We’ve gone over a lot of NC State baseball in the last months; I’m quite impressed by the baseball conversation that has gone on this year. It appears interest has really picked up since I penned my first entry 2 seasons ago. We’re going to take this entry to briefly introduce the competition we’ll be facing in our regional matchup.
Coastal Carolina is the overall number 4 seed in the tourney, and is joined in the regional by #2 seed College of Charleston and #4 seed Stony Brook. As has been pointed out by several readers, this is a winnable regional… but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.
Here’s an overview of the team statistics, with our numbers included for comparison. Bear in mind when considering the numbers that the levels of respective conference play differ, but this still serves as a nice appraisal of what types of teams we will be up against.
| TEAM | Runs | HR | AVG | OPS | SB/ATT | ERA | Runs | K/BB | Errors |
| Coastal Carolina | 535 | 99 | .324 | .969 | 146/180 | 3.19 | 220 | 479/198 | 68 |
| Coll. Charles. | 534 | 96 | .315 | .948 | 87/114 | 5.37 | 379 | 499/227 | 88 |
| NC State | 563 | 97 | .329 | .975 | 41/57 | 5.24 | 379 | 466/263 | 99 |
| Stony Brook | 403 | 50 | .326 | .885 | 34/53 | 5.91 | 326 | 352/225 | 51 |
On the surface this is a very evenly matched regional, especially in the top 3. Coastal Carolina features the distinct edge in pitching strictly by ERA and runs, but the strikeout numbers aren’t eye popping in comparison, so I wouldn’t say they are dominant. They feature one starter who has more strikeouts than innings pitched, so he would probably have the potential to be a shut down starter on any given gameday. It should also be apparent that Coastal runs. And runs. And runs some more, and this could pose a problem if Schaeffer is limited or unavailable, as we already have problems shutting down the opponents running game.
The offenses in the top 3 are pretty comparable as well. In the regional, only Stony Brook lacks home run pop, or so it seems. The doubles numbers are there, so perhaps it’s the ballparks in the conference. That’s the one difficulty of going by the numbers; some factors aren’t necessarily included.
So if the hitting, and to an extent pitching (when looking at respective conferences) are comparable, what separates these groups. Well, other than the gaudy 51 wins for Coastal… it’s the defense! Coastal and Stony Brook are in one defensive tier in this group, and College of Charleston and State are in a second tier. I think everyone knows which tier is the “good” tier, given everyone’s acknowledgement of our defensive shortcomings in various threads this year. A final separating factor is walks allowed, which we lead the field in– in a bad way.
So, this sums up what most of knew already about this regional (although at least now it’s in one place): we can win it, but we better bring the bats, and they might want to bring along the gloves as well. I’m interested also in some of the other factors, such as pitching matchups, which I have not seen yet. Coastal, as the #1 seed, seems to have the luxury of being able to hold back an ace in the opening game. Although I’ve coached in enough tournaments to know that holding the ace against a seemingly overmatched opponent can sometimes epically backfire.
I’ll try to update this today and tomorrow as I have time, but this should serve as a nice jumping off point. Many of you have seen some of these teams in person, and your first hand observations would be much appreciated here.
Finally, links to the individual team statistics for your convenience.
