Sunday, June 1, 2008

Video of the Day: Aaron Baker wins it for the Sooners

Well, there it is. In the bottom of the ninth, Oklahoma's Aaron Baker belted a 2-2 pitch from Russell Brewer out of the park to end Vanderbilt's season.

3 comments:

Jarred Amato said...

That was painful to watch, but it doesn't compare to watching pinch-hitter Alan Oaks hit a game-winning homer off David Price in last year's Regional.

Still, that's two straight gut-wrenching losses to end the Commodores' season. Not cool.

Tony Arnold said...

I agree with Jarred, the last two years have been tough endings.

This year was tough in a different way. A great team with a lot of wins and wonderful moments. But it seems that they never completely came together to reach their full potential.

They consistently had problems holding relatively big leads. But that may just be the expected result from a younger, not quite so deep, pitching staff. I know the coaches had to be frustrated.

However, this team also showed incredible fortitude throughout the season and never stayed down, always fought back. Alex only missing two games with a shattered jaw, playing with it wired shut--that was the real heart of the team right there.

The most painful part of the last game was not the homerun so much as watching Nick have that one bad stretch in the 5th that cost them the larger lead when other than that he pitched a great game. I hate that for Nick because we all love his effort for this team.

Also, watching our lead-off runner flirt with getting picked off over and over again against a pitcher known for his 1st base move and then taking a extra big lead to get picked off made me mad. That one really hurt because it cost us at least two runs that inning and probably cost us the game in hindsight. We win by one if he is not picked off. Was the extra step with no outs really needed? No way.

Overall a great season that unfortunately does not feel that way . I think that statement sums up what Corbin has meant to VU. He has raised expectations of what is acceptable to be called a good season.

Jarred Amato said...

Tony, you make a number of good points. I think ultimately the Dores' inconsistency resulted from their thin and inexperienced pitching staff. Of course, losing Price and especially Weathers was huge, but don't underestimate the losses of guys like Crowell and Davis and Rhoden. We just didn't have enough arms to put together long stretches of solid play, but that will change next season (check out my post later on today).

Also, Tony hit on something at the end that I think is extremely important. As Brett Hait says in his excellent column in the City Paper, "Vanderbilt baseball has arrived because no one is satisfied now with simply making the NCAA Tournament."