 Portland.
“We’re not putting pressure on anybody. Our at-bats are non-competitive,” Horton said after the game. “Not to take anything away from Portland’s pitchers, but those guys were left-handers throwing 81-to-82 miles per hour and we were striking out looking. I could see that if they were throwing 91-to-92, but they were pitching to keep you off balance, not strike you out, and we were striking out. Something’s wrong with that picture.”
Tuesday’s loss left everyone wondering where the team is going to go from here. Not a lot of pressure has been put on the team to win, and alumni and fans are to some extent fine with what the team has done so far. However, Horton and the team have put pressure on themselves to win right away. They feel like it’s a disservice to the sport and the University if they accept losing.
Danny Pulfer, an outspoken freshman on the team who has played both second base and third base this year, says morale was down after dropping two of three from Oregon State, then losing again to the Pilots. He’s ready to do something about it.
“Eleven-and-15? It’s not good enough,” Pulfer said. “Not good enough. We had to write down what we thought we would win at the beginning of the year, and if I am to come out on top we can only lose four more games. It’s doable, but we just need to step it up. We will definitely put up a few more wins in the win column.”
In order to get back on track and fix the offensive struggles, Horton has taken a message from his ’04 Titans team: be positive.
“It dawned on me that I don’t think a single coach or player in our dugout had fun (on Tuesday),” Horton said. “Yeah, it’s not fun when you’re losing and not playing well, but why should that have been the attitude before the game even started?
“So I apologized to them,” Horton continued. “It’s all been negative coming from me, challenging them, and it’s been anti-productive. I reflected on this, and I kind of forgot that the design of college athletics was for the kids to have fun.”
That means, like in 2004, catching people doing the right things and being good. It means enjoying the game of baseball.
“We’re going to have fun in the process instead of beating ourselves to death, which we were doing,” Horton said.
The players have listened, too. Wednesday’s practice was full of hitting and laughter, as Horton injected the “getting back to having fun” motto into the drills.
“We’re mentally pressing right now,” Tommasini said. “Have fun, get back to the fundamentals. Those things have kind of gotten away from us as of late. We need to play Duck baseball and do what we do.”
Stanford presents that first opportunity for the Ducks to try out their refreshed look, and try to let the hits come to them.
“The good thing about baseball is that we can go out and play the next day because we have a new opponent,” junior Eddy Rodriguez said. “The mood was good, I think we refocused.”
And although Oregon will probably not go 19-2 in conference and storm through the post season, the concern over their struggles shows that the team is invested in winning now, not later.
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