Ole Miss Baseball: Inside the Ragin’ Cajuns with Dan McDonald
In order to get you prepared for the Lafayette Super Regional, I caught up with New Orleans Advocate contributor Dan McDonald to discuss some details about this Lafayette team and what Ole Miss can expect.
See his video preview here, with Les East at the New Orleans Advocate on the regional win over MSU and the upcoming super against Ole Miss.
The teams face off tonight at 7pm on ESPN2.
How do you think a top team like ULL lost to Jackson State which was the lowest RPI team in the tournament?
UL is a very aggressive team at the plate, and Jackson State used that aggressiveness against them. JSU threw a soft-throwing lefthander that had them off balance for much of the game, and in the last three or four innings the Cajuns got away from their regular MO of producing runs via timely hits and being aggressive on the bases and started playing for the two-run homer to try to win 2-1. They didn’t look like that the rest of the Regional when they scored 39 runs in the last four games. They actually had more hits in the opening loss to JSU (eight) than they had in the final-game win over MSU (seven), but they took advantage of walks and were much more aggressive when they reached base.
What is the likely pitching rotation for ULL against Ole Miss?
The Cajuns have used pretty much the same rotation in every Sun Belt series this year, and head coach Tony Robichaux said Wednesday that junior righthander (and son) Austin Robichaux (7-3, 2.83) would get the Saturday start. Robichaux had the hard-luck 1-0 loss to JSU last Friday, allowing four hits and fanning six in eight innings. Junior righthander Carson Baranik (11-1, 3.27) is a pretty sure bet for the Sunday game and senior lefthander Cody Boutte (9-0, 3.09) is the probable for Monday … although there is a VERY slight possibility that those two could flip-flop depending on how well Ole Miss hits right-handed pitching in the opener.
What type of pitcher or team has given ULL the most trouble this year?
Jackson State showed that the soft-throwing lefties can stymie them for a short time, but they’ve been successful against all types of pitching. In fact, their numbers against lefties are actually a little higher than against righties, but both are over .310 as a team (UL hits .319 as a team entering the Super Regional). They had some difficulties against Mississippi State’s power relievers from both sides of the plate, but I believe much of that was the contrast from the slow-ball stuff they’d seen earlier in the Regional.
Who are the big bats at ULL?
They’ll start seven guys at .300 or better, but the three guys who have been the most successful recently are Jace Conrad (.377), Blake Trahan (.357) and Caleb Adams (.387). Conrad, after going 1-for-4 against JSU, went 10-for-19 with 10 RBI and two HR’s in the final four Regional wins and was the Most Outstanding Player. Trahan, who had gone 7-for-11 in the previous week’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament and was that event’s MOP, was 10-for-17 in the Regional with five RBI and five walks and had the clinching RBI single in the ninth inning of the 5-3 win over MSU in the final game. Adams was one of the nation’s leaders in home runs last year and is slugging .689 this year, which ranks third nationally, and has 11 homers and 35 extra-base hits.
How would you compare ULL and Ole Miss offensively?
Don’t know if I’m qualified to judge that. UL coach Tony Robichaux says that Ole Miss is the second-best offensive team his pitching staff has faced this year….and said the best unit his pitchers have faced is his own lineup during the fall season. He said Wednesday that he expects to have to play a full nine innings against Mike’s unit. The two are very close personal friends and Tony respects coach Bianco as much as anybody in the profession, and went out of his way to say Wednesday that Ole Miss’ hitting coach does a tremendous job of having his hitters ready.
What would concern ULL fans the most about this matchup with Ole Miss?
The three other SEC teams that UL played this year (Alabama, LSU, Miss. State) all had holes in their lineup, from what I saw. Ole Miss doesn’t appear to have that. They’re markedly similar in their lineup to what the Cajuns do … both have gotten hit production one through nine, and both are good at manufacturing runs once they get runners on base. The numbers eight and nine hitters are just as likely to drive in critical runs as the numbers two, three and four guys.
How does this 2014 ULL team compare talent wise to the 2000 ULL team that made it to Omaha?
I think this team overall is deeper than the 2000 Cajun team. They can do more situational hitting left-vs.-right, even though their lineup has been pretty set over the last couple of weeks. Their starting pitching is almost eerily similar to the guys that were the top three in 2000. One big difference is that the Omaha team of 2000 had one main closer in curveballer Gordon O’Brien, and this year’s team has used several different pitchers to close games. Right now senior righthander Matt Plitt has been the go-to closer at the end over the last couple of weeks, but they have several others that have thrown in game-finishing situations. This year’s team is definitely better defensively in the infield … Trahan is the best college shortstop that nobody’s seen (he’s playing wth Team USA this summer). If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have said the difference is in attitude. The 2000 team had huge attitude, to the point that they were harder on each other than they were to opponents, and that worked for them. This year’s team is more the “band of brothers” group, constantly trying to pick each other up, but over the last few weeks they’ve also shown that hard edge that I think separates good teams from great teams.