Nevada baseball coach T.J. Bruce
The Nevada Wolf Pack baseball team just might end 20 seasons of frustration and disappointment by the end of next weekend. The Pack, the hottest team in the Mountain West, is in position to go to its first NCAA postseason since 2000.
The Wolf Pack is in first place in the Mountain West with just four games remaining in the regular season, May 28-30 against San Jose State at Peccole Park. A successful Memorial Day weekend will give the Pack the Mountain West regular season title and the conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA Regionals (the conference canceled its postseason tournament this year).
Two decades of heartache is about to come to an end, Pack fans. San Jose State is one of the worst college baseball teams in the nation. The Spartans have lost 10 games in a row and are in last place in the seven-team Mountain West at 6-23 overall and 2-12 in league play. The four games next weekend are at Peccole Park. The Pack will head into the series on 10 days rest and will likely have to do no better than simply split the series to win the conference. No excuses.
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Is this the best Wolf Pack baseball team since 2000? Not even close. The Pack, despite winning 11 of its last 13 games, is still just 21-18 overall (18-9 in league play). It is just 3-9 outside the league and wouldn’t get a second look from the NCAA regional selection committee if it doesn’t win the Mountain West.
The Pack hasn’t been bad the last 20 years. But they have been unlucky. The conference tournament, which thankfully doesn’t exist this year, has always gotten in the way of the Pack going to the regionals. The 2015 Wolf Pack, don’t forget, finished 41-15 overall and didn’t go to the regionals because it got swept out of the Mountain West tournament. The 2018 Pack won the Mountain West regular season and didn’t go to the regionals because it, too, lost both of its tournament games. The 2007 and 2008 teams won 35 and 34 games, respectively, and weren’t invited to the postseason.
So, yes, nobody wearing silver and blue is crying over the fact there is no conference tournament this year.
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We are witnessing one of the greatest turnarounds in Wolf Pack history with this Pack baseball team. Coach T.J. Bruce’s team was an ugly 10-16 on April 24 after losing the first game of a doubleheader against Air Force. The season looked all but over. The program was barely treading water, having lost 28 of its last 40 games since the start of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Everything, however, changed late in the day on April 24. The Pack then won 11 of its next 13 games starting with the second game of the doubleheader on April 24. The Pack is now in a 13-game stretch that includes season-changing three-game Mountain West sweeps over San Diego State, UNLV and Fresno State and Bruce is now the frontrunner for Mountain West Coach of the Year.
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The Pack season, though, actually turned around on April 10 in the second game of a doubleheader at San Diego State. The Aztecs pounded the Pack 15-7 in the first game, dropping the Pack to 8-13 overall and a dismal 5-8 in Mountain West games.
San Diego State then went up 6-2 heading into the seventh inning of the second game. The Pack then scored five runs in the seventh and three in the eighth and won the second game, 10-6. The Pack also won 5-3 the next day to win the series.
Nevada has now won 13 of its last 14 Mountain West games and is on the doorstep of its first NCAA Regional in 21 years.
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Why are we seeing so many no-hitters in Major League Baseball this year? There have been six no-hitters already in 2021 and we’re not even to Memorial Day. The number of no-nos is actually seven, if you include Madison Bumgarner’s seven-inning masterpiece against Atlanta (MLB, for some silly reason, doesn’t recognize no-hitters of less than nine innings).
There have been a lot of goofy theories trying to explain the sudden rush of no-hitters. Major League hitters, one theory suggests, don’t care about getting no-hit anymore because all they are trying to do is hit the ball out of the park in every at-bat. Batters also aren’t all that upset that they are striking out at an alarming rate.
We should likely wait another month or two before jumping to any conclusions. Right now the surge in no-hitters is just a statistical fluke. There were seven hitters, after all, in one season as far back as 1917, as well as in 1990, 1991, 2012 and 2015. Were hitters just up there trying to hit homers in 1917?
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The media and many fans sure love to bash Tony LaRussa.
The 76-year-old Chicago White Sox manager was castigated once again this week when he expressed his displeasure with White Sox designated hitter Yermin Mercedes. Mercedes, after all, took a swing at a 3-0 pitch in the ninth inning (from former Reno Aces catcher Willians Astudillo) and hit a home run with the White Sox up 15-4. Mercedes ignored a take sign.
LaRussa, who has always liked being the center of attention, then told everyone after the game that he was upset at Mercedes because Mercedes missed the sign as well as disrespected the game and the Minnesota Twins and showed poor sportsmanship by swinging at a 3-0 pitch with an 11-run lead in the ninth.
That prompted the media and fans, and even some White Sox players, to criticize LaRussa, saying that he should let basically just shut up, go sit in the corner of the dugout and be quiet until the game is over and let his players have fun.
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LaRussa was absolutely right.
What is so wrong with trying to teach your players how to play the game the right way? What is so wrong about trying to teach your players to play with class and dignity? What is so wrong with teaching them how to respect their opponent? What is so wrong with trying to teach your players how to play the game with a higher level of maturity?
It turns out LaRussa was proven right the next night when the Twins threw at Mercedes, an incident that LaRussa was trying to avoid the previous night when he gave Mercedes the take sign. Are the Twins also wrong by throwing at Mercedes?
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The media, which usually spends its time talking about LeBron James or some random quarterback, just loves to bash baseball every chance it gets. And they love to bash most everyone over the age of 60.
The LaRussa-Mercedes situation, according to sports talk radio and the idiots on social media, shows just how out of touch baseball is with the youth of America.
LaRussa, we were told, was just another old guy stuck in the 1950s, yelling “get off my lawn,” trying to prevent some innocent youngster from having fun.
Baseball is the only sport that gets this criticism. We saw the same situation last summer when Fernando Tatis of the San Diego Padres did the same thing as Mercedes. The difference was that Tatis’ manager was the 40-year-old Jayce Tingler, who simply laughed about the incident after the game.
LaRussa, though, became the symbol of why baseball has lost touch with the youth of America. He did the same thing as Tingler but his biggest mistake, it seems, was being 76 years old.
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