A hateful, repugnant waste of nine and a half minutes.

Welcome to the third baldcast of From The Cave for this season. Hope you enjoy it. And if not, thanks for watching anyway.

And if you don’t like watching me blabber on about the sport we love, then check out the *other* 10 reasons it was a good day in college baseball – posted below. (Yes, that means you have to keep reading, slacker.)

.
THE TWITTER AND FACEBOOK THING AGAIN…
If you missed it in the baldcast above, join my Twitter account by going to Twitter.com and search under “Stitch_Head” and sign up. For Facebook, a College Baseball Today page has been set up, so you can just search it out and become a member. Look for lots of cash and prizes to go along with them both.

.
JUST IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING ABOUT SOME OF THE JUMP-CUTS YOU SEE IN THE VIDEO.
Most of the time, when you see an edit or two in one of my baldcasts it’s because I’m probably trying to shave a few seconds off the length of the video. I don’t want it to go over the 10 minute mark, so I try to shave it down just a tad here and there. No biggie.

But tonight, I also had a bad misstep. In talking about the SEC’s road trips for the upcoming weekend, I accidentally said, “Alabama goes on the road to play a mid-major at Coastal Carolina this weekend.”

After taping was completed I realized my mistake – Bama is actually playing at College of Charleston – and went back and edited out that part. So you see, nobody’s perfect here. Luckily I caught it before you guys could bombard me with “WTF?” Emails.

.
.
10 REASONS WHY TODAY WAS SUCH A COOL DAY IN COLLEGE BASEBALL.

Baseball, palm trees and the blue Pacific. Not a lot to hate about going to a game out at Pepperdine.

1- I GOT TO GO TO PEPPERDINE.
It was a perfect day to get the motorcycle out, go up the Pacific Coast Highway, take in lunch at the Reel Inn and then hit an afternoon game at Pepperdine. Niiiiice.

UC Irvine – 000 000 000 – 0 6 0
Pepperdine-001 001 22x – 6 11 0

WP: Aaron Gates (1-1)
LP: Kyle Necke (0-2)
Sv: Keven Inman (1)

Key play:
Brian Humphries knocked in an RBI single in the 3rd inning to provide the Waves with all the scroring they would need. But Humphries wasn’t done there, he also scored the second run of the game, being knocked in by Floyd Given on another RBI single. Then, Humphries cemented things with a two-run double in the 7th that essentially took the air out of the Anteaters altogether.

Pepperdine ended up using just two pitchers – Gates went 5.0 innings, giving up just four hits and Inman went the remaining 4.0 innings giving up just two more hits. The ‘Eaters meanwhile, used six different hurlers on the day, despite starter Kyle Necke having a solid 5.0, 4-hit outing in his second start of the year.

Pepperdine is now 3-4 as they travel to Baton Rouge this weekend and UCI is now 4-4 and will host St. Mary’s this weekend.

I talked briefly with Pepperdine head man Steve Rodriguez after the game and he said, “When we execute our game, pitch down in the zone and throw strikes, it’s amazing how well these guys can play. I mean, Irvine is a phenomenal team and they’ll be better as the year goes on and I told our guys, ‘you guys have the ability as long as you go out and do the small things and execute our game, we’ll win some ball games.”

Brian Humphries (#21) went 3-for-4 with two RBI from his leadoff spot.

It was interesting talking to Coach Rodriguez and hearing his thoughts about the upcoming weekend at LSU. I’ll type up more of it for this Thursday’s column. Check back then. For now, on with the rest of the list from today…

.
2- THE TWO NO-HITTERS
Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee beat Lane College 10-0 and 13-2 today in a doubleheader. But the remarkable thing was that FHU won both games by throwing a pair of no-hitters.

Gage Franklin and Adam Blackburn went back-to-back to record the third and fourth no-hitters in school history. Ironically, Gage’s brother Tyler threw the first no-hitter in Lions history back in 2006 and this was actually Blackburn’s second skunking of an opponent, having pulled the no-hit trick back in 2008.

And in case you’re wondering, the second game, where Lane scored two runs, came about because the Freed-Hardman defense committed six errors in the game.

.
3- THE RETURN OF THE “GLARE DELAY”
And no, I’m not referring to Omaha resident Bob Gibson and his intimidating glare down at opposing batters that turned them into mush. The Houston-Rice game had a 22-minute “glare delay” as the sun hit off the Hilton Hotel out beyond center field at Reckling Park – a Rice tradition in February and March.

Rice went on to win game one of the Silver Glove series 8-2, despite getting out-hit 12-10.

.
4- THAT WHOLE “FLORIDA FOUR” THINGEE.
How cool is it that Miami, Florida State and Florida put aside their “I won’t play non-conference road games” mindset for a day and all got together with South Florida to play a pair of games at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa? Love it. Nice goin’ guys. College baseball fans across the country thank you.

In those two games, Miami made quick work of USF, beating them 15-2 (ouch!). In the nightcap, Florida State dismantled Florida with a 7-run 1st inning on their way to a 10-5 win (double-ouch!).

Okay, so the games themselves were of crappy quality, but it’s still a great event that I hope is repeated in years to come.

(Note: Surprisingly, Anthony DeSclafani, a weekend starter normally, got blunt-force-trauma’d for five runs on three hits as the starter for UofF today. He left after facing five batters and recording no outs. Stuart Tapley – the No. 5 hitter – knocked him out of the game with a two-run single in the 1st.)

.
5- JASON COATS STAYS HOT AS HELL.
TCU outfielder Jason Coats was named the Mountain West hitter of the week after his performance at Fullerton last weekend. Apparently that wasn’t enough for the young buck as he added to that by going 3-for-5 with a double and a home run and a staggering seven RBI in the 17-12 win over UT-San Antonio tonight.

The No. 7-ranked Frogs are now 6-1. Despite the loss, UTSA ain’t too shabby, sitting at 6-2 now.

.
6- VMI CONTINUES TO STAY UNBEATEN.
Very quietly, the Key-dets are now 7-0 with a wild 7-6 win in 11 innings at Maryland today. The win was VMI’s first-ever over the Terrapins in six tries and also marked VMI’s best start to a season in its history. We salute you brothers.

.
7- BETHUNE-COOKMAN LOSING STREAK ENDS, DRAMATICALLY.
I saw BCU at the Urban Invitational, these guys have some ability. But it was sobering to see them race out to a crappy 1-7 start despite some positive flashes. Tonight, Emmanuel Castro got an RBI double in the bottom of the 9th to give the ‘Cats their second victory of the season with an 11-10 win over nearby rival Stetson.

An obviously relieved head coach Mervyl Melendez said afterward, “I am excited for our team as this was a big win. Especially after the long road trip, this was a special win for us.”

.
8- IT’S AMAZING WHAT A 25-MPH TAILWIND WILL DO.
Kansas State bombarded Western Michigan with a 27-8 splatting today down in Winter Haven, Florida, improving the Cats to 6-1 on the young season. But howling winds helped the Cats garner four doubles, three triples and four home runs as they had 21 hits on the day.

But the most impressive stat of the day was the KSU went another game without giving up a walk. Of their first seven games, five have been walk-free.

.
9- WE GET AN AMAZING PERFORMANCE FROM MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND IT’S NOT FROM BRYCE BRENTZ.
Good to see the Blue Raiders have more than the wildly-talentd Mr. Brentz in their arsenal. Today, it was Justin Miller stamping his name into the MTSU history books with a three-home run day, which ties the school record. The junior second baseman also had two walks on the day as they went on to beat Southern Illinois 17-4.

MTSU is now 5-1 and will play the Salukis again on Wednesday, before traveling to Jacksonville State this weekend.

.
10- THE WESTERN KENTUCKY BULLPEN.
In today’s 14-7 win over Austin Peay, the Hilltoppers found themselves in a deep 7-2 hole in the 3rd inning. But they would go on to score the next 12 runs en route to an easy win. In six innings of relief, Andrew Keltner, Tyler Gilliland and Aaron Mayfield surrendered just three hits and one walk.

In fact, the best part for the Big Red so far this season? How about this fact… the Hilltoppers bullpen has allowed only one run in the 7th, 8th and 9th innings combined this season.

.
THE DOWN SIDE TO THIS TUESDAY IN COLLEGE BASEBALL?
There were 33 games involving Division I teams that were postponed or cancelled because of inclement weather. Too bad everybody can’t have a dome to play in… or just have Malibu weather.

.
AND HERE’S THE MGMT SONG WITHOUT MY TALKING OVER IT…

Okay, enough already.

G’night.