2012 Baseball Season Preview
February 15, 2012 | Baseball
Feb. 15, 2012
By Adam Pruiett, UofLsports.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As he presided over his team's exit meeting last Memorial Day, Louisville baseball coach Dan McDonnell glanced toward the back wall of the Omaha Room inside the baseball complex at Jim Patterson Stadium. Covering the wall is a panoramic picture capturing the Cardinals playing in the 2007 College World Series at famed Rosenblatt Stadium.
The image is a symbol of Louisville's success under McDonnell. After advancing to the CWS in McDonnell's first season, the Cardinals' next three campaigns produced two Regional appearances (2008 and 2010) and a berth in the Super Regional (2009). But the picture of his team in college baseball's version of the Big Dance also put into perspective for McDonnell how far the Cardinals slid last season in failing to make the postseason for the first time in his tenure and finishing 32-29.
"It was a shock. It was hard," McDonnell said Tuesday during the team's annual media day at Jim Patterson Stadium. "There was no way I could sit there at the end of the season and say I knew this was coming.
"It was a different experience for us and it was one we really didn't enjoy. But we had to start our preparations from that day getting ready for this moment, for this season, and hopefully great things to come."
McDonnell and the 15th-ranked Cardinals have gone about trying to ensure that 2012's season-ending discussion will take place well after Memorial Day and a deep postseason run. Expectations are high for a club that returns 19 letterwinners along with the arrival of a recruiting class that was ranked 11th nationally by Collegiate Baseball newspaper and contains five players who were selected in the 2011 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. McDonnell is hoping the groundwork for this season's success was laid in the summer.
"We sent 19 guys off - the most we've ever sent - to play in NCAA-sanctioned summer leagues," said McDonnell, who enters his sixth season at Louisville with a 217-106 record. "We made it very clear to them that when we go off (in the summer), we go off to play, to get better, to improve, to win. And our guys did that. We had seven or eight guys that played in all-star games for their league; we had a handful of guys that won championships with their team; we had a handful of guys that were ranked as top prospects in their league. So, the tone was set right off the bat when they had success in the summer. Then they came back here and it was time to take it to the next step."
Leading Louisville in taking that next step should be a deep and experienced pitching staff. Headlined by BIG EAST Preseason Pitcher of the Year Justin Amlung (10-2, 2.31 ERA, 80 strikeouts in 2011), the Cardinals return virtually their entire staff from last season when their hurlers combined for a terrific 3.06 ERA. Sophomore Jeff Thompson (Greenville, Ind./Floyd Central HS), who was used primarily as a reliever last season, was named the Top Pro Prospect in the New England Collegiate Baseball League after an impressive summer. Amlung (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier HS) and Thompson may be the Louisville staff's most visible names, but the discussion about the group's potential by no means ends with them.
"On paper, talent-wise, this is the most talented pitching staff we've ever had," McDonnell said.
The big question for Louisville may be whether the Cardinals can create enough offense to support their pitching. The NCAA's new requirements on bats went into effect last season. The new bats enhanced player safety as intended but they also drastically limited home runs, which was particularly hard on a Cardinals team built around the long ball. Louisville's home run total dropped from 88 in 2010 to 36 in 2011.
"It was hard last year," said senior outfielder Stewart Ijames (Owensboro, Ky./Owensboro Catholic HS), a preseason All-BIG EAST selection. "Me and Ryan (Wright) were kind of the old guys on the team as far as hitting and that's what we became accustomed to - trying to hit the ball as far as we could. With the bats we used to have, you could get away with that. With the new bats, we've had to get shorter (strokes)."
In speaking about how the landscape of Division I baseball has changed due to the power-reducing bats, McDonnell mentioned the Cardinals worked on bunt defense the first day of practice this fall. In the past, he said, bunt defense wouldn't be covered until February sessions. McDonnell noted the Cardinals have worked diligently on their bunting, and stealing bases could also be more prevalent this season.
"We'll bunt a little more, but we're not going to bunt maybe like Texas and some programs like that. We'll steal bases, but we might not steal like Coastal Carolina or schools like that," McDonnell said. "The goal is to have balance and be able to manufacture runs through the bunt game, through the running game, hopefully through the double in the gap. Hey, I'm still going to be the biggest fan of the three-run homer. It's just not going to come as often as it has in the past."
Louisville's roster is heavy on youth, boasting 27 underclassmen to 11 upperclassmen. Ijames and pitchers Derek Self (Cave City, Ky./Caverna HS) and Travis Tingle (Louisville, Ky./Cleveland State CC) are the team's lone seniors, while Amlung is a fourth-year junior. It's possible more than half the starting lineup could be filled with sophomores on a regular basis, but most of those young players gained invaluable experience as freshmen in 2011.
"Last year being as young as we were, we were a class that was thrown into the fire" said sophomore outfielder/catcher Jeff Gardner (Louisville, Ky./Whitefield Academy HS), who is the team's leading returning hitter with a .333 batting average last year. "We had our struggles no doubt, but towards the end we started to figure it out a little bit. A lot of guys took it into the summer and had great summers. We've had a productive fall and spring getting ready. I think all the experience we got is going to help out a lot."
Louisville will open the season with a three-game set in the Big Ten/BIG EAST Challenge. The Cardinals will make their debut at 10 a.m. (ET) Friday in Clearwater, Fla., against Minnesota at Jack Russell Memorial Stadium. The Cardinals will then meet Illinois at 4 p.m. Saturday and Michigan State at 10 a.m. Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla., at Al Lang Stadium and Walter Fuller Complex, respectively. Louisville has never lost in the Challenge, compiling a 6-0 record in the tournament's first two years.
The Cardinals are eager for an offseason devoted to training and improving to start paying dividends.
"We said at the very end of last year that we wanted to change the culture of this place. And we did that," Ijames said. "We've hit it hard in the weight room. I'm a fifth-year senior. This is by far the hardest year that I've witnessed everybody working in the weight room in the offseason, on the field, off the field, just in general everywhere. It's kind of awesome to see."
