sports fan No. 1 Share Posted February 23 Although It's early in the season, I'm skeptical of how good our pitching staff is. Giving up 24 runs in two games to Rhode Island, an unranked team is not a good sign of things to come. I took a look at Oregon's last two games from last year against Texas A&M. The Ducks pitching gave up 25 runs in those games. Oregon lost by scores of 10-6 and 15-9. Against Texas A&M... pitcher IP H R ER BB SO WP NP ERA Ryan Featherstone 0.2 0 3 3 4 0 2 28 31.15 game one Grayson Grinsell 4 6 4 4 2 2 2 85 9.00 game two Game against Rhode Island Grayson Grinsell 5.1 6 4 4 1 4 1 81 7.06 game one Ryan featherstone 0.2 2 5 5 2 1 1 30 51.9 game one Currently for this season, Grinsell's ERA is 4.35 and Featherstone is 16.88. The comparison for these pitchers from last year to this year is eerily the same. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Administrator No. 2 Share Posted February 24 You probably missed the post where I reported last week that Coach Waz disclosed for the first time since the Super-Regionals, that his pitchers got sick after the first game. It would explain the meltdown, and do recall that Texas A&M finished as the national runner-up, and was a preseason No. 1 this year. We lost to a good team... We do have to look at more than a couple of games, as the ERA for Grinsell was 4.08 for the entire 2024 campaign. That is good, not great. For Ryan Featherston, his 2024 ERA was 3.76 and my limited baseball knowledge says that an ERA between 3 and 4 is good, below three is excellent and below that is rare for college pitchers. I am not pleased with all that has occurred, but we do not yet have MLB-type pitchers that Horton had in his early years. Right now it appears that we recruit smaller college transfers and use a see-who-can-play approach, and we recruit freshmen who have upside. Finishing No. 12 in the nation two years in a row got us a great freshman class, and I love the development that has occured with many of the pitchers. For example Collin Clarke had a 6.41 ERA last year...and I was not real enthusiastic about him. But the coaches worked with him, and I was stunned to see him as the Saturday night starter this year, and his ERA in two games with 12 innings pitched already is 0.00 so if we are going to draw conclusions from only two games...(and I do not think we should in both directions) Cole Stokes is another one who I was not impressed with last year as a freshman with a 11.42 ERA, but in three innings of relief in two weekends in 2025...he is 0.00 ERA. Not a great sample, but he passed the eyeball test with his improvement and development. Collin Clarke The pride of Sherwood, Ian Umlandt, had a 3.94 ERA last year, and in nine innings pitched already in two weekends of 2025 he has a 0.96 ERA and is looking even better than last year. My point is that I see some real improvement with pitchers I wrote off from last year. Coach Waz stated in a recent interview that some of the new pitchers played extremely well in summer-ball, and fall baseball scrimmages, but had a bad first outing. He is confident in them, and I will trust that. Another element that can distort ERA is how long a pitcher is in there. Up to this year, pitchers were given a long rope when they got into trouble, in order to allow them the opportunity to gain confidence getting out of them. Problem was...that did work about half the time and the extra innings flattened out what would have been a terrible ERA had the pitcher been pulled right away. But this year, the pitching coach is quick to pull them if he doesn't like the control issues to begin. Thus some short innings for some pitchers and HUGE ERAs. Besides the development of last year's freshmen, I like what I see of this year's freshman class of pitchers thus far. Gabe Howard, the pride of West Linn, has a 1.80 ERA in five innings of relief in two weekends, highly heralded Will Sanford is 2.25 ERA as the Sunday starter, and Kellan Knox showed some real promise with a 4.15 ERA thus far with 4.1 innings of relief in two weekends. Freshman Michael Mekna was the top RHP in Nebraska, he looked good in his 3.2 innings today with a 2025 ERA of 0.00 as well. So, I think there is a lot of upside for this team, but they have a higher hill to climb than I hoped. But Waz stated going into the season that he has more pitching depth than last year, and I believe it. The unexpected development of many pitchers, and the pleasant freshman surprises promises a ton of games won this year. Will Sanford (My stats taken from GoDucks.com after the last Rhode Island game) 1 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Ducky No. 3 Share Posted February 24 With all this cold weather we’ve had there might be some sore arms. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
