In a season that started out as one that would go down as the worst one in decades, the University of Arkansas came back late in the season to earn their eighth trip to collegiate baseball's greatest goal, the College World Series.
Saddled with a 12-13 record to start the season, it looked like the Razorbacks were going to miss the NCAA playoffs for the first time in the coach Van Horn era. Near mid-season, the Hogs were playing the nation's No. 1 team at the time (Texas A & M) and were trailing badly and late in a pivotal series in College Station after losing the opening game. Perhaps Mother Nature had a hand in the Hogs' revival as the game in which the Aggies were close to winning the series was called late due to rain.
In college baseball, rain delayed games are finished up later rather than just shortened as is the pro baseball way of doing things. Something happened overnight that weekend in Texas, as the Hogs resumed the game the next day with blazing bats to come back and win that game, as well as the final one that followed to take the series. They went one to avoid losing another series the rest of the season, finishing fifth in the powerful SEC and claiming their 14th straight berth in the NCAA national tournament. Arkansas has the longest active playoff qualifying streak among NCAA schools.
The SEC claimed half of the eight berths in the World Series with Florida, Vanderbilt and Louisiana joining Arkansas. The SEC narrowly missed having an astounding five finalists when Texas A&M blew a 4-2 lead in the ninth in the deciding game of their super regional to Texas Christian.
The fact that the Razorbacks have gotten as far as they have is quite surprising as the have one of the worst pitching staffs they have possibly ever had. Credit is being given to longtime pitching coach David Jorn who has cobbled together rookies and games by committee to produce just enough pitching power to win most of their late season games.
Interestingly, coach Jorn was the pitching coach at Arkansas for all four World Series appearances under Norm De Bryan's leadership. After Jorn left the university to coach professional ball, the Hogs didn't go to another World Series until the Van Horn era when the veteran Jorn was persuaded to return to his old position.
At the time of this writing, Arkansas had already lost the Series opener to Virginia 5-3 and were scheduled for an elimination game against Miami. Should they prevail against the Hurricane, they would face another elimination game against either Virginia or Florida. Winning the second game would put them into finals of the sub-bracket where they would hope to win to make the final series against the winner of the other bracket.
Cards keep winning
A rainout against Kansas City at home Sunday delayed their current streak, but the St. Louis Cardinals have managed to maintain the best record in professional baseball. With a record of 41-21, the Cards are 20 games over .500, a stat that would almost certainly put them into the playoffs even if they lost half their games the rest of the season.
The Missouri team keeps winning despite the mounting number of injuries the team has suffered. Pitching ace Adam Wainwright was lost for the season with powerful first baseman Matt Adams lost for most, if not all, the season. Starter Lance Lynn is now on the disabled list and the Cards lost All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday for at least a couple of weeks due to an injury he suffered chasing a fly ball.
St. Louis played the Minnesota Twins at home for a pair of games Monday and Tuesday then traveled to the Twins home park in Minnesota for games tonight and tomorrow. The Twins are the closest team to the Kansas City Royals in the American League's central division standings and the Cards could help their cross state rivals by keeping their winning ways intact this week.
Cardinals and Royals dominate all-star balloting
The Missouri-based Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals are confounding the sports media by maintaining the leading votes for most of the starting positions in the annual Major League Baseball's All-Star Game next month.
It was decided years ago to let the fans decide the starters in the All-Star game by voting online. When that first started, a lot of sports figures lamented the likelihood that teams in the big markets like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles would always dominant the voting with their much larger population base.
That hasn't been the case, and this season, teams in the smallest markets (St. Louis and Kansas City) are heavily dominating the voting. If the voting stopped today, St. Louis would have four of the starting eight position players with the Royals having an incredible seven of the eight sports.
The Cards have catcher Yadier Molina, shortstop Jhonny Peralta, third baseman Matt Carpenter, and outfielder Matt Holliday leading their various positions in the voting. The flood of voting out of Kansas City has them taking nearly all the spots with Moustakis, Gordon, Escobar, Perez, Cain, Hosmer and Morales.
Helping the Kansas City vote are offers by the club for discount tickets for anyone voting for their players. It is not against the rules and anyone in the U.S. can vote 35 times in this online balloting.
Both St.Louis and Kansas City have the best records in their respective leagues and have arguably the most supportive fans in all of baseball. With baseball's smallest market, St. Louis still averages over 42,000 in attendance in home games, barely behind Los Angeles' average to lead all of baseball. With a new found success in the won-loss column, Kansas City has seen a spirited revival in their following.
So, if you are a Cardinals or Royals fan, get online and vote early and often. Log onto the teams' webpages or just log onto mlb.com to have your say.
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Editor's note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports on 06/17/2015