NCAAbbs

Bears Bash their Way to Victory

MACON, Ga. – The Mercer baseball squad rolled over Savannah State, 27-1, on Wednesday night at Claude Smith Field, scoring the most runs since a game at Florida A&M on April 24, 1993. Sixteen different players recorded at least one hit as the Bears out-hit the Tigers 27-5, notching four home runs and six doubles.

Savannah State (17-16) took the early 1-0 lead in the top of the third when Brian Johnson sent the ball deep over the left field wall.

The Mercer (16-23) bats caught fire in the bottom of the third, batting through the order twice and stringing together 14 hits to tally 15 runs. Five Bears tallied at least two hits in the inning, highlighted by home runs by Jason Butts, Tyler McCarty and a grand-slam by Nick DiMauro. Matt Crawford added two doubles and a single, while Tyler Brown notched a double and a single as the Bears grabbed the 15-1 lead.

The Bears added one run in each of their next three at-bats. In the fourth, Steve Karwatt knocked in Joe Winker with a single to left and John Moreland sent the ball yard, 353 feet in the fifth, notching his third jack of the season. A sacrifice fly to center by Butts in the sixth plated Winker to increase the Mercer lead to 18-1.

Mercer grabbed two runs off three walks and capitalized on one Tiger error in the bottom of the seventh to plate its 20th run of the night.

The Bears insured the win with seven runs on seven hits in the bottom of the eighth. Michael Langley singled up the middle and Moreland doubled to left center, plating Richard Bentley who had reached on an error. John Daugherty followed with an RBI-single to the same spot and Thomas Carroll grounded out to plate Moreland. Justice French and DiMauro followed with RBI singles and the Bears’ ace pitcher Justin Boyette pinch hit for a single to left, tallying the first hit of his Mercer career. Bentley knocked in two on a double to right center to give the Bears the 27-1 cushion.

Lath Guyer threw the final inning, striking out two and sending a pop-up Langley at second base to end the game.

On a staff pitching day, the Bears emptied out the bull pen, throwing eight different arms. Boone Webster (3-3) picked up the win in the fourth inning. Jarrel Arnold (1-3) took the loss, allowing eight hits and eight runs in the first two innings from the hill.

DiMauro had a career-day at the plate, going four-for-seven, while scoring two runs and tallying seven RBI. Crawford and McCarty each went three-for-four, with all three of Crawford’s hits coming in the third inning. Brown, Armstrong, Moreland and Butts also added multi-hit games, each tallying two hits and scoring two runs.

“This was a great opportunity for us to give a lot of guys a chance to play,” stated Coach Craig Gibson. “Our pitchers threw well and our bats rolled, so hopefully we will carry the momentum into our crucial conference series this weekend.”

The Bears get one day off before heading north to in-state conference foe Kennesaw State for a three-game series, April 18-19. First pitch on Friday is slated for 6 p.m. at Stillwall Stadium

-www.mercerbears.com-

I think these scores are rediculous. KSU shamefully beat Upstate 32-3 the other day. Anything over 15 and you're just asking for karma to come kick you in the ass. http://ksuowls.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/...ksu36.html

Ok, one last time.

Professional sports - you're getting paid a lot of money to stop me from running up the score. It's your job to stop me, if you can't, your loss. If I can't stop you from running up the score then I suck and should work to get better cause that's what I'm paid to do.
Collegiate sports - It's competition and if you get beat badly, then it just wasn't your day. If you run up the score, shame on you. Anything over a 15 run lead is excessive in my book... Does that mean teams haven't gotten crazy hot and come back? No, but you should be able to protect a 15 run lead over 9 innings of baseball and no one starts with a 15 run advantage.

We took most of our starters out against Upstate.. What are we supposed to tell the backups- strike out on purpose? Thats their only chance to show they deserve more PT and I'm glad they made the most of it.

You tell the backups, the freshmen, the rookies that our organization does not run up the score within reason and that they need to fall in line with the organization if they want more playing time. They're big kids, they'll figure out when to swing the bat.

Case and point was KSU womens soccer vs Florida State in the regionals. I went to the game. We were no match for them. They put in 4 goals on 4 shots and were streaking past our defenders. We had 1 shot the entire first half and it wasn't on target nor a good shot. Did they keep piling up the totals even though they could have easily with their backups? No they passed the ball around, they played for experience and we still only ended up with 3 shots or something like that. Before the soccer commies and womens sports comes up, this issue is transgender and across all sports.

What are the unwritten rules in all the sports where a lead becomes excessive? 40 points in football, 15 runs in baseball, 6-7 goals in soccer, 40 points in basketball, 10 goals in hockey...?

In college softball, there is an eight-run mercy rule, but only after five innings have been completed. One coach I know from a Division III school had three or four truly horrible teams in their conference. What she would do in those games is let her players hit after they built up a big lead but then tell them to step off the base before the rules allow it, resulting in an automatic out.

The scorekeeper would record this as LB (Left Base) in the scorebook. It allows the players to not have their batting average ruined by an intentional strikeout. For fielding purposes, credit for "causing" the out goes to the pitcher since the ball was still in her hands at the time the runner left base. I assume baseball does not have rules about when players can leave base though.

Unwritten rules in baseball are not laying squeeze bunts, hit and runs, and stolen bases with a large lead. You can't just pass the ball around on offense in baseball. You also cant run out the clock in baseball. You either get on or get out. Upstate has a respectable team but they layed down once the beating began. KSU did absolutely nothing wrong.

Swing at balls, miss on strikes. If it's looking like batting practice make sure to hit everything on the ground. Advance only 1 base. Hey, it sucks to throw a game but at least it would have been over sooner than 32 or 27 runs later.

Corn nails this one -- baseball is really the only major sport without a clock. You have to keep playing, and individual stats = playing time. Corn also mentions "how" you don't run the score up in baseball... you don't steal, you don't dig for extra bases, etc.... you just have batting practice until they can make some outs. It would be insulting to Savannah State to intentionally strike out by just standing there. That would be arrogant.

Japanese school team hit for 66 runs in two innings
13 hours, 15 minutes ago

TOKYO, April 17 (Reuters) - A Japanese high school pleaded for a regional game to be abandoned after surrendering 66 runs in less than two innings, local media reported on Thursday.

The coach of Kawamoto technical high school threw in the towel to spare his pitcher’s arm with his team losing 66-0 with just one batter out in the bottom of the second.

The hapless hurler had already sent down over 250 pitches, allowing 26 runs in the first inning and 40 in the second before Kawamoto asked for mercy.

“At that pace the pitcher would have thrown around 500 pitches in four innings,” Kawamoto’s coach was quoted as saying. “There was a danger he could get injured.”

Opponents Shunshukan were officially credited with a 9-0 victory, giving the scoreline a tinge of respectability for the luckless Kawamoto school.

This article appeared on the Yahoo Sports website on Thursday, April 17, 2008.

the term "it could always be worse." comes to mind..... lol Krocker

Hahhaa... jeez. 250 pitches and THEN they were worried about him getting hurt.

Most definitely, Mercer Fan, that was why I posted that story. It was so ironic that I came across that story right after reading about your squad's game against Savannah State.

The Japanese game would be a nightmare for a statistician's purposes. I would have probably said just count the first inning and call it a 26-0 win. Listing it as 9-0 is too generous.