VCU One Win from Supers

By Sean Ryan

CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder

 

Heading into the NCAA Tournament with an ERA under three and a team on an 11-game winning streak, VCU coach Shawn Stiffler felt his Rams would compete against the likes of Dallas Baptist, Oregon State and Texas.

 

“Was I confident going into the week?” Stiffler said by phone late Sunday night. “Yeah, I was confident we’d play well.”

 

But to be sitting pretty at 2-0 – the fifth No. 4 seed to start that way since the current NCAA Tournament format was established in 1999 – and one win from the program’s first Super Regional, even Stiffler is pleasantly surprised.

 

VCU rode another terrific pitching performance Sunday, this one from Heath Dwyer and Daniel Concepcion, and scored five runs in the middle innings to upend second-seeded Oregon State 5-1 in the winners’ bracket of the Dallas Regional. The Rams, who have won 13 games in a row and haven’t allowed more than three runs in a game during the streak, will face Dallas Baptist Monday with two chances to advance.  

 

Consider it VCU Baseball’s brand of havoc, to borrow from the school’s trademark men’s basketball style: the Rams boast the nation’s 14th-best ERA at 2.91.

 

In the Regional opener, lefty JoJo Howie mixed and matched to stymie a potent Dallas Baptist attack. Dwyer (10-2), another senior lefty, tossed 6.1 innings with three hits and one earned run before turning it over to Concepcion, who worked out of a jam in the seventh and closed the final 2.2 innings for his 14th save.

 

“They threw exactly how they needed to throw,” Stiffler said of Howie and Dwyer.

 

“JoJo needed to be the right matchup for Dallas Baptist,” said Stiffler, adding he needed to be able to offset the Patriots’ big swings by changing speeds. “Heath was just very good today; he pitched like a senior left-hander.”

 

Another senior, four-year starting shortstop Vimael Machin, went 3 for 3 with a two-run double in the fifth inning as the Rams (39-22) expanded their lead to 5-0. They had scored three times in the fourth, one game after scoring five times in the fourth, to take a 3-0 lead.

 

“We’ve been really good the second time through the lineup,” Stiffler said. “The way we’ve responded offensively is the thing that I’m most pleased with.”

 

The Rams, with only three regulars over .300, have been able to bunch hits off the likes of mid-90s righties Joseph Shaw (DBU) and Drew Rasmussen (OSU), the latter of whom threw a perfect game against Washington State this season. And they’ve been able to limit the Patriots and Beavers to three runs in 18 innings of Regional play.

 

How? Part of the reason can be found in VCU’s home field – it plays at The Diamond, the cavernous minor-league park of the Richmond Flying Squirrels.

 

“Take our ballpark, we have to pitch first; it’s tough to score in our ballpark,” Stiffler said. “We have to always have strike-throwers. And then we have to have athletes.”

 

Stiffler said the Rams seldom recruit power and look for athletes who can play a few positions. It’s not uncommon that defensive ability, speed and contact trump size and power as The Diamond encourages gap-power and swallows long flies.

 

And that large park may be part of the reason the Rams have fared well facing velocity they don’t see often throughout the year.

 

“I believe so, yes,” Stiffler said. “We don’t take huge, big swings. We’re not a big, free-swinging team.”

 

Although it sometimes is discouraging to have to string three or four hits together to score a run while watching opponents use power to score in bunches, Stiffler said his Rams have bought into the whole formula.

 

That formula has the Rams one win from the Super Regionals.

 

“We’ve always said, if we felt like we were going to win late in May or June, we have to win games 4-2 or 3-1,” Stiffler said.