“Nothing new. Pretty sure we established we were soft a couple of weeks ago.”

I would say the meltdown of the Oregon baseball season has officially began. Well, to be honest the meltdown probably really started 6 weeks or so and they are now just a luke warm puddle of gelatinous ooze. If it’s not Coach Horton throwing everyone but himself out to the sharks, it’s Danny Pulfer lighting his teammates up and accusing them of going ‘Lakers’ out there. While Horton looks like a self-deflecting red ass, I actually have no problem with Pulfer’s remarks. I mean these are his boys, and he did come into the weekend hitting .327.  I’m sure he is pissed that they went from top-5 in some preseason polls to .500 and out of it when 10 or so games to play.

“Still the same thing. Some guys are focused, some guys aren’t. I’m just fed up with it. Getting swept at home to a UCLA team that I didn’t think was as good as the one last year. You look at the numbers, we’re not out of it yet but we’re playing like our dogs just died. I don’t get it.”

Well to be fair, you guys aren’t as good either. I mean the pitchers still shove to the tune of a 2.81 era, but the sticks are non-existent. I mean the Ducks just scored a whopping 2 runs in the 3 game set against UCLA… By the way, you guys are out of it.

 

“It’s embarrassing. To have the crowd come out on a Sunday, on Mother’s Day … if we were going to play like that, I wish we would have told them, ‘Hey, spend the day with your mom and don’t come out to the yard.’”

Working Mother’s Day into the rant, love it, give this guy the mic more often. Oregon Baseball: Caring about yo mama’s well being since 2009.

 

“It’s doable, we just have to find a way to play better baseball. I don’t know, maybe we need to play the Beavers for the last nine games of the (Pac-10) series. I don’t know. I’m confused right now.”

Um, probably not the best idea. Nothing like playing a top 5 team to get you off the skids… Also, the only time UO beats OSU seemingly is when they play these stupid mid-week ‘non-league’ games against them.

All in all, a pretty brutal weekend for the Ducks. Get dick-kicked by the Bruins and ending it with chatter of being soft and quitting. Probably not the best way to kick off the futile talks of reaching the postseason this year.

Ah yes, this brings back some memories from the good ole days on the diamond:

(O Live) “We’ve got some guys who are trying hard and competing and haven’t folded their tents,” Ducks baseball coach George Horton said.

When a coach starts a quote with something nice after getting his ass kicked, you know some guys are about to get rail-roaded.

“But to me, that looked like we have some of our roster that have decided the season’s over. I’m not going to sit around and let that happen. I guess I’m shocked they would have that kind of effort.”

Hey George, “They” play on your team.  Care to throw around some adjectives to describe ‘those’ player’s efforts?

“futile, noncompetitive, and lackadaisical.”

How dare they get shut out by a 2010 6th round draft pick.  And now poor George is “out of speeches”.  Well, tough shit – time to pipe down, help your players out from under that 15 ton bus, and start acting like a coach, not talking like an overpaid one.

I love white cleats as much as the next guy. Shit I rocked a sick pair of white Nikes when I roamed the outfield of Civic stadium, but these Oregon cleats with Coach Horton’s mug on them are too much. I like the fact that the baseball team is walking around like they are the big dicks in town, but let’s at least win something before we start shoving it in everybody’s face. Let’s not forget that our little brother up north have 2 CWS titles while we’ve only been back in existence for 2 full seasons.

Win some games, grab a conference title, make a run in the CWS then worry about who’s face in on your cleat.

PS: Is there anyway the football team is going to let the baseball guys show them up with the cleats? I’m seeing something epic out of the football wardrobe designers next year.

Apparently KEZI is so archaic that you can’t even embed their videos, so here’s the link to their tired ass story that they roll out every 15 months or so thinking that the masses have no memory (or that the internet isn’t permanent, so a quick Google session won’t bring up the same recycled garbage they brought up in 2008..)

Phil Knight is such a controversial maverick! He is an evil mastermind that gives back to his Alma mater, and he actually has influence and power, how dare he! Has Knight bought influence on UofO athletics? Absolutely, and why is that a problem? I mean it’s not like he’s the head of the most powerful sports apparel and king of marketing company in the world or anything. It’s not like he’s Bobby Lowder at Auburn and dictating curriculum. The guy was an athlete at Oregon, made his billions in athletics, and now gives back to athletics. Apparently this is a problem, why I’m not sure. It isn’t like there isn’t a Law center he built, or a library for the general pop as well or anything… It’s his money, he can spend it however he wants. If I was him, I would be spending millions on hookers and blow, he spends it on sports. More power to him.  I love how KEZI reaches out to John Canzano so he can give his daily hate speech against the UofO, like there isn’t you know, actual media in the area or anything… I can’t wait to see the next 4 days of recycled garbage Dan Corcoran and KEZI spit out, I’m sure it will be ground breaking stuff.

I love the music at the 4:10 mark designed to pull at your heartstrings or something, so cheesy. Pathetic.

Here is a ‘scathing report’ that Danny and KEZI did in 2008 that is pretty much a carbon copy of what this whole week of reports will bring. And by ‘carbon copy’ I mean same premise, same reporter and same fucking pictures. Step your game up KEZI, you guys are either getting lazy or doubting the brain power of your audience.

2 – OREGON. (40-24)

You doubting the “George Horton Factor” anymore? Didn’t think so. After seeing them on a few occasions last year, I’m convinced this team has the goods to make for another fairy tale season in the great Northwest. The Ducks take their unique (and numerous) uniform combinations to the cusp of a national title. Reminds you of football, doesn’t it

Oregon baseball has been back for like 5 minutes, and Horton and co. are already ready to take the world over. Ho hum, just another day in University of Oregon athletics. Seriously Pac-10, can you guys step up your game for a minute, dominating you slugs is becoming old hat and frankly beginning to get boring. The Pac-10 has long been known as the best conference in America when it comes to baseball, so it’s no surprise so many are ranked highly. Here’s a look at the best of the rest:

4 – UCLA.

11 – WASHINGTON STATE.

13 – STANFORD.

18 – CALIFORNIA.

22 – ARIZONA STATE.

By the way, where are the Beavers????

PING!

Full Rankings

Jorge Horton and his crew of baseballers are off to Connecticut to play the Huskies this Friday at 7pm. Pretty amazing what the Ducks have been able to do in just 2 year, but then again, if you throw enough money at something you should have success. Other playoff notes: Cal was some how given a 2 seed with only 29 wins, and the Bark Rats earned a 3 seed and will play Fla. Atlantic Friday at 1pm. UCONN is the only 2 seed to host a regional; reason was that teams from the NE get favoritism in hopes it creates interest and exposure. Then why not just make them a 1 seed? Who knows, who cares.  JFP for the Quacks!

The Ducks will travel this week to Norwich, Conn., for their third postseason berth in school history. Oregon, which reinstated its baseball program in 2009 after a 28-year dismissal, heads to the postseason for the first time since a trip to the District VIII playoffs in 1964.

Connecticut, the No. 2 seed for the Norwich Regional is the host, while Florida State is the No. 1 seed. The Ducks are the No. 3 seed, while Central Connecticut State is the No. 4 seed.

Oregon will play Connecticut in Game 2 on Friday, with the start time TBA.

This will be Oregon head coach George Horton’s 12th appearance in the postseason, after making 11 trips to the playoffs in his 11 years at the helm at Cal State Fullerton.

Horton totaled a 55-26 record in his 11 postseason appearances, advancing out of the regional round on seven occasions.

Oregon finished the 2010 season with an overall record of 38-22, and a mark of 13-14 in the Pac-10 Conference, tying for fifth in the league standings.

The Ducks won five Pac-10 series, and finished the year with a 7-4 record against top-25 teams. Oregon was an even 3-3 against teams with a No. 1 ranking, and won its series taking 2-of-3 games at No. 1 UCLA (April 16-18). In total, Oregon won nine series on the season – four of which came on the road.

The national top eight seeds are Arizona St. (47-8), Texas (46-11), Florida (42-15), Coastal Carolina (51-7), Virginia (47-11), UCLA (43-13), Louisville (48-12) and Georgia Tech (45-13).

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Pacific-10 (Pac-10) and the Southeastern Conference led all conferences in the number of teams in the championship field with eight apiece. The marks for the ACC and the Pac-10 were conference all-time highs. The Big 12 had five and the Big East and Sun Belt had three teams.

Twenty-nine of the 64 teams were not in the field last year. Mercer, the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament champion, is making the championship for the first time. New Mexico last was in the field in 1962 and Oregon is in the field for the first time since 1964, and only two years after reinstating the baseball program.

Miami (Florida) is in the field for the 38th consecutive year, extending its own record. Florida State is making its 33rd straight appearance, second all-time. Other long consecutive streaks: Cal State Fullerton (19), Rice (16), Oral Roberts (13) and Texas (12).

Courtesy of educk.com

Nothing better than a Tuesday night non-league game against your conference rival from 40 miles up the road!

Well that didn’t take long now did it?  A year and a half into their resurrection the Ducks have surpassed the Beavers as the premier baseball program in the Northwest.  With their 8-4 victory at UCLA the Ducks are guaranteed a series victory over the #1 ranked Bruins.  Add that to their series victory at Stanford last week and the Ducks have back to back series victories on the road against ranked teams.  Furthermore the Beavers have lost series at home to both these same teams in the last two weeks, guaranteed by their 3-5 loss today at home to the Cardinal.

Who would have thought the Ducks would be in a position to be playoff bound halfway through their second season back?  Barring a complete collapse that is where the Ducks are headed.  While the Beavers, sitting at 3-5 in conference, better start winning games if they plan on joining the Ducks in the NCAA playoffs.

It would be wrong to not at least thank the Beavers for proving that it is possible to play winning baseball in the Northwest.  The incredible back to back National Titles the Beavers won showed the powers at be at Oregon that having a successful baseball program was possible.  So a tip of the hat to you Beavers for showing the Ducks how great it is to have a winning baseball team.

As you can tell, The Sports Brewery is very excited about the start of the Ducks baseball season.  Oh, crap, this is our first article about the team?  They’ve played 26 games already?  And won 18 of them?  Wow, give us a hand for being on top of things! 

Now even I will admit that college baseball means absolutely zero on the national stage…and the local stage…or just about any stage you can come up with.  But people don’t ignore special feats in sports.  Which brings us to the first of April, when ASU brings their #1 national ranking (depending on the poll) to Eugene for the start of a 3 game Pac 10 series.  And apparently ASU doesn’t just play to play, but they play to win the game, every game.  Because this team is 23-0!  Besides looking at their apparently meager schedule, I know nothing about them, but this is baseball.  You just don’t win that many games in a row at that level without having a team full of studs. 

Here’s where the Ducks come in: The 18-8 record they sport is nothing to ignore.  Can they take one of the 3?  Can they win the series?  Either would be a tremendous kick start towards the rest of the season.  With the opportunities that lie ahead – 5 Pac 10 teams are in the AP top 25 – nothing short of a selection to the regionals of the NCAA tournament is out of the realm of possibilities.  As a Eugene native, I can tell you the city would be all over that bandwagon.  Hell, the Eugene Emeralds draw 4,000 people when the team plays well (except Thirsty Thursdays where the beer garden hosts the best party in town, Civic Stadium is always packed).  Eugene would even be all over one win this weekend and follow the team the rest of the season, regardless of how they performed. 

In the end, the green and yellow nine have nothing to lose this weekend.  They get swept: who cares, they’re suppose to.  A win, any type of win, and it creates a positive buzz around a sports program aching for something good to happen.