Home Baseball Baseball: Oregon State @ Santa Barbara (Double Header and Game 4)

Baseball: Oregon State @ Santa Barbara (Double Header and Game 4)

By
angry
-
113

Yesterday's double header will be finished off at 11:30am. Game 4 starts at 1:00pm.

Couple notes:

Beaver's defense has been surprisingly bad. There's a reason Keyes DH'd last year, and he's still a liability in the field this year. Tyler Smith needs to play infield, whether it be 2B or 3B. Michael Conforto has been surprisingly absent the first three games. If he can't play the field adequately, then that is a big offensive loss. Beavs have been scoring some runs because Santa Barbara has no pitching, but against good teams they're going to need a couple middle of the lineup guys. I was figuring on Davis and Conforto providing that, but so far it hasn't panned out that way.

While the results have been good to date, there is reason for concern. Keep an eye on the defense and middle of the lineup the next two days. Finally, I question Pat Casey's call to bring in Fielding yesterday. Rodriguez pitched a strong inning. Why not leave him in there? If Casey was willing to go to Bryant after Fielding imploded, why not go to him before? I mean, I know the answer–he was hoping to rest Bryant. But it was clear Fielding was imploding, and the move should have come one or two batters sooner. On the flipside, in game 2, Casey managed the 8th and 9th inning like a pro, having Boyd move to 1B so he could return to pitch. Considering the downside is losing the DH, and Boyd is a very good hitter, I thought the move was what we would call in chess "a brilliancy". It semi made up for the Matt Fielding disaster.

Website says I can't buy tickets, but I'm going to try to get in somehow. If I do, I'll try to get some action shots.

113 COMMENTS

  1. “…it was clear Fielding was imploding, and the move should have come one or two batters sooner.”

    Fielding faced 2 batters.

    You wanted him pulled while he was warming up?

    Reply

    • Actually, yes. One was enough since he shouldn’t have been out there at all. 2 batters, 2 hits, a triple, and no reason to be on the mound that late in the game.

      Reply

        • My “schtick” is the truth, and Matt Fielding did nothing to earn time in key moments/at the end of games. Period.

          PS. What about my “schtick” that Conforto should get more playing time…interesting how you left that out.

          Reply

          • Nein, mein furor. You have to give the coaches a little slack. The guy comes in and yields a hit…..is he still warming up? who knows…. The coach has something in mind? What, the coach doesnt think exactly like you do, so he is wrong? Yeah, it proved to not work, but thats hindsight.

            I see this here in talk about all the coaches. In some situations maybe they made bad decisions, but no group of coaches will all make the same decisions and all what proves to be, the “right” ones.

            Its sports….shit happens.

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          • My opinion: a guy who has never pitched an NCAA inning shouldn’t be inserted in a pressure situation. If a coach does that, he deserves criticism when the risk backfires. Sorry.

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          • If a player is slated to fill the role of pitchin in relief, and he is new to the team, just how does he get into any game? You insert him when you dont need him, when the game is well in hand? How in hell does that prepare him to pitch in relief when the pressure is ON??

            I am a very critical ahole, but I dont see that as deserving criticism. Sorry.

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          • Like any other job, you work him in slowly until he’s ready for that task.

            With a high profile recruit who is a “man amongst boys”, I could see just throwing him into the fire. It’s really not a huge deal (other than it cost them the game) so let’s just agree to disagree (cliche cliche).

            Reply

  3. OT: Junior CB Sean Martin arrested for DUI and attempting to elude. Was never impressed with him but we do need CB depth. It will be interesting to see how Riley handles it if he gives him the boot or gives him the Afalava. On a side note…. not a good sign that his attempt at eluding was unsuccessful…. we need some speed at CB.

    Reply

    • Haha. Nice one.
      I don’t care either way…we need depth, but I don’t think Martin is a player. I’d be glad if him and Cummings get the boot. Need better talent than that to beat Oregon (or anyone else, really).

      Reply

    • If Martin can’t elude a donut eating cop, how can he keep up with a Pac-12 receiver. Let’s hope Riley gives him 100 wind sprints and a breathalizer test.

      Reply

  4. I think Sean Martin was pretty solid towards the end of the year. I think this is a shame. Sounds like it was a mistake. Riley needs to do something and be consistent. It hurts losing him especially sense we failed to bring in CB recruits and Mishawn Cummings looks to be gone as well. We are thin now. But that falls onto the staff, they need to prepare themselves for this. If we lose Martin that will be a blow, but he needs to be dealt with and if that’s his fate so be it..

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    • I think Riley still 1 or 2 is over the 85 player limit and this may give him another way to trim the roster. Since a DUI is more serious than a MIP, the penalty will probably be more severe. I have seen everything from 1 game to a whole season. Depends if this is his first alcohol related offense or if he has given Riley other problems.
      IN the SEC, the punishment is that he could not play on the opening kickoff team.

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  6. Starr came in and got two straight groundouts to start the bottom of the 10th and has now allowed a single and hit a batter. Runners on first and second with two outs…..

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  15. Pat Casey stuck with Taylor Starr too long and it burns them. Gauchos win 13-12. Disappointing loss. Bullpen didn’t do their job yesterday, shouldn’t have even had to continue this one today.

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  16. Control issues were the difference for Starr. He helped start the inning for the Gauchos by hitting the batter. Once his control was having issues Casey should have gotten him out of there.

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  22. Wilkerson with some big time pitching there. Throws a runner out at home on a squeeze play and then forces a ground ball DP and the Gauchos do not score there.

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  25. 2-0 Gauchos after 3 innings of play. Wilkerson did a nice job to limit the damage there. Gauchos close to breaking the game open though. They’ll need him to settle down and go deep into this game with how much the bullpen has thrown in the series.

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  28. The Beavers offense starts so slow. The first 4 innings of games the offense doesn’t do anything, then they start hitting the ball better afterwards

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  31. Boyd did a nice job to keep the score at 2-0 UCSB. Beavers get first two runners on in the top of the 6th. Could be a big time rally coming.

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  56. A lot of observations from today’s game. Gotta try to compile them all.
    Took some photos, too. A few action shots from behind the screen. I’ll post them in the forums after I resize them.

    Reply

    • Oh, you got into the game? That’s cool. Would have loved to be able to go to the game. I really wish college baseball games were on tv more, being stuck with radio only is not all that fun.

      Reply

      • Yeah, turns out it wasn’t sold out.

        I posted a few snapshots in the forums for those who couldn’t be there. I was behind the screen so it was really hard to get decent shots.

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          • The “Santa Barbara Orthopedic Doctors” didn’t show up, so I took their reserved seats. hahah. I recognized one of the names on the list, too–he’s a guy I almost had do work on my knee, but I went with someone else because he was a Notre Dame alum (hate ND!)

            Reply

          • you deserved the seats more anyway. and good call on going with a different doctor, having even the most distant of links to notre dame would make you a worse human being.

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    • I can see why they don’t have lights, with that setting and climate why would you want to play at night. Thanks for sharing the photos.

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  58. So…

    No duck sanctions?

    Umad haters?

    I guess it kinda is too bad that they would be getting away with cheating, but it’s got to be quite funny watching haters nerdrage about how the ducks should get worse penalties than U$C.

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  61. I was out playing all weekend. We had one helluva hail squall on Saturday. It was pretty cool.

    What happened in the third game? Did it run too long, and they have no lights?

    Questions:
    Who is Matt Fielding?
    What bats are the Beavs using?
    Where was Conforto for the first three games?
    Was Montgomery’s fielding so wonderful that he deserved the starts in RF?
    Was Dunn’s at SS?
    Does Jake look like a C? His lines look like he’s decent, but working too hard and affecting his bat. Back to 3B or 2B with him? Maybe SS?
    Is Barnes a good lead-off? His lines look good. So why isn’t Jake at the two hole protecting him with Keyes, Conforto, Davis and Danny in the three, four, five and six?
    Are the frosh really liabilities in the OF? It looks like Barnes should move to CF with Conforto in LF and Davis in RF. That’s looking like a solid offensive OF, but are there no gloves for these kids?
    Can Dunatov play C? Jk… but a thought?
    What happened to our middle defense?

    Reply

    • Thanks. I only like the Jake picture. The rest I consider snapshots. I only use a fixed 50mm lens, which you probably know is not very good for sports/action shots. Usually those guys use 400mm telephotos. I prefer 50mm fixed over zooms, wides, and telephotos, because it’s the mm most accurate to what the human eye sees. (I believe we see the world at ~45mm)

      Reply

      • I like the 50mm fixed for birding. No zoom has the sharpness even the cheapest fixed provides. The 400mm lenses almost seem to be a catch-all. They’re better for the larger venues (100yd/m fields where play can take place seemingly miles away, and with a lot of motion.

        Besides, nowadays zooms weigh a ton. You can carry three different primes for the weight of one zoom.

        I think zooms are for a world where people think mp3 music is good enough for them.

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        • 50mm for birding, really? You’d have to get close, and that is difficult. I like binoculars and a scope for birding. :D

          I mostly like taking still shots where I can take a lot of time to compose the image. That’s why the 50mm works well for me. I have the Canon 50mm Macro, which is the only lens I need. It’s only limitation is the 2.5 f-stop (I bought the 1.8 for $100 if I ever shoot low light indoors, but I don’t really do that). Otherwise, you have the macro end, and for wide angle what you do is stitch together three shots to form a panoramic. I actually like that better than a true wide angle because it looks more natural/as the human eye would see it. Wide angles distort the edges to pull everything in. This is why peoples’ noses look huge when shot with wide angles.

          Reply

          • I have good field glasses. But I like the challenge of catching a bird and its habitat up close. It’s an unreasonable limitation I place on myself, i know. And it’s impossible if the bird is in a fir stand or uphill. That’s why I carry the 70-200. I end up with better shots of foxes and bobcats than birds sometimes because I end up almost stepping on them while chasing a bird. I also once was so focused on a piliated woodpecker that I walked between a black bear and her two cubs. Suffice it to say that I did not get any shots of a charging mama bear. I did get a pretty good adrenaline rush out of the deal though.

            Reply

          • That is definitely a challenge getting them up close. I worked with birds everyday for 6 years and rarely got close enough to get a decent shot.

            My style is more like William Eggleston. I just shoot things that make me do a double take and catch my eye (whether it be for colors, angles, diverging lines, etc). The subjects are usually still. That’s why I went 50mm and stayed with it. I love nature, so I’ll fiddle with landscapes when they’re interesting, too. My favorite painter is Van Gough because he uses lines to guide the eye around a painting (my favorite trait in photos or paintings). I actually like to go out and take photographs that I think he’d paint. My general rule of thumb is that i’ll shoot anything…if I do a double take it’s a great photo waiting to happen. Then it’s just finding out why I did a double take and finding the best composition/perspective.

            Reply

      • If you’re looking for a great catch-all for an upgraded lens, I would suggest the EF 70-200mm. I believe that birding is only done properly when you can use the 50mm. But I know my limitations, and I can’t live up to that idealism always. So I carry the 70-200 as a secondary tool.

        In the end, it’s the person who takes the great pics, not the technology. I find that I get four or five great pics for every 20 I take. It’s more of a science than a hobby allows me time to actually concentrate on the subject. So i just have fun instead. I’m just happy to know enough to avoid red eyes, blurs and shadow contrasts.

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        • Yeah, I agree. There’s an old saying that if you get one “keeper” per roll you’ve done well. I do it as a hobby, but it’s one I’ve become fairly serious about. Lady Beav keeps telling me some of the shots could be framed or even sold. You know me, though, not too interested in the money aspect of things…I should frame some and use them around our apartment, though.

          BTW, I’d look into the 70-200 except I don’t like zooms. I’d probably buy the 400mm 5.6 if I ever wanted to get into sports/wildlife photography. It’s an L series, and the best bang for the buck in the telephoto range.

          What body do you use? I have the original 5D.

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          • Thought, at f5.6 you’re talking a tripod or high ISO since the best time for bird photography is dusk/dawn. f5.6 is on the cusp of having enough “bokeh” (background blur), too. Probably the two reasons I haven’t bought one. But man, if you like midday bird shots and don’t care about bokeh, that lens is a great value.

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          • I’d hate to have to carry a 400mm AND a tripod for some of the trails I take. I guess if i were to head out to places like Finley or Ankeny I could look more like the birders who trapse around there… or if I wanted some of the landscapes from Lake County that you can take from the trunk of your car….

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          • Exactly. The 400/5.6 is the lightest of those large telephotos because, in being 5.6, it requires less glass. But, it is still quite heavy compared to a 50mm.

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          • Well, I got the 7D and the EF 70-200 (not the IS) at an estate sale for $600 to replace an old 620. I don’t think they knew precisely what they were selling, and I didn’t have the money at the time. So I ran to my mom-in-law’s house and convinced her to lend me the money for what I promised her was the steal of a lifetime.

            Now it gets used for vids more than I can get it out in the field. And I don’t know that I like it as much as the 620 anymore for pics anyway (sour grapes?). It has these rectangles that appear on screen and don’t go away, and the metering isn’t all that great… at least I don’t like it.

            So I use the 620 with the 50mm prime and carry the 70-200. I think the kit lens it came with is out in the garage somewhere.

            I hear the 5D is better for anything that waits for you to take the pic. I suppose if I could afford one i would go out and get a Mark II. But would I get lost in that and pine for my 620 again?

            Reply

          • Nice, the 7D is a good camera. My only knock on it would be that it’s a crop sensor, so you get a smaller negative (reduced area but also pixels/image quality) and your 50mm lens becomes a short telephoto. 50mm x 1.6 = 80mm. So your 50mm lens is actually a short telephoto.

            The 5D is excellent. It has a reputation as being good for “anything that waits”, but I haven’t found that to be true. You can see I froze a baseball yesterday, and that was at f8/ISO 400. Yes, I had to sacrifice slight grain by going to ISO 400. If bokeh is desired in a motion shot, you can shoot at f1.8 and freeze it even easier…and probably drop the ISO to 200 (or lower) in the process.

            I bought mine used on eBay for 900. The reason being I wanted a full-frame 35mm digital camera, and it was the cheapest on the market. The one I bought only had 2000 shots on it, and the physical condition was immaculate. I thought that was a good deal at the time (though I am sure it’s much cheaper now). I’ve thought about the MKII, but I don’t have any need for video or a larger sensor right now. IMO the lens is more important than the body, so I’d rather put money into a lens if I ever decide the 50mm is limiting. Gotta say, though, the 2.5 50mm macro is so ideal. You get natural human eye perspective, but you can also go small (macro setting) or wide (stitching panoramics together). The extra blade gives a nice (but not ideal) bokeh–that and the 2.5 F-stop are the only knocks. Picture quality is L series level.

            Reply

          • Yeah… I love the 2.5 as an all-purpose lens. The optical quality is phenomenal for what it is. I don’t know why Canon doesn’t make it their standard for any body purchase, except that too many casual users don’t want to get “dirty” and get in position to take the great shot.

            To be clear, the 7D is no longer mine. i made the mistake of complaining about it one day, and my wife thought I said, “I can’t stand this camera that your mother bought for us. Why don’t you take it and use it as your own? The movies are great on this thing. Happy birthday, and I love you.”

            How you get that translation from something muttered about “stupid rectangles” is beyond me. But then so is a woman’s mind.

            It’s now outfitted with a 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM lens, and it’s not coming off. That damn lens cost more than the body and the 70-200 together (on ebay no less). But reviews made it the lens to get. We’re not buying any more equipment for a while.

            Like I said, I’m still happy with the 620. I guess basic is really all i need.

            I like the Jake shot because I can see what he sees. That ball is rotating left to right and headed down and low. What was the call on that pitch? Was the ump leaning toward calling those pitches? It looks like he took a pass on that one.

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          • My son bought a Mark II when he thought that photography might be his vocation but soon changed his mind and went to Physical Therapy school. I asked him one day if he regretted spending that much money on a camera and he said that if it would have been 10 years ago he would’ve spent that much money or more on film/ developing learning the stuff he did because it was a digital camera so it was worth it. He did buy a T-2 body recently though because the Mark II is a lot to lug around is some situations.

            Reply

          • Nice. Want to sell it to me for cheap? ;)

            I wish we all used the forums more. Really love discussing photography, finance, etc. I suppose I could ditch the main page and use the forum as the primary site. Might not be a bad idea. Just put so much work into this part of it and I’m finally happy with the functionality that I’d be sad to leave it.

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          • Oh, gotcha. That 17-55 f/2.8 gets good reviews. Definitely a good mm range, but again the 17mm becomes 27mm on a crop sensor and the 55mm is really 88mm, so it lessens the wide angle and exaggerates the telephoto.

            I agree 100%, simple is better, though I don’t know much about the 620. Only reason I splurged on a body was I wanted (a) digital and (b) full frame. Otherwise I would have gone much much cheaper on a body, as they’re pretty much meaningless.

            The Jake shot is the only one I like. I actually got the camera lens through the netting so there is no vignetting. I believe he took a strike on that pitch.

            BTW, what’s your favorite birds? I live 8 miles from the ocean (and have worked mainly with water birds), so I’ve grown to appreciate them, but ideally I’m into Owls, ducks, and woodland/forest passerines. There’s a nice estuary nearby that has amazing photo ops. Maybe I should rent one of those monster lenses and just go out there for a day trip.

            Reply

          • I love the woodland birds. Piliateds are great if hear them, but they are some of the hardest to track. Owls are cool if they don’t freak you out first. I once had a great horned swoop at me for no reason. It scared the hell out of me. But I still get a charge out seeing great grays.

            It depends on what area I’m in. If I get mile high, I like terns, crossbills and yellow-headed blackbirds. If I’m down in the valleys, I like any of the woodpeckers, hummingbirds, owls, birds of prey, kingfishers in action, etc. I’m not huge on the waterfowl except the ones found in higher elevations. And I absolutely love the western tanager wherever I see one.

            If you’re headed to Crater Lake anytime soon, one of my favorite spot is Big Marsh on the SE slope of Diamond Peak (about 30 miles north of the park). It’s out of the way enough that not too many people end up there, and it supports an immense ecology.

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          • Nice. I made it to Crater Lake once, but there was a huuge snow storm when I got there. I was just trying to stay on the road and stay alive. Really need to get back and see it in better conditions. Visibility was literally 10ft.

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          • You would likely be amazed with Big Marsh if you knew its history. Thank you Ducks Unlimited for its reclamation. And the Nature Conservancy has done a lot of work in the Upper Klamath Basin. There is some excellent canoeing in that region if you just like putzing around. Never mind the birding.

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          • We have several parliaments of great horned owls that live around our apartment complex. It’s relaxing listing to them at night. They mate in January, so they’ve been really loud lately. The Lady Beav goes crazy every time they hoot. It’s funny.

            Agreed, woodland birds are the best. I like the smaller passerines. Woodpeckers kick ass, too. We have a lot of acorn woodpeckers here. They’re neat to watch–drill holes and then hide nuts in them (“that’s what she said?”)

            Reply

          • Parliaments of owls?? Yikes, they get together and discuss, argue and make decisions? Wow…they are way more organized than any bird I ever heard of. Props!

            Reply

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