|
10/2/2006 by Will Matthews Perhaps nothing exemplifies better just how high expectations are for the 2007 Vanderbilt baseball team than the reaction of Head Coach Tim Corbin to his team’s loss in the championship game of last year’s Southeastern Conference Tournament. While in past years simply advancing as far as the title game might have gone down as a major accomplishment for a program that does not boast much of a winning tradition historically, the Commodores’ 9-3 loss to Mississippi was, for Corbin, nothing short of unacceptable. “I just don’t want the kids ever accepting a loss,” Corbin said last week. “I don’t really care what the venue is or what the format is I just don’t think that they should accept it. If they let themselves down easy, it is almost like they are giving themselves an excuse to finish second and I just don’t think that is right.” But it is not just Corbin who is expecting big things this season from Vanderbilt come this spring. The Commodores opened fall practice last week amid unprecedented national attention. On the heels of a summer which saw three of Vanderbilt’s returning starters play major roles in helping the USA Baseball national team defend its world championship in Cuba and junior starting pitcher David Price be named Baseball America’s college summer player of the year, the Commodores are a preseason pick for one the eight berths in the College World Series. “Our goal for the upcoming season is simple,” Corbin said. “And I think that our goals are probably just like every other team in the SEC or that plays high-level baseball: It is to play on into July. I think the goal is to just play as far into the summer as you possibly can. You know that if you are doing that, you know exactly where you are going to end up.” And as has typically been the case during Corbin’s five-year reign with Vanderbilt, the Commodores ability to meet that goal will depend in large part upon their pitching. “We have got to get stability in the pitching staff, there is no doubt about that,” Corbin said. “I think pitching for us has always been the premium, it has always been the thing that we have been very, very good at. But we had some inconsistency throughout last year and some guys had some inconsistent performances.” Staff ace Price will return to once again lead a starting corps that should be one of the SEC’s best. But Corbin is quick to point out that the left-handed strikeout specialist must do better than the up and down trajectory that marked his 2006 season. After a dominating, 17-strikeout performance against Arkansas April 7 last year left him at 5-2 overall with a 1.81 ERA, Price struggled through the grind of the rest of the SEC schedule. But Price rebounded with three straight quality starts down the stretch last year, and his outstanding work this past summer with the U.S. national team suggests that he is on the verge of a breakout campaign. In seven starts for the national team in Cuba, Price went 5-1 with an eye-popping 0.20 ERA and 61 strikeouts against just 7 walks in only 44 innings. Price’s Vanderbilt teammate Pedro Alvarez, last year’s consensus national freshman of the year, also starred for the national team this summer, leading the club with a .382 average and 40 RBI’s. “I think this past summer gave each of those kids a lot of confidence,” Corbin said. “When you compete at the national level and then excel at the national level I think it is just commonplace that you gain more confidence in your game. And I think that when they bring that confidence back into our club, it will just leak onto everyone else and permeate the locker room. That’s what you hope will happen. You hope that you have good enough players to the point where the confidence level of the group just keeps rising and rising and rising. I believe that is something that will happen. I can already see a different presence among this group.” After Price, Corbin said the competition will be fierce among as many as eight players to round out Vanderbilt’s starting rotation. “We are going to have the most inter-team competition that I have ever seen by far,” Corbin said. “We have got kids that are very even at every position on the field and that certainly holds true for our pitching as well. We have a lot of guys that could be our Saturday or Sunday guy and it is going to be very competitive.” Junior left-hander Cody Crowell made 15 starts for Vanderbilt in 2006, going 6-2 with a 3.95 ERA and junior right-hander Ty Davis went 5-5 for the Commodores in nine starts with a 3.91 ERA and 71 strikeouts in 71.1 innings. But according to Corbin, past experience won’t necessarily determine who is in and who is out of the 2007 rotation. “Inter-team competition is good for the overall improvement of your team,” Corbin said. “Where it can become bad is when you have some upper classmen that are sitting on the bench. And there you have to deal with it or get off the ship. But overall, inter-team competition is what allows you to develop championships. Without it, no one gets pushed.” Offensively, the 2007 Commodores will lose only starting catcher Brian Hernandez from a 2006 squad that was second in the SEC in hitting with a .308 team batting average. “But you know, even though we were second in the SEC in hitting, I really felt that was a hollow figure,” Corbin said. “Our production, other than Pedro’s 22 homeruns, was less than average. So that needs to improve. We need to get better production out of every single one of our guys.” And no matter what preseason prognosticators might say, nothing is a given in the SEC, arguably the nation’s toughest baseball conference from top to bottom. Vanderbilt’s half of the conference alone sports a 2006 College World Series participant in Georgia, and a South Carolina team that boasts a recruiting class that was named best in the country by Collegiate Baseball for the second year in a row. “This is a conference where you are going to be playing at a high level every weekend,” Corbin said. “And people are aware now that ours is a program that is just as good as anyone else in the conference. People are not going to come in here and take it easy.” But despite whatever obstacles might loom, as the leaves begin to change colors and the team comes back together again to begin practicing in earnest, it is optimism that is reigning supreme at Hawkins Field. “We have some very specific goals, and although we don’t talk about them a whole lot it is something that is always hinted at. There are strong hints about Omaha and strong hints about the College World Series. These are the types of things you have to have in these kids’ minds. In year one, we weren’t thinking about Omaha. We were just thinking about whether or not we could make the SEC tournament. But the more these guys have a taste of winning, the more they think that certain things are reachable. I always tell them that unless you are thinking about that — and it has to be in the back of your mind — then you are never going to reach it. You have to visualize it first and then set goals personally to try and get there. But if you are not thinking about it, then you are never going to be there.” |
