VANCOUVER - The UBC Thunderbirds baseball team looking to stay hot and build on their slim lead atop the conference standings when the Menlo Oaks come to town this weekend for a four-game series at Thunderbird Park.
The T-Birds and Oaks will meet on Friday, March 28 at 3 p.m., followed by a doubleheader at noon on Saturday and game four at 11 a.m. Sunday. UBC comes in at 18-5 overall and 10-2 in conference play, while Menlo is 16-18 and 4-8.
UBC continued to hit the ball well last week during their series sweep against Oregon Tech, racking up 20 runs in the four-game series (which included three seven-inning games) as the team average continues to hover just over the .300 mark. That puts them, along with Lewis-Clark State, in a class above the rest of the competition.
Kevin Biro showed no signs of slowing down with a 5-for-12 series with two walks, giving him a substantial lead for the conference batting title at .432, with the closest opponent registering at .405.
And on the mound, the UBC pitching staff didn't just stay good – it took another step forward. The 'Birds allowed only five runs in the series, lowering the team earned run average to 2.76, and they got top-notch work from their starters all series long.
First it was
Sean Callegari going eight strong in game one, allowing just one run. That brings his ERA down to 3.70, which is still higher than he'd like it after clocking in at 2.52 last year and entering this season as the ace of the staff, but it's definitely a move in the right direction. Then another ace-calibre starter –
Conor Lillis-White – exercised some demons of his own with a complete game (seven inning) one-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts and just one walk. Lillis-White's numbers were already great for the most part entering that start, but the one major sore spot was his very high walk rate, so that kind of outing was exactly what the coaching staff wanted to see out of him. He now sports an almost-invisible 0.59 ERA that leads the conference and a 4-0 record, with 37 strikeouts in 30.2 innings.
Jeremy Newton had a strong five-inning outing in game three that ended in a no-decision, but he allowed just one run to bring his ERA down to 3.21. And
Bryan Pawlina, who spent most of last year as a reliever but has been starting this year with
Alex Graham out, went four innings of shutout ball to sharpen his ERA to 2.36.
For Menlo, that kind of consistency from the starting rotation just isn't happening. The team hits a respectable .276, but the bloated ERA of 5.46 makes it hard to keep up with any real contenders.
Interestingly enough, the top-end of Menlo's pitching talent is actually very impressive. The ace of the staff is Daniel Chavez, a senior transfer from San Jose State, and his numbers qualify him to be the ace of practically any team in the NAIA.
He has a 1.55 ERA in 58 innings, with a .185 opponent batting average and a strikeout-to-walk ration better than three-to-one. Also, amazingly, he has yet to throw a wild pitch this season. He averages close to eight innings per start, so getting to the bullpen won't be easy against him. And once you get there, the Oaks have Kyer Vega waiting in mop-up duty. He has a 2.78 ERA in 11 appearances. He also starts occasionally, and got a complete-game win last week against Lewis-Clark State, which helped him earn the Red Lion NAIA West Pitcher of the Week honours.
But after that, things drop off dramatically. The next-best starter ERA is 4.57, and the Oaks have several pitchers that get regular work either as starters or out of the pen with ERAs around 7.00 and up.
That sets up an interesting dynamic for this series, where at least one game is likely to be a very different experience from the other three in the set. And indeed the Oaks have won at least one game in each series they've played so far this year, including last week against Lewis-Clark State. That shallow, top-heavy pitching rotation isn't the kind of recipe that usually makes for a deep playoff run, but it does give the Oaks a great chance to steal at least one game against an overall superior team each week, and the 'Birds will need to be sharp to avoid that trap this weekend.
