The Philadelphia Phillies Select P.J. Walters

Last year, Tulane roared into the NCAA Baseball Tournament as the #1 seed in the country- making it all the way to the College World Series- before falling in Omaha. This year they couldn't make it past South Alabama. Or rather, they couldn't make it past P.J. Walters.

Give tons of credit to South Alabama. After Tulane’s first two hitters, the Jaguars' "top of the rotation" starter totally looked like a "top of the rotation starter". They played a solid game of small ball: moving guys over, steal bases, working the count against an erratic Morgan who simply helped them again and again. In fact, you can pretty much stop your analysis of yesterday’s game right there. If P.J. Walters is able to mix that seemingly “okay” fastball with that amazing breaking stuff and spin a complete game, one run, four hit performance- coupled with South Alabama manufacturing three runs through five innings without really hitting the ball hard- well, nobody in Division I outside the Top Ten was probably going to beat that pitcher and that team yesterday.

Once you get past that... well, Tulane probably could have pitched great, gotten a few more breaks- and it almost certainly still would not have mattered much. Of course they didn’t do much of anything well yesterday. In fact, South Alabama is candidly better than Tulane with Walters pitching. Do you doubt that if Walters made ten starts against them, South Alabama would win seven/eight? But if the Wave can get by Bethune-Cookman today, we’ll probably find out if South Alabama is still better when Walters isn’t pitching. I, for one, doubt it.

The turning point was the first inning. The Green Wave gets two guys on- a real chance to hurt South Alabama’s only real angle to get to the CWS- that number one starter. And the Green Wave core hitters can’t even manage a decent at bat.

Once Walters wiggled out of that spot, he really only was threatened once after that- and he was up three runs, so who cares? I dunno. I guess it would have been nice to see Sean Morgan respond as if this really was the biggest start of his life- rather than a scared kid. But he is a sophomore- so how can you rip him for pitching like a scared kid in a big spot? He was a scared kid in a big spot.

I still think they’ll make the final against Ole Miss. They ought to take care of the Wildcats today- as I doubt the second tier Wildcat pitching can handle the Wave over nine frames. And South Alabama is not probably not good enough to sweep the Wave in an abbreviated single weekend. But Ole Miss?- and four straight wins? Not this team, not this year.