March 22, 2007
COMMODORE GAMEDAY INFORMATION
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No. 1 Vanderbilt (22-1, 2-1 SEC)
vs. No. 9 Arkansas (17-6, 2-1 SEC)
Friday, March 23 – 6:35 p.m. CT
Saturday, March 24 – 2:05 p.m. CT
Sunday, March 25 – 1:05 p.m. CT
Baum Stadium (10,737)
Series History
vs. Arkansas: Arkansas leads 23-9 and took the series last year in Nashville.
Last Two Series
April 9, 2006 Arkansas 4, Vanderbilt 3 Nashville
April 8, 2006 Arkansas 5, Vanderbilt 3 Nashville
April 7, 2006 Vanderbilt 7, Arkansas 1 Nashville
April 10, 2005 Arkansas 3, Vanderbilt 0 Fayetteville
April 9, 2005 Arkansas 5, Vanderbilt 4 (10) Fayetteville
April 8, 2005 Arkansas 6, Vanderbilt 5 Fayetteville
Polls
Vanderbilt is ranked No. 1 by Baseball America, the Sports Weekly/ESPN Coaches Poll, the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Poll and Rivals.com. The Commodores are ranked No. 2 in Collegiate Baseball.
Arkansas is ranked No. 9 by Baseball America and Rivals.com, No. 10 by Collegiate Baseball and the NCBWA and No. 11 by Sports Weekly/ESPN.
All of the National Polls can be found on page 6 of the release.
The Coaches
VU’s Tim Corbin is 166-96 in his fifth season as head coach. He is 3-9 against Arkansas.
Arkansas’ Dave Van Horn is 175-95 in his fifth year in Fayetteville and 760-335 in 19 years overall. He is 9-3 against Vanderbilt.
Radio/TV/Internet
All of the games can be heard free via the internet through Yahoo and can be accessed using the following web page: http://vucommodores.collegesports.com/sports/m-basebl/radio-tv-internet.html. Eric Jones will call all of the action for the Commodores this weekend. In addition, the series will be broadcast locally in Nashville as well on WNSR 560 AM. Live stats via Gametracker be accessed through vucommodores.com.
What’s On Tap
No. 1 Vanderbilt hits the road this weekend for a key Southeastern Conference match up against No. 9 Arkansas. The series starts Friday night at 6:35 p.m. and will continue on Saturday at 2:05 p.m. and Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
Scouting Arkansas
Arkansas is 17-6 on the year and 2-1 in SEC play after taking two of three from Kentucky in Lexington over the weekend. The Razorbacks rallied from a late eight run deficit to top Centenary, 16-13, Wednesday afternoon in Shreveport, La.
Third baseman Logan Forsythe leads the team with a .358 batting average with three homers and 16 RBI. Outfielder Casey Coon is the top power source with five homers, nine doubles and 36 RBI through 23 games. The Razorbacks are hitting .296 as a team with 29 homers and 210 runs scored (9.1 runs per game).
Junior southpaw Nick Schmidt (5-0, 1.47 ERA) will get the start on Friday night for Arkansas.
Junior right-hander Duke Welker (4-0, 3.77 ERA) will take the hill on Saturday, while Sunday’s starter is yet to be determined. Jess Todd (1-2, 4.95 ERA) has served as the team closer and could possibly start on Sunday. He has two saves with 33 strikeouts and six walks in 20.0 innings. As a team, Arkansas sports a 3.85 ERA with 191 strikeouts and 92 walks in 194.0 innings. Of Note: Staff ace Nick Schmidt was a member of the US National Team over the summer coached by Tim Corbin … The Commodores last win in Fayetteville was a 6-4 win on April 11, 2003.
Probable Starting Rotation
No. R/L Player W-L ERA Last Start W-L IP H R ER BB SO
33 L Nick Schmidt 5-0 1.47 at Kentucky (3/16) W 5.0 4 2 2 4 6
42 R Duke Welker 4-0 3.77 at Kentucky (3/18) W 6.0 4 2 1 3 9
TBA
Commodores Remain No. 1 For Fourth Straight Week, Off To Best Start Ever
Vanderbilt picked up two No. 1 rankings this week and is ranked in the top spot in four of the five polls. Baseball America and Rivals.com ranked the Commodores No. 1 for the first time ever this week, while the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll continued to rank them first. Collegiate Baseball dropped the Dores out of the top spot for the first time in four weeks behind undefeated Florida State.
The Commodores at 22-1 are off to the best start of any sport in school history, besting the 17-0 start of the 1993 women’s basketball team.
The baseball ranking joins women’s basketball and women’s golf as the only NCAA sports to achieve a No. 1 ranking at Vanderbilt. The 1993 women’s hoops squad was ranked No. 1 by the AP for six weeks, including the final regular season poll prior to postseason play. The women’s golf team was ranked No. 1 for a time in 2004.
Shea Robin Named To Johnny Bench Watch List
Junior catcher Shea Robin was named to the initial Johnny Bench Award List by The Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission.
Twenty-seven catchers from seventeen conferences were nominated for the award by their coaches. Because the award is given annually to the top division one collegiate catcher, the list will be updated to include other candidates until May 7, 2007.
Robin is one of four catchers from the Southeastern Conference to be on the list, joining Tennessee’s J.P. Arencibia, Mississippi State’s Edward Easley and LSU’s Robert Lara.
The Woodlands, Texas, native is hitting .311 on the season with a homer and 11 RBI. He has made only one error on the season in 188 chances and has thrown out eight base runners in 18 chances. He had a stellar week at the plate last week, going 7-for-16 (.438) with six runs scored in helping lead the Commodores to a series win over Ole Miss.
The watch list will be narrowed down to ten semi-finalists, whom will be announced May 17, 2007.
Commodores Blast Western Kentucky 15-2
Vanderbilt scored 12 runs in the first three innings, capped off by a six run third en route to a 15-2 win over Western Kentucky Tuesday night at Hawkins Field.
Six Commodores had two or more hits led by Dominic de la Osa’s three hits and two RBIs and Ryan Davis’ three hits and four RBIs. Alex Feinberg, Pedro Alvarez, Ryan Flaherty and Andrew Giobbi each had two hits in the winning effort.
Mike Minor pitched 3.1 innings of two-hit scoreless relief with six strikeouts and no walks in the winning effort to move to 3-0 on the year.
Western Kentucky jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first on a RBI single by Scotty Colt and a sacrifice fly by Jake Wells.
The Commodores plated four runs in the bottom half and never looked back. They scored two more in the second, courtesy of a two-run homer by Pedro Alvarez and then took advantage of three Hilltopper errors in the third to score six unearned runs.
VU scored another run in the fourth and de la Osa added a solo homer in the sixth, his sixth of the year to make it 14-2. Brian Harris’ added a RBI double in the seventh to close out the scoring.
Tyler Rhoden, Cameron Betourne, Josh Zeid, Caleb Cotham and Jason Cunningham combined to pitch four innings of two hit relief. Betourne made his first appearance of the season, while Cunningham recorded an out in his first career outing.
Commodore Tidbits
Vanderbilt (22-1, 2-1 SEC) lost for the first time this season against No. 14 Ole Miss last Saturday, but captured the three-game series against the Rebels in dramatic fashion, using ninth inning rallies in one-run wins on Friday and Sunday… The Commodores won the regular season series over the Rebels for the third straight year … VU is 8-0 in one run games this year and have come from behind in 12 of its 21 wins on the year … David Price produced his third straight complete game (in six starts on the year), this one a yeoman 10 inning performance in the 3-2 win over Ole Miss in 10 innings Friday night. He held the Rebels to just four hits and two runs while striking out 14 with just two walks. On the season he is 5-0 with 71 strikeouts in 45.2 innings. It was his fifth straight game with double digit strikeouts … Offensively, Matt Meingasner seems to have claimed the full-time starter’s role in leftfield with four starts on the week, he was 7-for-16 (.438) with two homers, nine RBI and five runs scored. He had a .813 slugging percentage with a .500 on base percentage. He was 4-for-5 with a homer and six RBI against Belmont and also came up huge with game-tying hits in the bottom of the ninth in the two wins over Ole Miss … The Commodores won the regular season series over the Rebels for the third straight year … Shea Robin also had a solid week at the plate going 7-for-16 as well with three RBI and six runs scored. He raised his batting average from .276 at the start of the week to .311 after Sunday’s win … Alex Feinberg went 6-for-14 (.429) in four games, with three of the hits coming in Sunday’s win from the leadoff spot in the order. It was his first game this season hitting in that spot after mostly hitting eighth or second … Mike Minor made his SEC debut with 1.1 innings of two-hit scoreless relief against Ole Miss on Sunday … Cody Crowell returned to form in two relief appearances on the week, giving up one run on four hits in 7.1 innings with three strikeouts and a walk. He picked up his first win of the year against Belmont last Wednesday … Freshman Caleb Cotham pitched an inning of scoreless relief against the Bruins last week … Dominic de la Osa hit two homers on the week and now has six on the year, two behind Pedro Alvarez for the team lead.
Record Watch
Two Vanderbilt records worth watching this season are the school’s career strikeout mark and the career homer mark. With 14 strikeouts against Illinois-Chicago last Friday, David Price vaulted into third place on the career list with 318. He trails record holder Mike Willis by 32 strikeouts and second place Jeremy Sowers by 9. With eight homers this year, Pedro Alvarez is now 10th by himself on the career list.
Broadcast Info
Nearly every Vanderbilt home game will be available to watch for free online through All-Access. In addition, all 56 regular season games will be broadcast via the Internet through Yahoo. For more information on that you can visit www.vucommodores.com. This season, ISP has joined forces with baseball flagship WNSR 560 AM to broadcast 44 regular season contests. Eric Jones will handle the play-by-play to start the season before handing off to Voice of the Commodores Joe Fisher once the men’s basketball season concludes.
Six Commodore games are currently scheduled to be televised this year. College Sports Southeast will broadcast four games, the April 21st game against Tennessee at 6 p.m., the April 29th game against Florida at 1 p.m. and the May 18th and 19th games against LSU at 7 p.m. and noon CT respectively. Fox Sports South will broadcast the South Carolina game on March 31 at 3 p.m. The Sun Network will show the Florida contest on April 28 at 3 p.m.