Reports still have Rasmussen starting. I still have some doubt and think he may come out of the pen late. Either way, here’s a good read while we wait.
1. “pound the heater early” and “get that first pitch strike” (i.e. be ready for lots of first-pitch fastballs from Gilbert today)
2. “they don’t really like to swing at it” (i.e., Gilbert plans to throw strikes and to dare the Beavers to swing the bat — OSU should see a lot of balls out over the plate, and should be ready to attack when Gilbert grooves one, which he likely will do with this sort of attitude).
Watching Gilbert answer these questions, he comes across as a nice, laid-back guy. He also comes across as a guy who does not have a ton of respect for OSU’s hitters. His underlying attitude — and that of others at LSU — seems to be that the Beavers have been unmasked as a team of “lookers” who prefer to take walks rather than swing the bat. Looking forward to the Beavers proving otherwise today.
Not sure if I like this move. With the short amount of rest between outings. I hope they bring in Drew early. Or do you put all of your faith in Femehl and save Drew for Monday?
Fehmel threw 107 pitches against LSU on Monday. He’s going on only 4 days rest. Interesting and surprising move by Pat Casey.
Best guess: Pat Casey hopes to get a few innings out of Fehmel while seeing how OSU’s lineup fares against Caleb Gilbert. At that point, with a loaded and well-rested bullpen, Casey has options. Depending on how the game goes in the first few innings, there may be an opportunity to save Rasmussen for a start in the finals. Or to use Rasmussen to close today if necessary. Meanwhile, it may also throw off LSU, which had prepared to see Rasmussen start today.
As suspected when Casey gave a qualified answer to Moran yesterday, Drew doesn’t start. It was pointed out the other day that the adjustment for batters from Fehmel’s velo to that of Drew is a difficult one. I see Fehmel going about 40 pitches to set up LSU for Drew.
Still likely to take 4-5 runs to win; big day for Adley?, return to form for Nick? We’ll soon see.
GO BEAVS!
So much for the theory our pitcher will be more rested and thus have an advantage over their guy.
I don’t have a huge issue with the move. Fehmel has been rock solid in the post-season and will be on a short leash. Bet if he gives up 2 runs he’s out of there.
Here is video of Caleb Gilbert pitching to Tyler Malone in Monday’s game (spoiler alert — Malone wins this battle with a single to left on a 2-1 count): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cQe_PTcsy8
Gilbert’s two main pitches are on display here:
1. Low 90’s 2-seam fastball with a little bit of down-and-away tailing action, thrown low in the zone
2. 12-6 breaking pitch with 4″ to 6″ of break, again thrown low in the zone (not a particularly sharp-breaking or deceptive pitch)
Takeaway: OSU hitters should do well against Gilbert today. Gilbert looks like a younger, weaker version of Lange (Lange-light). Gilbert’s fastball doesn’t have Lange’s velocity or movement. Gilbert’s breaking pitch doesn’t have Lange’s velocity or sharp break. Gilbert’s command is not as sharp as Lange’s. Facing Gilbert will likely feel somewhat similar to facing Lange, except most of Gilbert’s pitches will be more a bit slower and a bit easier to track (i.e., more hittable).
The ESPN watchnow stream is nice. If you click it early before the game starts, when the game finally does start, they have no announcers. It’s some kind of glitch. But awesome since I don’t want to hear those idiots. I’d rather hear nothing/the sounds of the game.
I got home and started to watch the game on delay. I was more than a little grumpy at the calls. And it made me more grumpy to watch Fehmel’s strike zone shrink to about eight inches. I could go pitch for pitch in the first two innings and show how the ump was calling strikes for them, balls for us.
I gave up after Rutsch’s AB in the 3rd. We were not going to be allowed to even try to win.
What did I say yesterday? We’d be fighting the umps and crowd today. In warmups, LSU fans sooo loud. Beav fans barely audible. Ump gives the Tom Glavine 1ft outside call to the LSU pitcher…
Pretty much exactly what I expected, and LSU fans pulled our fire alarm at 1am.
This is going to be brutal. No way the ump gives Fehmel those calls. Fix is in.
LSU swinging at a ton of first pitches. Bryce keeps em guessing it could be quick innings. Need to put some runs on the board to put pressure on their hitters. It’s exactly what got them into trouble last game.
No way the Beavs win this game with that strikezone. They rely on walks and won’t get a single one if a pitch 1ft outside is a strike. Might get no-hit.
OK. Those LSU pitches are clearly off the plate. But today they are being called strikes (at least for LSU). OSU batters obviously need to make an adjustment. Expect that to happen next time up….
Agree. Time for a Hawkeye strike zone as soon as possible. Calls are all over the place and our strikezone is 6 inches smaller all the way around the plate.
Fehmel should have been out of that inning. Fehmel spotted two balls just off the plate that have been strikes for the LSU pitcher, but were called balls for Fehmel. Seemed like Fehmel lost it after that.
Ball was in the opposite batter’s box and ump calls out Rutchmann. What a joke!!!!! At this point maybe you just walk out of the stadium to make a statement and see what SECESPN does.
This is absolutely insane. I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, or someone who will call games fixed. I don’t see this being anything but that. How can you explain such a discrepancy in the strike zone.
To Gilbert’s credit, he is able to locate pitches consistently off the plate by three to six inches. But I don’t think Gilbert is dominating anyone. The umpire is calling strikes and punching out OSU batters on pitches that are clearly off the plate — often so far off the plate as to be unhittable. That has completely screwed the Beavers so far in this game. And then, to make it worse, the umpire squeezed the strike zone on Fehmel, making Fehmel come in with hittable pitches.
So far, this game has been a nightmare. Still, it’s only the bottom of the 3rd inning. Beavers still have time to come back if they can refocus. And if the ump stops screwing the Beavs….
This post of mine got 4 thumbs down yesterday, btw:
I just went to a Dodger game where Kershaw gave up 6 runs to an awful Mets team, so I don’t want to hear about pitching advantages…lol. Yeah, on paper Drew is better, but this situation is almost all mental at this point. Beavs will be fighting the umps and crowd as well.
My larger review is also spot on. Just saying. Got a lot of crap for it, but this is exactly what anyone who watched ESPN and knows baseball would expect.
You were right. Fire alarm, umpires who cheat, biased announcers. We have no shot and it’s all about the ESPN/ SEC dollar. Fuck them, I’m heading to Newport.
Haven’t been able to watch the game, but reading this comments, this game is so disappointing. To deny equitable calls to a team – any team – that worked so hard to get here is just absurdly unethical. So many sports have become unwatchable because of this kind of approach.
Did this ump used to work the WWF ring or something? Are we supposed to appreciate theater more than competition and fairness? Has anybody hit a Beaver player over the head with a chair yet?
Strike zone is bullshit, but the Beavs are mentally out of this too. The Fehmel homerun pitch was atrocious with first base open, the missed force out at second and now the pitch out mess. Looks like all the shit has been too much to overcome as the importance of each game builds.
Just luke that Civil War for the Rose Bowl flipped on the injury and shot of the full moon, the CWS completely flipped on the Kwan miscall and non review. They have had zero momentum since then. Convinced they would have won 4-2 or 4-3 yesterday had that been called right. Then I think we would have won the Finals as well.
Rasmussen eay underused so far though. Too good of a pitcher to never give him a chance to shutdown and give your team its best chance to take the lead. Beavers are damn near unbeatable with the lead so anything that aids that has to be Priority #1.
Y’all have a great team but Lsu got hot. Gilbert has been nasty all year. Seems
Like after the missed foul call and the loss OSU was tense today. Baseball such a crazy sport. Still amazing what the beavers did 55-6. Wow. Ump was generous and too generous at times but to imply an sec fix is ignorance at its best. Our pitching is really really good.
Need a couple shut down innings by Eisert and our bats better get going soon. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Hess, psycho, Wild Thing or whatever that closer’s name is as early as the 7th.
Well, this sounds terrible. I’m hungover today, so I’ve not been watching, heh… Doesn’t sound like a fun game to watch. I’m assuming the strike zone inconsistency is pretty egregious, though, since Angry is tweeting about it.
Some jackass tweeted “Choke City” to the baseball account. I tweeted back that they hadn’t lost to the same team twice yet this year. An hour in, he tweeted back at me, “CHOKE! HAHAHA” and I’m thinking to myself, “You’re a jackass. Your life must be sad if you remember a twitter exchange about this from yesterday, and come back to it the next day.”
The ump sucks, still put more blame on Casey, poor decision yesterday on the double and poor use of his pitching staff. LSU is taking advantage, I actually think Casey got out coached, I never think that.
Casey has messed up so many times. People still getting his back, though…
LSU coach was right Fehmel had the shadows game 1. I noticed that as well and felt it was helping him out. Casey somehow didn’t realize that had a lot to do with it.
I was okay with Fehmel on a short leash but preferred Drew. Problem with the Fehmel situation is once you give up the 3r HR it blows up the short-leash strategy because, to me, a short leash is 2 runs or less. Casey didn’t think that all through. Casey also had a shot to bring in Drew at 3-0 to try to keep it there yet didn’t even do that.
Can Casey play the game under protest? This ump should be under review and never have a job again. Need robot umps for sure. I’m a traditionalist but we need robots. It’s gone too far. We can’t have umps determining major games.
Don’t care what Jack says. The 100% ownership of the PAC Network at the expense of DirecTV and fractions of what other leagues are earnung has been a disaster so far. Only plan Scott has is to wait 7 more years and see if trends become more favorable but this strategy will cost us 11 years of waiting for peanuts in comparison. Even if trends were to improve you don’t make up that time. SEC and B1G woukd just renegotiate their deals if trends changed and they were even making 1 cent less.
So PAC leadership has failed the conference. Plan needs to be to get on DirecTV, increase exposure and then have increased leverage. Because we were quickly put in the rear view mirror just 3-4 years after our deal, most areas of the country now think the PAC is furthest behind of the P5 conferences. ESPNs increased relationship with the ACC and their network has put them in a stronger position until 2023-2024 atleast when our deal is reworked.
Strategy by ESPN/Fox seems to currently let the Big 12 and PAC struggle and argue about which may be in last place so that if anything OU maybe moves to SEC or B1G and consolidation in the Eastern US becomes even worse to the detriment of the national landscape. PAC champion has a slight edge right now to make the Playoff but from the network perspective they prefer PAC and Big 12 fighting for the last spot. This serves neither the PAC or Big 12 and is why I feel merging with 4-6 Big 12 teams is in our best interests.
Get on DirecTV, get national exposure and more respect and have a network that can pay its teams much more aligned with other top conferences.
Smoke is better than pills. That way you can keep your head instead of buying this.
Think about what Directv is and will be in the future. ATT bought them then shut down Uverse and shifted them over to DTV. They will remove satellites altogether, and they will make everyone move to wireless streaming in the near future. DTV is being strangled, and most content providers are being squeezed for cut-rate prices for fewer customers now… and none in the future.
PTN was lucky not to have closed on DTV for the long run. ATT will shove everyone into untenable tiers of crappy service with high penalties and automated customer service. That’s their m.o. now. They don’t want to spend the money necessary to upgrade direct broadband connections (as they and Verizon promised they would do when they wrote legislation for every state and had all their magical corporate free market mumbo jumbo about lower costs bought by morons).
What they don’t know, apparently, is that Comcast and Verizon are going to bury them… sooner than later. Any telco/ISP who has developed direct service infrastructure will be ahead of them in both the short and long terms. The deals the PTN made with Comcast are much more forward looking than anything the SEC is tethered to right now. They’re going to be Ned Beatty on this canoe ride soon enough.
This game is cooked! With Hess ready to come in if the Beavs ever decide to even think about a rally. I think The long lay off more than anything is what did it. NCAA should look at that you win 2 straight then don’t play for 3 days it’s hard to get the juices back going.
Starting Fehmel was a calculated risk by Casey. Leaving Fehmel in when he was clearly struggling with his control was an unforced error by Casey and Nate, and it cost the Beavers dearly. Same with inserting Eisert rather than Rasmussen to replace Fehmel. That’s what let the game get out of hand. Another mistake that Pat Casey needs to own.
But probably the biggest mistake was a failure to make adjustments when it became obvious, in the first inning, that the ump was widening the strike zone against the Beavers. The Beavers kept taking the same pitches, and the ump kept calling them strikes — even when they were far off the plate. OSU’s strategy appeared to be to complain to the ump, and hope he would narrow the strike zone. Not a smart or effective strategy. And it killed the Beavs. Casey, in today’s in-game interview, just criticized his hitters for not making an adjustment. But it was his job as a coach to make that happen It appears he didn’t. Instead, Casey and the Beavs stubbornly stuck to the same failing strategy. Casey has to own that, too.
I think the biggest mistake was not understanding the challenge rules and/or not challenging, whatever happened yesterday. As I wrote yesterday in my analogy with the Bill Buckner ’86 Mets fiasco, that today’s outcome was determined once they lost yesterday. Mentally as a player you need several days to get over that “what if” even if you’re a tough team. So I saw this a mile away and it’s why I feel yesterday was much more a blunder than anything today. Today the ump decided the game and relegated this NCAA baseball game to a scripted boxing/wwf match.
This game is done and done. Really disappointing end to a spectacular season but it will go down as a huge missed opportunity. The luck finally ran out.
I’m not really one for conspiracy theories but this game was so horribly officiated it does make one wonder. With the Heimlich situation, the NCAA clearly did not want this story being the lead for ones of its champions. Espn has a vested interest in promoting the SEC. I don’t think the umps are paid or anything so obvious but I do think the NCAA knows exactly what type of game they will call. No coincidence that two favoriting LSU’s style of play ( as well as incompetent crews with no idea on the rules.)
In the end the NCAA and ESPN get what they wanted. A “clean” championship and a moneymaker to boot.
And they can all go to hell. I’ll continue receiving my quality education at a beautiful campus with a friendly, encouraging, and intelligent staff that actually interacts with students. Oregon State is a great school to attend. Unlike some other school down the road, the admin staff listen to the students in decision-making, and don’t try to raise tuition by 10.6%. Also, per Obama’s College Scorecard, OSU students make more money on average when they graduate than that other school.
The ESPN announcers the other day were saying this OSU baseball team has the greatest winning percentage of any team ever in NCAA history. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
All it takes is a short pre-game talk by some inside person with the home-plate umpire that goes sort of like this: “No one wants to watch a game with lots of walks. Let’s make the batters on both teams swing the bats.”
An experienced umpire understands what that means. The Beavers are known for strike-zone discipline, and for not swinging at pitches off the plate. Don’t let them get away with that today.
The LSU starter said as much, that OSU basically looks for walks. So he poisoned the well a bit. I’m sure someone got that message through to the umpire. Still, the umpire is an authority figure who has the responsibility to maintain the integrity of the game and play to a rule book. It’s on him. He was an absolute failure. He should be fired, but he’ll probably get a raise for getting an SEC team into the finals.
Wow! Even ESPN announcers say “that can’t happen” at this point in the game. Ump comes back to save LSU with two horrible called strikes against Larnach….
Was this ump trying to screw OSU by widening the strike zone at key moments of the game? After what just happened in the ninth, the answer may actually be “yes”.
Thank you!
Game played out almost exactly as I figured…but I have to be honest, I thought the umps would be more clandestine than that. That was BLATANT.
To clarify, I meant this game in particular, not the entire game of baseball.
If you’re talking about college football, yeah, the SEC bias is worse there. Meanwhile, you pretty much can’t play defense in the NFL anymore, and basketball is probably the worse sport in the US when it comes to the power of refs being able to influence the game.
It’s times like these that I’m thankful for being a huge European soccer fan, even with all the flaws it has.
8 inches ogf the plate in situation to load the bases with no outs and ump rings up Larnach. Beyond despicable.
Angry, I think the most important thing thia board could do from here on out is to lead the effort to bring robo strike-ball calls. This ump expanded LSU’s strike zone by about 16 inches left to right today. A robot would have called atleast 20 more balls today on LSU’s pitches.
I’m not sure how a site about the Beavs can lead a national movement for robot umps, but I’m all for robot umps. At least on balls and strikes until the technology is in place for more complex calls. Fuck their union. If they want jobs, do the job right. Otherwise, sit the fuck down, Greg Street, and let a robot do the job properly.
Losing fair and square is one thing. Tip the cap and move on. Stuff like this pisses me off and makes me question why the hell I follow any sports at all.
I don’t know. He would likely face taunts, jeers by fans and probably get no benefit of the doubt from umps and announcers. If he plays, it would be completely uncertain whether he could be as effective.
You can’t credit them with anything. I stopped watching after Rutsch’s AB in the 3rd because the ump called strike three on a ball four inches outside one he called a ball two pitches earlier.
Any relatively decent player knows to lay off something outside another pitch that was already called outside. That went on repeatedly with every AB.
Fehmel hit two consecutive pitches about 8 inches apart from each other and waist high, and the announcer was mentioning how that’s (the most recent) usually called a strike… then pop! HR.
Bryce had to throw it in the sweet spot to get called strikes. LSU got to throw it to a zone that was four inches lower and about a foot wider.
The calls were so egregious, an MLB team would have trouble beating LSU this weekend.
Well good damn that turned out to be a useless season. Feels almost worse than not even making the postseason. Now all that’s left to discuss is the damn child molester and whether or not he should play next year.
No thanks! I’m going to do summer and not think about it. Hope the school does the right thing and kicks him out. We can’t have that guy on our team.
Please explain why that would be the “right thing”. I’m not a fan either, but that’s different from he should get kicked out for something he did as a minor that already went through the court system.
Actually, don’t. I’m about as tired as you of all that mess.
So NCAA snubbed us last year, and now we get hosed again.
Is this an OSU problem or do other fanbases deal with this? It seems like OSU has more things go against them than most schools. Of course I follow OSU more closely, so there’s that. It would be interesting convo for other fanbases. Personally, I think any school from the west that isn’t USC has a disadvantage in all sports. Even Oregon, Stanford, UCLA are at a disadvantage to schools East of the Miss. in huge games.
“Personally, I think any school from the west that isn’t USC has a disadvantage in all sports.”
USC would strongly disagree that USC gets better treatment from the NCAA than other West Coast schools. NCAA sanctions against USC football (re Reggie Bush) were clearly excessive, and were apparently pushed through by SEC schools tired of seeing USC win national championships.
True. Interesting. But Oregon got a light sentence for some atrocious issues, SMU got the death penality, etc. NCAA rulings seem…”inconsistent”, in general.
NCAA needs to go. I’m not sure what would replace it, but it smells rotten. All these institutions and networks are cannibalizing themselves with short-term outlooks/$. Fans might be dumb, but they’re not stupid. I think they sense all this and are tuning out.
I disagree. The fans where ESPN is buying are really stupid and would tell you they’re insulted that you call them stupid just because they don’t know basic math… or the English language… or geography, biology, basic physics, chemistry or medicine.
Again, Angry was right. The fix was in. Even the ESPN announcers were gasping at some of the calls that Greg Street made to punch out Beaver batters. The lead columnist for D1 Baseball, Aaron Fitt, tweeted that Greg Street was “just awful today”, and admitted that “robo zones” may be needed to stop this sort of thing from happening in the future. But we know that’s not going to happen any time soon. The NCAA and the SEC are just fine with what happened today. Nothing broken here, no need to fix anything (except, of course, the outcome…..)
Well ESPN is losing 10,000 viewers per day, so they might care. I wrote an article years ago…must have been 2010, about the “decline of ncaa football”, and I brought up this point that as ESPN doubles down on the SEC narrative they exclude entire fanbases. ESPN will blame the -10k on “cable cutters”, but I think the story is more than that. I know many people (myself included) who simply can’t watch the ESPN/SEC narratives and bias. I can afford cable, yet I cut it in 2009 for this very reason. I was early, but I think many are catching up. ESPN just doesn’t want to admit that’s the reason for obvious reasons, so “cable cutters” puts the blame elsewhere. Even if it is cable cutters, does ESPN ask why they are cutting cable? For example, in my case I cut it for this very reason, not because of price.
My buddy in ACC territory was ENRAGED today and he doesn’t even follow OSU. It was just the injustice and obvious bias. He’s a GaTech guy, so he seems a lot of SEC bias. He also watches very little ESPN because of it. So it’s a problem for sure over there. I just think they’re keeping it mum and blaming cable cutters or any other excuse. Soon they will have just SEC fans watching their network, and then what?
It’s frustrating to see OSU’s excellent baseball program get screwed, year after year, by the NCAA. For fans, sports are supposed to be enjoyable. The last two days were not enjoyable. Time to take the summer off, and see how things feel after a couple of months without sports.
Eventually (likely this year) Casey is going to get sick of it. He’s fighting ESPN, umps, NCAA, etc. It’s hard enough to fight your opponent. ESPN et al could be marketing OSU as a miracle of a program, which they are….a team from the PNW dominating like this is a magical story. Yet, instead they want their hand picked demographics or markets, and they figure they can spin a compelling story around those.
I truly believe we are living the death of sports. It’s slow, but with each of these unjust events the world of sports loses some viewers.
“I truly believe we are living the death of sports. It’s slow, but with each of these unjust events the world of sports loses some viewers.”
You may be right. I grew up as an NBA fan, back in the day, but stopped watching the NBA years ago when it became apparent that the referees, and the league, were controlling the outcomes at various levels. Stopped watching MLB and NFL regular season games a few years later, for related reasons. For the past decade, most of my time watching sports has been either watching my kids’ teams, or watching the Beavers. But my kids are grown now. And college sports no longer seem so worthwhile or interesting when the outcomes (at various levels) are so obviously influenced by powerful, commercial organizations such as ESPN, the NCAA, and the SEC. Sports lose their attraction when the game is fixed. And that’s how it’s feeling, more and more, after days like this. Why not find something better to do with one’s time, rather than root for teams that are bound, in the end, to get screwed by the powers-that-be? Who needs it? Again, Angry, I think you are right.
Exactly, I grew up liking the NBA. Now I view it as the worst pro league outside of boxing/WWF. I haven’t watched an NBA game in 25 years. It started with Jordan…the treatment he got. I couldn’t watch it after I pieced that together.
MLB and NFL are not as bad, imo. Some pitchers (e.g. Tom Glavine) in MLB would get calls for reasons I couldn’t explain, but did the Yankees or other huge markets get calls over other teams? Not really. I mean Boston and the Cubs went 100 years without titles. It’s hard to argue bias. Baseball and football don’t need to manufacture stars as much as the NBA does. I think because in MLB/NFL there are so many players on each team that stars will rise to the top. NBA has small rosters, so they have to manufacture them more. Though, there could be more to it. I haven’t thought it out fully.
NFL is getting worse, though.They had gained some public trust from their revenue sharing structure, but some of that has changed over the past five years. MLB has cleaned up their act and is pretty good right now. I don’t see any Tom Glavine’s (total joke that guy is in the HOF given he got an extra 1ft off the plate for no reason).
It seems the most corruption right now is in NCAA sports, and I think that’s because pro sports have powerful owners who all have even influence. NCAA sports don’t have that. I bet HS sports are next to exploit…zero structure there, which is a haven for corruption and exploitation. We see ESPN covering the top HS football teams now on TV. Gee…wonder why.
Death of competition maybe, but the death of “sport” is a long way off, if ever. Too many ignorant viewers who don’t understand or care that the way OSU lost today is bad for the game. Millions who love the false narrative don’t critically evaluate the product.
Boxing seems on its way out, but we get Mayweather/Mcgregor, which is more spectacle than competition or earned opportunity.
As Jack has said, if big money is to be made – as in NCAA sports – corruption follows. That corruption can be managed and presented in a way that the average viewer not only accepts, but enjoys. There’s a bunch of LSU/SEC fans loving the fact that LSU “won” and “SEC dominance” was sustained, they don’t care how it happened. The networks can continue to manage the “hope” that another conference will prevail as in today’s game.
I keep expecting live attendance to nosedive in most sports with people watching on line and eventually 3D or “VR immersive” to sustain viewer interest.
I liken pro and now NCAA sports to the games in ancient Rome, bread and circuses that distract the masses and keep them happy so they don’t critically evaluate the managed spectacle.
He’s having to fight the majority of the media in his own state too. These Lissman, Wetzler, and Heimlich stories have to get old every time he makes a deep run. I doubt Paul Maneiri fights these same battles at LSU.
Exactly. Above I wrote “Also, even our local media seems to hate us.”
Why is that? Just because we aren’t the Ducks? Do they realize if OSU stinks it’s bad for the Ducks? I thought people liked underdogs. OSU just seems hated by all. I don’t get it. Good people and modest. What’s to hate? Why is their own media out to get them? It all makes no sense.
Much like ESPN’s SEC bias, the Oregonian has a deliberate and obvious Duck bias.
This season, OSU wins yet another series and the lead sports page (above the fold) is about some Duck loss. HUH?!?!
Count the number of Duck stories on any given day on Olive and its painfully obvious. Its the way it is and it won’t change. I’ve weaned my self from much of OLive denying them my click’s.
But Mark Klatches lay off memo was telling. Calling Canzano and Ackers their rising stars said all that has to be said. He’s ecstatic about their click rate so little else matters other than protecting his political class.
Welcome aboard, Sscamaro. Nice to see a new icon/registered account.
My question is this: why does the Oregonian favor the Ducks? It’s before my time. But both teams stunk for ages. Why’d they decide to go with the Ducks? Also, don’t they realize that when both teams are good it’s good for the State and the rivalry? If they lose Beav fans, there’s nothing in rivalry games. If they lose Beav fans, they lose all those subscriptions. So, I don’t get it.
AB, nice to find this website. Thank you.
Re: Ducks, not certain other than there is a strong Duck following in the Metro area so I assume they are pandering to the local base. That and Nike using the Duck athletic programs as their marketing showcase creates excitement in the local writer’s pool. Nike money begets a lot of attention in the sports room. That and the Weekly Fashion Shows on Olive of the coming week’s game uniforms has been nauseating. As if this is Paris Fashion Week of football.
As for the Oregonian, Beavs are the red headed step children of the state. Most of us laugh it off and shake our collective heads. Its like reading the NYT. You know there’s an institutional bias so you read it with that in mind. They are who they are.
Yes, that all seems accurate. But I guess just having spent most of my life outside of Oregon, that I just don’t understand it. OSU/UO rivalry is good for all, including the writer’s job security. State pride should trump all. Oregonian writers would rather LSU win than OSU? Zero pride. It’s just very odd to me. I’d rather Oregon win than LSU. Maybe I don’t understand the hate. I was rooting for Oregon in almost every big game.
“It’s frustrating to see OSU’s excellent baseball program get screwed, year after year, by the NCAA.”
And that frustration is compounded — greatly — by the fact that the SEC, the NCAA, and ESPN are all in cahoots with each other. Sports are supposed to be about fair competition on an even playing field. That’s not what just happened in Omaha. It’s too annoying to keep thinking about. So I won’t, at least for a couple of months. Maybe longer. We’ll see.
Thanks for all the interesting posts, conversations, and insights during the season.
But Casey will likely retire by all accounts. I don’t have any confidence in the other coaches on this staff, nor confidence we won’t get hosed again.
It’s why I mainly stick to MLB. Everyone is equally corrupt so it evens out. I think I watched 2 regular season Beaver baseball games. I don’t like to waste my time on it for these very reasons. Post season, sure, but then I just get enraged once I finally have to witness these crimes against humanity!
They will not reach 40 wins next year. Heimlich returning will divide the team for multiple reasons, and this utterly blatant jobbing by the refs will induce a sense of defeatism.
They’ll forget about the umps by next season. And Heimlich probably won’t return.
Bigger issue is whether Casey wants to stay for another round of jobbing, and how they plan for the inevitable jobbing in Omaha. Beavs should be at the forefront of robo umps, no SEC umps behind the dish, etc.
Something was up with my stream….couldnt get much out of the bandwidth today. Funny that Amazon worked, but anything live got the circle of death. Oh well, probably would have turned it off in disgust.
You can use your Sling log in to stream directly from ESPN’s site if you need to. That way you’re bypassing Sling’s system entirely and get the (mostly) better Watch ESPN stream.
to what hash tag are you sending the tweets? Will those in power – Larry Scott, Ed Ray, other coaches, put forth any formal complaint or initiate the request for robot umpires?
#Cws2017, but I also sent them directly to NCAA Baseball. Will they listen? Doubt it, but a lot of people on twitter are talking about this and screen capping the awful calls. It’s powerful.
What changes those 60-70 odds OSU and TCU aupposedly had to win today based off pure unbiased stats? Corrupt SEC Umps working with SECESPN to assure an all SEC Final. Swung the odds from over 60% for each to sub 10% IMO. That’s how much influence you can have by calling 20 LSU balls as strikes in just one game.
Must read tweet from Mississippi State. They called it ‘terrible’ that a fastball 10 inches off the plate could be called a strike. Were ashamed he was a SEC ump.
Yep. None bigger then one right down the center that would have K’d the LSU hitter before the 3 run home run. That never happens with a robo call. Ball was 4 inches above bottom of zone and he called it a ball. Then calls several for LSU as strikes that are 8-10 inches off plate whenever it prevents a walk or rings up an OSU batter.
If it wasn’t so obvious, one would think the guy was on the take. Florida State got cheated on crucial calls as well. (I haven’t checked to see if it was the same umpire.) The NCAA can ignore media attention – it will go away – I have never heard announcers criticize an umpire the way they did during the game – something more than that is necessary, how, who? Will this at least initiate robo calls? The review system is pretty stupid, too.
Final four and a great record of not losing. I’d take that most years. The way it ended has much to be desire. At least are there umpire reviews after a games?
Sure be nice have the NCAA to come out and omit it that the ump missed a lot of calls by pure negligence of his own accord.
Hope everyone is well if they are in the Valley it was darn heat category 5 out there today in the 100s. Make sure you drink water and get to cooling stations if need be.
Go Beavs!
OSU 6 LSU 4
Reports still have Rasmussen starting. I still have some doubt and think he may come out of the pen late. Either way, here’s a good read while we wait.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/year-shelf-drew-rasmussen-gets-shot-play-hero/?amphtml=1
Caleb Gilbert explains how he and LSU plan to pitch to the Beavers in today’s game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSCw3JNoho
1. “pound the heater early” and “get that first pitch strike” (i.e. be ready for lots of first-pitch fastballs from Gilbert today)
2. “they don’t really like to swing at it” (i.e., Gilbert plans to throw strikes and to dare the Beavers to swing the bat — OSU should see a lot of balls out over the plate, and should be ready to attack when Gilbert grooves one, which he likely will do with this sort of attitude).
Watching Gilbert answer these questions, he comes across as a nice, laid-back guy. He also comes across as a guy who does not have a ton of respect for OSU’s hitters. His underlying attitude — and that of others at LSU — seems to be that the Beavers have been unmasked as a team of “lookers” who prefer to take walks rather than swing the bat. Looking forward to the Beavers proving otherwise today.
Go Beavs!
Fehmel not Rasmussen starting today
Not sure if I like this move. With the short amount of rest between outings. I hope they bring in Drew early. Or do you put all of your faith in Femehl and save Drew for Monday?
Elimination game, have to play to win today. There is no tomorrow right now.
Fehmel threw 107 pitches against LSU on Monday. He’s going on only 4 days rest. Interesting and surprising move by Pat Casey.
Best guess: Pat Casey hopes to get a few innings out of Fehmel while seeing how OSU’s lineup fares against Caleb Gilbert. At that point, with a loaded and well-rested bullpen, Casey has options. Depending on how the game goes in the first few innings, there may be an opportunity to save Rasmussen for a start in the finals. Or to use Rasmussen to close today if necessary. Meanwhile, it may also throw off LSU, which had prepared to see Rasmussen start today.
As suspected when Casey gave a qualified answer to Moran yesterday, Drew doesn’t start. It was pointed out the other day that the adjustment for batters from Fehmel’s velo to that of Drew is a difficult one. I see Fehmel going about 40 pitches to set up LSU for Drew.
Still likely to take 4-5 runs to win; big day for Adley?, return to form for Nick? We’ll soon see.
GO BEAVS!
Bingo. Drew after Bryce will seem like a 200 mph fastball.
So much for the theory our pitcher will be more rested and thus have an advantage over their guy.
I don’t have a huge issue with the move. Fehmel has been rock solid in the post-season and will be on a short leash. Bet if he gives up 2 runs he’s out of there.
Here is video of Caleb Gilbert pitching to Tyler Malone in Monday’s game (spoiler alert — Malone wins this battle with a single to left on a 2-1 count): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cQe_PTcsy8
Gilbert’s two main pitches are on display here:
1. Low 90’s 2-seam fastball with a little bit of down-and-away tailing action, thrown low in the zone
2. 12-6 breaking pitch with 4″ to 6″ of break, again thrown low in the zone (not a particularly sharp-breaking or deceptive pitch)
Takeaway: OSU hitters should do well against Gilbert today. Gilbert looks like a younger, weaker version of Lange (Lange-light). Gilbert’s fastball doesn’t have Lange’s velocity or movement. Gilbert’s breaking pitch doesn’t have Lange’s velocity or sharp break. Gilbert’s command is not as sharp as Lange’s. Facing Gilbert will likely feel somewhat similar to facing Lange, except most of Gilbert’s pitches will be more a bit slower and a bit easier to track (i.e., more hittable).
And to make Angry happy, Adley moves to #8 in the order.
Sweet.
Aaaaannnddd…Angry just changed his prediction. Beavs win.
Just got home from an early morning 20 mile bike ride out to the ocean. Endorphins are flying — had to prepare for the loss!
The ESPN watchnow stream is nice. If you click it early before the game starts, when the game finally does start, they have no announcers. It’s some kind of glitch. But awesome since I don’t want to hear those idiots. I’d rather hear nothing/the sounds of the game.
Wow, without the announcers jizzing about LSU you can really hear the sounds of the game, and there are WAY more LSU fans there today.
If you use the multiview stream option they dont have any announcers.
Well based on that call the fix is definitely in.
Kwan goes down looking on a ball a half foot outside.
I got home and started to watch the game on delay. I was more than a little grumpy at the calls. And it made me more grumpy to watch Fehmel’s strike zone shrink to about eight inches. I could go pitch for pitch in the first two innings and show how the ump was calling strikes for them, balls for us.
I gave up after Rutsch’s AB in the 3rd. We were not going to be allowed to even try to win.
First K for LSU is 6″ off the plate
Zone is ‘interesting,’ wonder if beavs will get the same benefit of the doubt. No, not really.
No, they will not.
Ump, strike, ball, strike.. what!?
What did I say yesterday? We’d be fighting the umps and crowd today. In warmups, LSU fans sooo loud. Beav fans barely audible. Ump gives the Tom Glavine 1ft outside call to the LSU pitcher…
Pretty much exactly what I expected, and LSU fans pulled our fire alarm at 1am.
This is going to be brutal. No way the ump gives Fehmel those calls. Fix is in.
Disgusting. The umps are already the story today
It will be interesting to see whether the home plate umpire is as generous to Fehmel and OSU with that wide strike zone.
LSU wins 10-2…..Hope I am wrong but that is my hunch
Excellent!!!
Rutschumen is the man behind the plate
LSU swinging at a ton of first pitches. Bryce keeps em guessing it could be quick innings. Need to put some runs on the board to put pressure on their hitters. It’s exactly what got them into trouble last game.
The Mendoza lines needs renamed the Rutschumen line… his D is fucking incredible.
The pitcher is doing what he said he would do.
Jesus fucking Christ, swing the fucking bats.
Swing the bat. Come on!
Gotta attack that outside pitch. Ump is giving him a huge zone. Both the CB and the Fastball.
Apparently our strategy is to stand up there and take strikes. Obviously just trying to run up the pitch count. LSU must have a really lousy bullpen.
Looks like Gilbert was spot on about the Beavs not wanting to swing. He and the Ump will eat them alive today.
SWING THE DAMN BAT. Embarrassing that every strikeout is looking.
No way the Beavs win this game with that strikezone. They rely on walks and won’t get a single one if a pitch 1ft outside is a strike. Might get no-hit.
OK. Those LSU pitches are clearly off the plate. But today they are being called strikes (at least for LSU). OSU batters obviously need to make an adjustment. Expect that to happen next time up….
Problem is you can’t do anything with a ball 1ft off the plate. If you swing it will be a foul ball or an out. That’s why they aren’t swinging…
Ump doesn’t give the same exact pitch to the Beavs. Shocker. We are fighting the crowd and the ump.
Ump won’t call the strike for us in same location..
Ok, now we know. Different strike zones for LSU vs OSU. Two Fehmel pitches on the outside corner that were called balls in a single at-bat.
I think Fehmel may be done for the day.
That LSU guy just gave the big dick sign. Nice.
We lost.
This is the worst ump I have ever seen. Worse than HS umps.
Agree. Time for a Hawkeye strike zone as soon as possible. Calls are all over the place and our strikezone is 6 inches smaller all the way around the plate.
Game over. Wanted to start Rasmussen. Ump screwed us on that no strike call. Ball was perfect and 4 inches above any possible ball call.
Beavs have no confidence in their bats.
The ump determined the outcome in both these loses. Just brutal stuff.
Announcer said OSU dugout said to be shouting at ump for not calling same strikes before the homer.
Beavs :(
Casey has to own this. His choice yesterday (along with failing to start Rasmussan or Heimlick) on that double cost his team a national title.
No warts.
Yep, no way the Beavs can win with such a huge discrepancy in strike zones.
Fehmel should have been out of that inning. Fehmel spotted two balls just off the plate that have been strikes for the LSU pitcher, but were called balls for Fehmel. Seemed like Fehmel lost it after that.
Had a bad feeling about both these games. Sucks!
I had a 7-2 final, but I don’t even see a path to a single run because the ump won’t let the Beavs walk.
No way you can rally without walks.
Pat Casey can’t sit in the dugout, this is nonsense.
My thoughts exactly, Casey needs to go get tossed.
Fuck you ump!! In the other batter box for that strike!
OMG. That punchout of Adley was ridiculous — truly 5 inches off the plate.
come on it was on the white line in the other batsmen ball for the love of Pete
Ball was in the opposite batter’s box and ump calls out Rutchmann. What a joke!!!!! At this point maybe you just walk out of the stadium to make a statement and see what SECESPN does.
This is absolutely insane. I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, or someone who will call games fixed. I don’t see this being anything but that. How can you explain such a discrepancy in the strike zone.
Surprising, even the ESPN/SEC announcers are calling out those outside called strikes.
I’ll own it. I was dead wrong and didn’t see Gilbert dominating us like this.
Rasmussen is on a very limited pitch count and that’s why he didn’t start.
Can the umpiring be any worse.
That’s just it though, five of his strikeouts have been looking on pitches outside the strike zone. He’s not dominating.
To Gilbert’s credit, he is able to locate pitches consistently off the plate by three to six inches. But I don’t think Gilbert is dominating anyone. The umpire is calling strikes and punching out OSU batters on pitches that are clearly off the plate — often so far off the plate as to be unhittable. That has completely screwed the Beavers so far in this game. And then, to make it worse, the umpire squeezed the strike zone on Fehmel, making Fehmel come in with hittable pitches.
So far, this game has been a nightmare. Still, it’s only the bottom of the 3rd inning. Beavers still have time to come back if they can refocus. And if the ump stops screwing the Beavs….
Whos wife at the NCAA did Casey fuck to lead to this? It is so clearly in against the Beavs.
Leadoff walk. Falling behind most hitters now. Why is Fehmel still in there?
This post of mine got 4 thumbs down yesterday, btw:
I just went to a Dodger game where Kershaw gave up 6 runs to an awful Mets team, so I don’t want to hear about pitching advantages…lol. Yeah, on paper Drew is better, but this situation is almost all mental at this point. Beavs will be fighting the umps and crowd as well.
My larger review is also spot on. Just saying. Got a lot of crap for it, but this is exactly what anyone who watched ESPN and knows baseball would expect.
Wow, gotta turn the DP there. And the next pitch is perfect and ump misses it. So it looks like the ump wants a 4th LSU run.
Edit: yep, ump wanted that insurance run.
How does Grenier not get out the lead runner there? Looked like an easy double play.
Lack of sleep??
Playing tight. Very easy DP. Umps have fucked up their minds further.
I think we get no-hit.
You were right. Fire alarm, umpires who cheat, biased announcers. We have no shot and it’s all about the ESPN/ SEC dollar. Fuck them, I’m heading to Newport.
Team’s falling apart.
Personally don’t care about the season if it doesnt end with a championship.
Sad to see it end with them playing so poorly.
LSU scores a 4th run. Last two days been complete shit. 7-0 LSU today.
Haven’t been able to watch the game, but reading this comments, this game is so disappointing. To deny equitable calls to a team – any team – that worked so hard to get here is just absurdly unethical. So many sports have become unwatchable because of this kind of approach.
Did this ump used to work the WWF ring or something? Are we supposed to appreciate theater more than competition and fairness? Has anybody hit a Beaver player over the head with a chair yet?
Strike zone is bullshit, but the Beavs are mentally out of this too. The Fehmel homerun pitch was atrocious with first base open, the missed force out at second and now the pitch out mess. Looks like all the shit has been too much to overcome as the importance of each game builds.
Just luke that Civil War for the Rose Bowl flipped on the injury and shot of the full moon, the CWS completely flipped on the Kwan miscall and non review. They have had zero momentum since then. Convinced they would have won 4-2 or 4-3 yesterday had that been called right. Then I think we would have won the Finals as well.
Rasmussen eay underused so far though. Too good of a pitcher to never give him a chance to shutdown and give your team its best chance to take the lead. Beavers are damn near unbeatable with the lead so anything that aids that has to be Priority #1.
Our team looks so lifeless…
Y’all have a great team but Lsu got hot. Gilbert has been nasty all year. Seems
Like after the missed foul call and the loss OSU was tense today. Baseball such a crazy sport. Still amazing what the beavers did 55-6. Wow. Ump was generous and too generous at times but to imply an sec fix is ignorance at its best. Our pitching is really really good.
We will get no-hit unless the LSU pitcher throws a meatball by accident.
They have folded.
How on earth do you outthink the room and not throw Drew today?
LSU didn’t earn this one. Ostrich sized * next to this CWS between the 2r double yesterday and this strike zone.
Need a couple shut down innings by Eisert and our bats better get going soon. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Hess, psycho, Wild Thing or whatever that closer’s name is as early as the 7th.
They don’t need the coked out roid dude.
Well, this sounds terrible. I’m hungover today, so I’ve not been watching, heh… Doesn’t sound like a fun game to watch. I’m assuming the strike zone inconsistency is pretty egregious, though, since Angry is tweeting about it.
Some jackass tweeted “Choke City” to the baseball account. I tweeted back that they hadn’t lost to the same team twice yet this year. An hour in, he tweeted back at me, “CHOKE! HAHAHA” and I’m thinking to myself, “You’re a jackass. Your life must be sad if you remember a twitter exchange about this from yesterday, and come back to it the next day.”
I’m usually fair with umps and won’t go haywire unless it’s egregious and seems intentional. Definitely the case today.
We haven’t been able to hit for two games. Blame whatever you want but the team is failing imo.
The ump sucks, still put more blame on Casey, poor decision yesterday on the double and poor use of his pitching staff. LSU is taking advantage, I actually think Casey got out coached, I never think that.
Casey has messed up so many times. People still getting his back, though…
LSU coach was right Fehmel had the shadows game 1. I noticed that as well and felt it was helping him out. Casey somehow didn’t realize that had a lot to do with it.
I was okay with Fehmel on a short leash but preferred Drew. Problem with the Fehmel situation is once you give up the 3r HR it blows up the short-leash strategy because, to me, a short leash is 2 runs or less. Casey didn’t think that all through. Casey also had a shot to bring in Drew at 3-0 to try to keep it there yet didn’t even do that.
Can Casey play the game under protest? This ump should be under review and never have a job again. Need robot umps for sure. I’m a traditionalist but we need robots. It’s gone too far. We can’t have umps determining major games.
Don’t care what Jack says. The 100% ownership of the PAC Network at the expense of DirecTV and fractions of what other leagues are earnung has been a disaster so far. Only plan Scott has is to wait 7 more years and see if trends become more favorable but this strategy will cost us 11 years of waiting for peanuts in comparison. Even if trends were to improve you don’t make up that time. SEC and B1G woukd just renegotiate their deals if trends changed and they were even making 1 cent less.
So PAC leadership has failed the conference. Plan needs to be to get on DirecTV, increase exposure and then have increased leverage. Because we were quickly put in the rear view mirror just 3-4 years after our deal, most areas of the country now think the PAC is furthest behind of the P5 conferences. ESPNs increased relationship with the ACC and their network has put them in a stronger position until 2023-2024 atleast when our deal is reworked.
Strategy by ESPN/Fox seems to currently let the Big 12 and PAC struggle and argue about which may be in last place so that if anything OU maybe moves to SEC or B1G and consolidation in the Eastern US becomes even worse to the detriment of the national landscape. PAC champion has a slight edge right now to make the Playoff but from the network perspective they prefer PAC and Big 12 fighting for the last spot. This serves neither the PAC or Big 12 and is why I feel merging with 4-6 Big 12 teams is in our best interests.
Get on DirecTV, get national exposure and more respect and have a network that can pay its teams much more aligned with other top conferences.
You make too much sense for this to actually happen
Smoke is better than pills. That way you can keep your head instead of buying this.
Think about what Directv is and will be in the future. ATT bought them then shut down Uverse and shifted them over to DTV. They will remove satellites altogether, and they will make everyone move to wireless streaming in the near future. DTV is being strangled, and most content providers are being squeezed for cut-rate prices for fewer customers now… and none in the future.
PTN was lucky not to have closed on DTV for the long run. ATT will shove everyone into untenable tiers of crappy service with high penalties and automated customer service. That’s their m.o. now. They don’t want to spend the money necessary to upgrade direct broadband connections (as they and Verizon promised they would do when they wrote legislation for every state and had all their magical corporate free market mumbo jumbo about lower costs bought by morons).
What they don’t know, apparently, is that Comcast and Verizon are going to bury them… sooner than later. Any telco/ISP who has developed direct service infrastructure will be ahead of them in both the short and long terms. The deals the PTN made with Comcast are much more forward looking than anything the SEC is tethered to right now. They’re going to be Ned Beatty on this canoe ride soon enough.
This game is cooked! With Hess ready to come in if the Beavs ever decide to even think about a rally. I think The long lay off more than anything is what did it. NCAA should look at that you win 2 straight then don’t play for 3 days it’s hard to get the juices back going.
Hess might die on the mound if he tries to pitch two days in a row on roids and coke. Then again, Dwight Gooden did it for 15 years.
Offense is slumping at exactly the wrong time. If you can’t score more than 3 and 5 runs you can’t expect to win.
Err 6 runs.
Scoring 1 and 0 is sad.
Starting Fehmel was a calculated risk by Casey. Leaving Fehmel in when he was clearly struggling with his control was an unforced error by Casey and Nate, and it cost the Beavers dearly. Same with inserting Eisert rather than Rasmussen to replace Fehmel. That’s what let the game get out of hand. Another mistake that Pat Casey needs to own.
But probably the biggest mistake was a failure to make adjustments when it became obvious, in the first inning, that the ump was widening the strike zone against the Beavers. The Beavers kept taking the same pitches, and the ump kept calling them strikes — even when they were far off the plate. OSU’s strategy appeared to be to complain to the ump, and hope he would narrow the strike zone. Not a smart or effective strategy. And it killed the Beavs. Casey, in today’s in-game interview, just criticized his hitters for not making an adjustment. But it was his job as a coach to make that happen It appears he didn’t. Instead, Casey and the Beavs stubbornly stuck to the same failing strategy. Casey has to own that, too.
I think the biggest mistake was not understanding the challenge rules and/or not challenging, whatever happened yesterday. As I wrote yesterday in my analogy with the Bill Buckner ’86 Mets fiasco, that today’s outcome was determined once they lost yesterday. Mentally as a player you need several days to get over that “what if” even if you’re a tough team. So I saw this a mile away and it’s why I feel yesterday was much more a blunder than anything today. Today the ump decided the game and relegated this NCAA baseball game to a scripted boxing/wwf match.
This game is done and done. Really disappointing end to a spectacular season but it will go down as a huge missed opportunity. The luck finally ran out.
I’m not really one for conspiracy theories but this game was so horribly officiated it does make one wonder. With the Heimlich situation, the NCAA clearly did not want this story being the lead for ones of its champions. Espn has a vested interest in promoting the SEC. I don’t think the umps are paid or anything so obvious but I do think the NCAA knows exactly what type of game they will call. No coincidence that two favoriting LSU’s style of play ( as well as incompetent crews with no idea on the rules.)
In the end the NCAA and ESPN get what they wanted. A “clean” championship and a moneymaker to boot.
Of course the game is done. Thanks, Captain Obvious. It’s 6-0 with 6 outs left!
Well I don’t I write that when we had 12 outs left but still. Yeah think we could see the writing on the wall after the three run homer.
Okay fair enough.
Well wrote that when we had 12 outs left but still. Yeah think we could see the writing on the wall after the three run homer.
And they can all go to hell. I’ll continue receiving my quality education at a beautiful campus with a friendly, encouraging, and intelligent staff that actually interacts with students. Oregon State is a great school to attend. Unlike some other school down the road, the admin staff listen to the students in decision-making, and don’t try to raise tuition by 10.6%. Also, per Obama’s College Scorecard, OSU students make more money on average when they graduate than that other school.
The ESPN announcers the other day were saying this OSU baseball team has the greatest winning percentage of any team ever in NCAA history. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
lol, people voting this down.
All it takes is a short pre-game talk by some inside person with the home-plate umpire that goes sort of like this: “No one wants to watch a game with lots of walks. Let’s make the batters on both teams swing the bats.”
An experienced umpire understands what that means. The Beavers are known for strike-zone discipline, and for not swinging at pitches off the plate. Don’t let them get away with that today.
Did such a conversation take place before today’s game? Who knows. But stranger things have happened. For an example, here’s what apparently sometimes happens in the NBA: http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-nba-ref-who-fixed-games-suggests-league-will-look-to-influence-tonights-nba-finals-game/
The LSU starter said as much, that OSU basically looks for walks. So he poisoned the well a bit. I’m sure someone got that message through to the umpire. Still, the umpire is an authority figure who has the responsibility to maintain the integrity of the game and play to a rule book. It’s on him. He was an absolute failure. He should be fired, but he’ll probably get a raise for getting an SEC team into the finals.
This game was lost yesterday.
Yep exactly what I was trying to say above but used way too many words.
In hindsight you appear to be correct but did anyone think Casey wouldn’t have them ready to play today?
Yes, see my writeup/prediction yesterday. 7-2 LSU final with crowd and ump determining the game. Spot on. No hindsight. Opposite of hindsight.
I know you did but still… Casey is supposed to be the master motivator.
Heimlich lost it in 2012.
Sad, but true.
Kenny Powers in to close it out
Haha. He scuffs the ball with cocaine.
Been a rough few weeks for Casey, some ups and downs for sure.
Lol @ douche visor dad
My friend, an ACC alum, said that guy was known as one of the worst refs ever. Total hot head who made games about him.
I thought it was Chip Kelly at first glance.
Hess will be a top five pick in a couple years. Serious movement on the ball.
Does the game face of LSU’s closer — Hess — remind anyone else of Jonathan Papelbon’s game face in his best years with the Red Sox?
https://brobible.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/papelbon.jpg?quality=90
They definitely already look defeated in the dugout
Psycho’s losing it
Jesus Christ those were not even close.
Wow! Even ESPN announcers say “that can’t happen” at this point in the game. Ump comes back to save LSU with two horrible called strikes against Larnach….
Too predictable, called it
When does football start?
Was this ump trying to screw OSU by widening the strike zone at key moments of the game? After what just happened in the ninth, the answer may actually be “yes”.
I formally apologize to Angry, that was a game that was not impartial. That was disgusting.
Agreed.
Didn’t expect an umpire to put his thumb directly on the scales like that to favor LSU. But that’s what he did. And Angry did call it!
Thank you!
Game played out almost exactly as I figured…but I have to be honest, I thought the umps would be more clandestine than that. That was BLATANT.
Bring on the robo umps and screw the corrupt – I mean “human element”
The Russians would hack the robot ump, or espn would…
Well, ESPN, The Oregonian, the Umpire, and the SEC all got what they wanted. What a scummy game.
Is any sport watchable? This is baseball….football is 100x worse.
To clarify, I meant this game in particular, not the entire game of baseball.
If you’re talking about college football, yeah, the SEC bias is worse there. Meanwhile, you pretty much can’t play defense in the NFL anymore, and basketball is probably the worse sport in the US when it comes to the power of refs being able to influence the game.
It’s times like these that I’m thankful for being a huge European soccer fan, even with all the flaws it has.
Even though the game was already over, that last strike out pisses me off the most.
If KJ walks, and loads the bases with none out in the ninth, who knows. But the ump took care of that….
Just a minute there, that sounds like competitive, player-driven, compelling viewing. Even if only for half an inning.
Wonder how the pyscho would have handled that….
8 inches ogf the plate in situation to load the bases with no outs and ump rings up Larnach. Beyond despicable.
Angry, I think the most important thing thia board could do from here on out is to lead the effort to bring robo strike-ball calls. This ump expanded LSU’s strike zone by about 16 inches left to right today. A robot would have called atleast 20 more balls today on LSU’s pitches.
I’m not sure how a site about the Beavs can lead a national movement for robot umps, but I’m all for robot umps. At least on balls and strikes until the technology is in place for more complex calls. Fuck their union. If they want jobs, do the job right. Otherwise, sit the fuck down, Greg Street, and let a robot do the job properly.
Losing fair and square is one thing. Tip the cap and move on. Stuff like this pisses me off and makes me question why the hell I follow any sports at all.
That’s exactly how I feel and tweeted before even reading your post. If the players decided the outcome and we lost, cool…
Is there a formal means of protesting using video tapes? Won’t reverse the outcome, but perhaps keep that guy from officiating again?
You know it’s bad when the announcers complain about it.
Gotta give credit Angry called it spot on. There is zero doubt the umps tipped the scales. I can’t believe I am even saying that but it’s true.
Serious question: If Heimlich returns, can he get a fair shake from the umps?
I don’t know. He would likely face taunts, jeers by fans and probably get no benefit of the doubt from umps and announcers. If he plays, it would be completely uncertain whether he could be as effective.
“LSU’s a great team, that’s why they’re still playing. They got great pitchers, great umpires”
OK, he didn’t say that last bit, but it’s true.
So this ump is from the SEC?
https://twitter.com/aaronfitt/status/878730730905513984
He also apparently is a cop and umped Louisville/OSU in the past.
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/wake-sheriff-s-sergeant-doubles-as-cws-umpire/12562336/
Yes. Greg Street is an SEC ump. Just checked that myself.
Other tweets from Aaron Fitt during the game:
OK… this Greg Street strike zone is getting kinda silly. That 2-2 pitch was much better than the 3-2 pitch that was called strike 3.
Yikes…(a retweet of an image showing a pitch six inches outside that was called a third strike against the Beavers)
For what it’s worth, I actually do think we should go to robo zones. We have the technology. Tennis does it. Let’s just get the calls right.
Say what you want about zone, but credit LSU pitchers for shutting down a very good OSU offense these last 2 days. 2 R, 4 H in 17 innings.
Disgusted groaning and gasping in the press box after that 2nd called strike, literally in the other batter’s box.
The word from multiple people in SEC country is that Greg Street is a nice man and a very inconsistent home plate umpire. Just awful today.
Incredible. They don’t even try to hide the bias anymore. Heads should roll, but they won’t.
Fitt usually this much a kool aid drinker?
You can’t credit them with anything. I stopped watching after Rutsch’s AB in the 3rd because the ump called strike three on a ball four inches outside one he called a ball two pitches earlier.
Any relatively decent player knows to lay off something outside another pitch that was already called outside. That went on repeatedly with every AB.
Fehmel hit two consecutive pitches about 8 inches apart from each other and waist high, and the announcer was mentioning how that’s (the most recent) usually called a strike… then pop! HR.
Bryce had to throw it in the sweet spot to get called strikes. LSU got to throw it to a zone that was four inches lower and about a foot wider.
The calls were so egregious, an MLB team would have trouble beating LSU this weekend.
Apparently umpires aren’t required to be from a neutral conference at this stage?
Which is insane…
I saw him listed as ACC on some sites, so do we know he’s an SEC ump?
Well good damn that turned out to be a useless season. Feels almost worse than not even making the postseason. Now all that’s left to discuss is the damn child molester and whether or not he should play next year.
No thanks! I’m going to do summer and not think about it. Hope the school does the right thing and kicks him out. We can’t have that guy on our team.
Please explain why that would be the “right thing”. I’m not a fan either, but that’s different from he should get kicked out for something he did as a minor that already went through the court system.
Actually, don’t. I’m about as tired as you of all that mess.
Should we also kick LSU fans out for being racist fucks?
Did anyone else notice that the lily-white teams did very well in this CWS?
https://www.reddit.com/r/collegebaseball/comments/6j6nqv/fire_alarm_goes_off_in_oregon_states_hotel/
Using the old Pats strategy it looks like. I know it was mentioned above, but wow. Just wow.
So NCAA snubbed us last year, and now we get hosed again.
Is this an OSU problem or do other fanbases deal with this? It seems like OSU has more things go against them than most schools. Of course I follow OSU more closely, so there’s that. It would be interesting convo for other fanbases. Personally, I think any school from the west that isn’t USC has a disadvantage in all sports. Even Oregon, Stanford, UCLA are at a disadvantage to schools East of the Miss. in huge games.
Also, even our local media seems to hate us.
“Personally, I think any school from the west that isn’t USC has a disadvantage in all sports.”
USC would strongly disagree that USC gets better treatment from the NCAA than other West Coast schools. NCAA sanctions against USC football (re Reggie Bush) were clearly excessive, and were apparently pushed through by SEC schools tired of seeing USC win national championships.
True. Interesting. But Oregon got a light sentence for some atrocious issues, SMU got the death penality, etc. NCAA rulings seem…”inconsistent”, in general.
NCAA needs to go. I’m not sure what would replace it, but it smells rotten. All these institutions and networks are cannibalizing themselves with short-term outlooks/$. Fans might be dumb, but they’re not stupid. I think they sense all this and are tuning out.
I disagree. The fans where ESPN is buying are really stupid and would tell you they’re insulted that you call them stupid just because they don’t know basic math… or the English language… or geography, biology, basic physics, chemistry or medicine.
Again, Angry was right. The fix was in. Even the ESPN announcers were gasping at some of the calls that Greg Street made to punch out Beaver batters. The lead columnist for D1 Baseball, Aaron Fitt, tweeted that Greg Street was “just awful today”, and admitted that “robo zones” may be needed to stop this sort of thing from happening in the future. But we know that’s not going to happen any time soon. The NCAA and the SEC are just fine with what happened today. Nothing broken here, no need to fix anything (except, of course, the outcome…..)
Well ESPN is losing 10,000 viewers per day, so they might care. I wrote an article years ago…must have been 2010, about the “decline of ncaa football”, and I brought up this point that as ESPN doubles down on the SEC narrative they exclude entire fanbases. ESPN will blame the -10k on “cable cutters”, but I think the story is more than that. I know many people (myself included) who simply can’t watch the ESPN/SEC narratives and bias. I can afford cable, yet I cut it in 2009 for this very reason. I was early, but I think many are catching up. ESPN just doesn’t want to admit that’s the reason for obvious reasons, so “cable cutters” puts the blame elsewhere. Even if it is cable cutters, does ESPN ask why they are cutting cable? For example, in my case I cut it for this very reason, not because of price.
My buddy in ACC territory was ENRAGED today and he doesn’t even follow OSU. It was just the injustice and obvious bias. He’s a GaTech guy, so he seems a lot of SEC bias. He also watches very little ESPN because of it. So it’s a problem for sure over there. I just think they’re keeping it mum and blaming cable cutters or any other excuse. Soon they will have just SEC fans watching their network, and then what?
It’s frustrating to see OSU’s excellent baseball program get screwed, year after year, by the NCAA. For fans, sports are supposed to be enjoyable. The last two days were not enjoyable. Time to take the summer off, and see how things feel after a couple of months without sports.
Eventually (likely this year) Casey is going to get sick of it. He’s fighting ESPN, umps, NCAA, etc. It’s hard enough to fight your opponent. ESPN et al could be marketing OSU as a miracle of a program, which they are….a team from the PNW dominating like this is a magical story. Yet, instead they want their hand picked demographics or markets, and they figure they can spin a compelling story around those.
I truly believe we are living the death of sports. It’s slow, but with each of these unjust events the world of sports loses some viewers.
“I truly believe we are living the death of sports. It’s slow, but with each of these unjust events the world of sports loses some viewers.”
You may be right. I grew up as an NBA fan, back in the day, but stopped watching the NBA years ago when it became apparent that the referees, and the league, were controlling the outcomes at various levels. Stopped watching MLB and NFL regular season games a few years later, for related reasons. For the past decade, most of my time watching sports has been either watching my kids’ teams, or watching the Beavers. But my kids are grown now. And college sports no longer seem so worthwhile or interesting when the outcomes (at various levels) are so obviously influenced by powerful, commercial organizations such as ESPN, the NCAA, and the SEC. Sports lose their attraction when the game is fixed. And that’s how it’s feeling, more and more, after days like this. Why not find something better to do with one’s time, rather than root for teams that are bound, in the end, to get screwed by the powers-that-be? Who needs it? Again, Angry, I think you are right.
Exactly, I grew up liking the NBA. Now I view it as the worst pro league outside of boxing/WWF. I haven’t watched an NBA game in 25 years. It started with Jordan…the treatment he got. I couldn’t watch it after I pieced that together.
MLB and NFL are not as bad, imo. Some pitchers (e.g. Tom Glavine) in MLB would get calls for reasons I couldn’t explain, but did the Yankees or other huge markets get calls over other teams? Not really. I mean Boston and the Cubs went 100 years without titles. It’s hard to argue bias. Baseball and football don’t need to manufacture stars as much as the NBA does. I think because in MLB/NFL there are so many players on each team that stars will rise to the top. NBA has small rosters, so they have to manufacture them more. Though, there could be more to it. I haven’t thought it out fully.
NFL is getting worse, though.They had gained some public trust from their revenue sharing structure, but some of that has changed over the past five years. MLB has cleaned up their act and is pretty good right now. I don’t see any Tom Glavine’s (total joke that guy is in the HOF given he got an extra 1ft off the plate for no reason).
It seems the most corruption right now is in NCAA sports, and I think that’s because pro sports have powerful owners who all have even influence. NCAA sports don’t have that. I bet HS sports are next to exploit…zero structure there, which is a haven for corruption and exploitation. We see ESPN covering the top HS football teams now on TV. Gee…wonder why.
Death of competition maybe, but the death of “sport” is a long way off, if ever. Too many ignorant viewers who don’t understand or care that the way OSU lost today is bad for the game. Millions who love the false narrative don’t critically evaluate the product.
Boxing seems on its way out, but we get Mayweather/Mcgregor, which is more spectacle than competition or earned opportunity.
As Jack has said, if big money is to be made – as in NCAA sports – corruption follows. That corruption can be managed and presented in a way that the average viewer not only accepts, but enjoys. There’s a bunch of LSU/SEC fans loving the fact that LSU “won” and “SEC dominance” was sustained, they don’t care how it happened. The networks can continue to manage the “hope” that another conference will prevail as in today’s game.
I keep expecting live attendance to nosedive in most sports with people watching on line and eventually 3D or “VR immersive” to sustain viewer interest.
I liken pro and now NCAA sports to the games in ancient Rome, bread and circuses that distract the masses and keep them happy so they don’t critically evaluate the managed spectacle.
He’s having to fight the majority of the media in his own state too. These Lissman, Wetzler, and Heimlich stories have to get old every time he makes a deep run. I doubt Paul Maneiri fights these same battles at LSU.
Exactly. Above I wrote “Also, even our local media seems to hate us.”
Why is that? Just because we aren’t the Ducks? Do they realize if OSU stinks it’s bad for the Ducks? I thought people liked underdogs. OSU just seems hated by all. I don’t get it. Good people and modest. What’s to hate? Why is their own media out to get them? It all makes no sense.
Easy. We’re not backed by the full force of Nike.
Much like ESPN’s SEC bias, the Oregonian has a deliberate and obvious Duck bias.
This season, OSU wins yet another series and the lead sports page (above the fold) is about some Duck loss. HUH?!?!
Count the number of Duck stories on any given day on Olive and its painfully obvious. Its the way it is and it won’t change. I’ve weaned my self from much of OLive denying them my click’s.
But Mark Klatches lay off memo was telling. Calling Canzano and Ackers their rising stars said all that has to be said. He’s ecstatic about their click rate so little else matters other than protecting his political class.
Welcome aboard, Sscamaro. Nice to see a new icon/registered account.
My question is this: why does the Oregonian favor the Ducks? It’s before my time. But both teams stunk for ages. Why’d they decide to go with the Ducks? Also, don’t they realize that when both teams are good it’s good for the State and the rivalry? If they lose Beav fans, there’s nothing in rivalry games. If they lose Beav fans, they lose all those subscriptions. So, I don’t get it.
AB, nice to find this website. Thank you.
Re: Ducks, not certain other than there is a strong Duck following in the Metro area so I assume they are pandering to the local base. That and Nike using the Duck athletic programs as their marketing showcase creates excitement in the local writer’s pool. Nike money begets a lot of attention in the sports room. That and the Weekly Fashion Shows on Olive of the coming week’s game uniforms has been nauseating. As if this is Paris Fashion Week of football.
As for the Oregonian, Beavs are the red headed step children of the state. Most of us laugh it off and shake our collective heads. Its like reading the NYT. You know there’s an institutional bias so you read it with that in mind. They are who they are.
Yes, that all seems accurate. But I guess just having spent most of my life outside of Oregon, that I just don’t understand it. OSU/UO rivalry is good for all, including the writer’s job security. State pride should trump all. Oregonian writers would rather LSU win than OSU? Zero pride. It’s just very odd to me. I’d rather Oregon win than LSU. Maybe I don’t understand the hate. I was rooting for Oregon in almost every big game.
“It’s frustrating to see OSU’s excellent baseball program get screwed, year after year, by the NCAA.”
And that frustration is compounded — greatly — by the fact that the SEC, the NCAA, and ESPN are all in cahoots with each other. Sports are supposed to be about fair competition on an even playing field. That’s not what just happened in Omaha. It’s too annoying to keep thinking about. So I won’t, at least for a couple of months. Maybe longer. We’ll see.
Thanks for all the interesting posts, conversations, and insights during the season.
Go Beavs!
Silver lining (?): OSU has its key motivating factor for another Omaha run next year?
But Casey will likely retire by all accounts. I don’t have any confidence in the other coaches on this staff, nor confidence we won’t get hosed again.
It’s why I mainly stick to MLB. Everyone is equally corrupt so it evens out. I think I watched 2 regular season Beaver baseball games. I don’t like to waste my time on it for these very reasons. Post season, sure, but then I just get enraged once I finally have to witness these crimes against humanity!
What accounts are those? Speculation on this blog?
They will not reach 40 wins next year. Heimlich returning will divide the team for multiple reasons, and this utterly blatant jobbing by the refs will induce a sense of defeatism.
They’ll forget about the umps by next season. And Heimlich probably won’t return.
Bigger issue is whether Casey wants to stay for another round of jobbing, and how they plan for the inevitable jobbing in Omaha. Beavs should be at the forefront of robo umps, no SEC umps behind the dish, etc.
Couldn’t get Sling to work all day, so I couldn’t watch.
THIS FUCKING SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Between Canzano, the SEC, and the Umps……WHY FUCKING TRY………WFT!!!!!!!!!!
You should have streamed it online.
Something was up with my stream….couldnt get much out of the bandwidth today. Funny that Amazon worked, but anything live got the circle of death. Oh well, probably would have turned it off in disgust.
Pro tip for next time.
You can use your Sling log in to stream directly from ESPN’s site if you need to. That way you’re bypassing Sling’s system entirely and get the (mostly) better Watch ESPN stream.
I’m absolutely blowing up twitter. NCAA will probably have me assassinated.
Wear Kevlar, don’t ride in convertibles.
Don’t forget the tinfoil hat.
Speaking of payback, wonder if Danny boy moron can get a spit free burger in this town anymore.
Probably, but hopefully not a jizz free burger.
to what hash tag are you sending the tweets? Will those in power – Larry Scott, Ed Ray, other coaches, put forth any formal complaint or initiate the request for robot umpires?
#Cws2017, but I also sent them directly to NCAA Baseball. Will they listen? Doubt it, but a lot of people on twitter are talking about this and screen capping the awful calls. It’s powerful.
there will be no review of this game but at least we’ll shake our fest at the NCAA
Joe Casey says Pat is coming back:
https://twitter.com/joecasey55/status/878778263715360768
What changes those 60-70 odds OSU and TCU aupposedly had to win today based off pure unbiased stats? Corrupt SEC Umps working with SECESPN to assure an all SEC Final. Swung the odds from over 60% for each to sub 10% IMO. That’s how much influence you can have by calling 20 LSU balls as strikes in just one game.
Must read tweet from Mississippi State. They called it ‘terrible’ that a fastball 10 inches off the plate could be called a strike. Were ashamed he was a SEC ump.
https://twitter.com/MsStBaseballFan/status/878731962097295364
Balls in the other batter box called strikes are not all; Bryce Fehmel threw some pure strikes that were called balls.
Yep. None bigger then one right down the center that would have K’d the LSU hitter before the 3 run home run. That never happens with a robo call. Ball was 4 inches above bottom of zone and he called it a ball. Then calls several for LSU as strikes that are 8-10 inches off plate whenever it prevents a walk or rings up an OSU batter.
If it wasn’t so obvious, one would think the guy was on the take. Florida State got cheated on crucial calls as well. (I haven’t checked to see if it was the same umpire.) The NCAA can ignore media attention – it will go away – I have never heard announcers criticize an umpire the way they did during the game – something more than that is necessary, how, who? Will this at least initiate robo calls? The review system is pretty stupid, too.
Final four and a great record of not losing. I’d take that most years. The way it ended has much to be desire. At least are there umpire reviews after a games?
Sure be nice have the NCAA to come out and omit it that the ump missed a lot of calls by pure negligence of his own accord.
Hope everyone is well if they are in the Valley it was darn heat category 5 out there today in the 100s. Make sure you drink water and get to cooling stations if need be.
http://herosports.com/college-baseball/college-world-series-oregon-state-strike-call-lsu-ahah
Does anyone know when the team will be back in Corvallis? I heard today, but not sure what time and would like to welcome them home!