Baseball 2018

[There used to be more and I don't know how to recover what was here before my mistake.]

This season I think we have a more favorable non-conference schedule after we play our first three away at recent champion UCLA. We could start out 0-4 between UCLA and the one game against Oregon at home, but after that I think we should expect to see some competitive games with Saint Joseph's (from Philadelphia), CSU-Bakersfield, and UC-Irvine at home. But, don't count any of those teams out (especially the California ones).

The WCC Coaches have picked us to be last (again). But, they have selected RHP Kevin Baker to the pre-season all-conference team!

http://portlandpilots.com/news/2018/2/7/bsb-baker-voted-to-the-all-wcc-preseason-team.aspx

Considering past history, UP has earned the coaches assessment.

(Sigh)

Does anyone have an update on the new stadium situation? The lights and turf are in; new stadium seating & facilities will make a big difference.

All I had to do was watch tonight's Portside for an update. Apparently a 7 figure donation was just confirmed, and they are within "shouting distance", and may be able to start construction "this fall or winter".

PilotNut wrote:All I had to do was watch tonight's Portside for an update.  Apparently a 7 figure donation was just confirmed, and they are within "shouting distance", and may be able to start construction "this fall or winter".  

That was really exciting to hear Leykam say. I did happen to catch him say "cover over the premium seating area." In the last published renderings, it appeared there would no longer be a roof. Hopefully, the roof is in the plans again because I think that a cover is REALLY important to enjoying baseball in the Pacific Northwest climate. I will post those photos below.

Otherwise, I am excited about the dock, boathouse, soccer field, track, and tennis projects. It's about time a running program of our level has an on campus track. I really don't understand why Track and Field isn't a WCC sport since almost every school fields a team.

UCLA swept the Pilots over the weekend, but UP gets another chance to upset a Pac-12 school, UO, on Wednesday at 2pm!

SCHEDULE CHANGE: Wednesday's home opener at Joe Etzel Field against UO is a 2 o'clock start...(originally a too cold 6pm start).

DoubleDipper wrote:UCLA swept the Pilots over the weekend, but UP gets another chance to upset a Pac-12 school, UO, on Wednesday at 2pm!

SCHEDULE CHANGE: Wednesday's home opener at Joe Etzel Field against UO is a 2 o'clock start...(originally a too cold 6pm start).

High of 39 forecast for Wednesday. That's colder than Candlestick Park in July.

DoubleDipper wrote:UCLA swept the Pilots over the weekend, but UP gets another chance to upset a Pac-12 school, UO, on Wednesday at 2pm!

SCHEDULE CHANGE: Wednesday's home opener at Joe Etzel Field against UO is a 2 o'clock start...(originally a too cold 6pm start).

Thanks. I meant to post something. I had predicted we would leave LA 0-3, unfortunately. It wasn't for a lack of effort. We were getting on base, but just leaving many runners stranded out there. Oh, and we did not stop UCLA from scoring either. UCLA certainly did play like a top-15 team!

DoubleDipper wrote:SCHEDULE CHANGE: Wednesday's home opener at Joe Etzel Field against UO is a 2 o'clock start...(originally a too cold 6pm start).

Oregon game on Wednesday is canceled!!

The St. Joseph series this coming weekend is in question....standby for updates is what I was told.

What? Why?

It's been attempted....

Hang loose (or is it tight?) baseball fans, the 4-game series against St. Joseph's now begins at 11am tomorrow (Friday) with a double-header (second game at 2:30pm), followed by single-games on Saturday (11am) and Sunday 12pm)...but of course it all depends upon the weather....

http://portlandpilots.com/schedule.aspx?path=baseball

Well, it's not as if any of us were going to go Etzel Field and sit on the cold aluminum bleachers in sub-freezing weather this morning, but the game time and schedule has once again changed.

One game today scheduled to begin at 1 o clock. Two games scheduled tomorrow beginning at 11, and one final game on Sunday beginning at 12.

All games on the W.tv.

Stopped by the game today for a couple of innings and nearly froze, but witnessed four UP homeruns... couldn't believe the ball would fly like that in temperatures near freezing. It's not that way and golf!

Final score was 8-0.

Also surprised there were no errors in the game. I guess the guys actually had some feeling in their hands.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:This season I think we have a more favorable non-conference schedule after we play our first three away at recent champion UCLA. We could start out 0-4 between UCLA and the one game against Oregon at home, but after that I think we should expect to see some competitive games with Saint Joseph's (from Philadelphia), CSU-Bakersfield, and UC-Irvine at home. But, don't count any of those teams out (especially the California ones).

First off, I apologize for my absence. Been a bit busy.

I have been pretty close thus far on these predictions. Minus the cancelled game at Oregon, I predicted the first weekend spot on. Then, I said "competitive" games and got that one wrong since 3/4 were fairly one-sided in favor of us. That loss in the fourth game to Saint Joseph's hurt just because we couldn't finish the sweep, but were were "competitive" in that game nonetheless. In all of our games against the Hawks we put up 6+ runs. Last year, they finished with an RPI of around 215 while we finished with an RPI of around 275. So, I will take those wins!

3-4 isn't bad at all for a start. We welcome CSU-Baskersfield this weekend to the Bluff. The Roadrunners swept us 0-4 last season down in California. They are sitting at 2-7 on the season. One win came against UC-Davis (who beat Baskersfield 2/3 times) and the other against Saint Mary's. Four losses to Cal and one to CSU-Northridge. Hopefully, we show a little better than last season with the Roadrunners at home in the cold.

Also, I accidentally edited my first post instead of quoting it and am unsure how to revert it back to the original format. Help?

There was some pretty entertaining baseball on the Bluff these last two weekends despite the results. We went 1-3 against Bakersfield (who swept us last year). One of those three losses was in 10 innings and the other was an offensive battle where we came up on the short end 8-10.

In between Series we played a decent game against Oregon State and were tied at 3 all through 7 innings. Oregon State is No. 1/2 for a reason, though.

UC-Irvine then came to the Bluff. The Anteaters are a pretty strong program. I seem to recall the Beavers having to go through UC-Irvine during one of their CWS Championships. We went 2-2 against them. One loss was the short end of 5-6 with one win being on the good end of 7-6. It's growth however you want to look at it. Really, other than the UCLA series, we have been in just about every game we have played.

Tuesday game against Seattle at home followed by opening the WCC slate by hosting Saint Mary's. When have we ever been able to play so many home games this early in the season before?

The Pilots opened WCC play with a 7-4 win over SMC (the WCC coaches' pick to finish 3rd) at The Etz.  Nicely done, Pilots!  Game 2 is at 3pm today and Game 3 is Sunday at noon.

GO PILOTS!

PilotNut wrote:The Pilots opened WCC play with a 7-4 win over SMC (the WCC coach's pick to finish 3rd) at The Etz.  Nicely done, Pilots!  Game 2 is at 3pm today and Game 3 is Sunday at noon.

Finally!

The Pilots are 1-14 against the Gaels over the last five seasons....the lone win coming in 2015.

DoubleDipper wrote:

PilotNut wrote:The Pilots opened WCC play with a 7-4 win over SMC (the WCC coach's pick to finish 3rd) at The Etz.  Nicely done, Pilots!  Game 2 is at 3pm today and Game 3 is Sunday at noon.

Finally!

The Pilots are 1-14 against the Gaels over the last five seasons....the lone win coming in 2015.

Happy Birthday, PilotNut!!  Age-45 was once thought to be middle-aged, but the older you get the more you are allowed to push middle-age off into the distant future....doubt you'll ever get there!

Thanks!

The Pilots beat SMC today to take the series... This is a great start to conference play!

Video of the walk-off homerun to beat Saint Mary's on Sunday: https://twitter.com/PortlandPilots/status/975486832677810176

So, does anyone want to talk about how the baseball team was down 9-2 in the 8th inning at Santa Clara, and just went ahead and hit 9 runs all at once to win the game 11-9?

http://portlandpilots.com/news/2018/3/30/baseball-pilots-erupt-for-nine-run-eighth-inning-in-historic-comeback-win-at-santa-clara.aspx

I tuned in early and late in the game, so I missed the 8th inning unfortunately... needless to say I thought the score was a typo when I tuned back in. Awesome!

Game 2 is at 6pm tonight (Friday). Live stats and video are available at SCP's link above.

Baseball games take too long!

Yesterday I attended my first opening-day major league baseball game since 1960 (the opening of Candlestick Park**) when I went to Oakland to watch the A’s play the Angels.  Following that game and a relatively short drive to Santa Clara, I was also able to watch the Pilots play.

It was a festive mood in Oakland with about 30,000 people basking in the sun while drinking beer, beating on drums, blowing on their vuvuzelas, and generally having a good time. Rollie Fingers threw out the first pitch, and the A’s won in 11 innings, but the game took a little over 4 hours to play.

Despite the 70 plus degree weather at 6pm at Santa Clara, the mood was not festive as about 300 people with very little beer sat in bleachers for what appeared to be a blowout as Santa Clara was leading 9-2 going into the eighth inning. But then, BOOM, all of a sudden the Pilots erupted for 9 runs in the inning, and eventually won the game 11-9.  But the game took three hours and thirty minutes to play!

Getting from Portland to Oakland by air and then taking a monorail to the game is a snap….about 2 hours and 30 minutes from liftoff to touchdown in my seat behind first base  Getting from Oakland to Santa Clara took a little less time, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

That’s a total of 3 hours and 45 minutes of travel to watch 7 hours and 30 minutes of baseball.  Exciting as the games were, and despite each of my teams winning their respective games, baseball games take too long!
 
**(That game at Candlestick, the first game of the season and the first-ever regular season game at Candlestick, lasted about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and the Giants starting pitcher, Sam “Toothpick” Jones, pitched a complete game.  Orlando Cepeda tripled, Willie Mays doubled and scored twice and the Giants beat the Cardinals….jeez, I wish I could remember what I did day-before-yesterday! )