UNCP Weekend Sports Watch

UNCP Baseball opens a four-game series Friday at home vs. Post. The Braves (11-4, 1-2 PBC)are fresh off a 14-6 victory over Wingate on Wednesday. UNCP HOMERUN TALLY is now at 20 in 15 games. Seven players have at least 12 RBIs for the Braves this season.

UNCP Men's Basketball wraps ups its 2008-09 season Saturday at Columbus State. The Black and Gold have struggled in Ben Miller's first season as head coach and have a 5-21 record, including a 2-17 mark in Peach Belt Conference play. Wednesday's 80-78 loss to Georgia College at the Jones Center spoiled Senior Night and brought a disappointing end to the career of four Braves' seniors.

Braves lose heartbreaker 80-78

UNCP FOOTBALL opened spring practice Tuesday afternoon, returning 21-of-22 starters from last season's 9-1 squad. The Braves practiced in helmets and shorts and are expected to play in full pads on March 9. All spring drills are open to the public.

UNCP Football opens spring practice

MLB Season Preview 2009

Just so you know, it's not happening this year Rays' fans. The Chicago Cubs are beating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in six games next October to break the World Series curse.

After a few days of studying pitching staffs, projected opening day lineups and last season's top performers, I'm ready to publish my 2009 Major League Baseball Fearless Forecast. Let's get right to it . . .

NATIONAL LEAGUE PREDICTIONS

West – Arizona Diamondbacks. (Brandon Webb 22-7 and Dan Haren 16-8) Pair of potential 20-game winners. Scoring runs might be a problem for Arizona, but not much run support is needed when Webb and Haren step on the mound.

East – Philadelphia Phillies. (obviously the bats and Hamels, great bullpen)

Central – Chicago Cubs will have MLB’s best record (best 3-4-5 in NL, Derek Lee, M. Bradley, A. Ramirez) 3 guys capable of 30 HRs each. Fukudome and Soto, pair of allstars in Chicago. The NL Central is the lowest/ugliest/worst division in baseball.

Wild Card – Florida Marlins (the youth movement, young pitchers, young stars Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez) Marlins rotation = Rickey Nolasco 15-8 last season 26 yrs old, Josh Johnson 7-1, 23 yrs old, Chris Volstad 6-4, 2.88 ERA, 22 yrs, Anibel Sanchez 2-5, 25 yrs old 50 Ks in 50 innings. Solid young arms. Look for the Marlins to be this year's Tampa Bay Rays.

Phillies over DBacks in the Divisional Round, Cubs over Marlins in the other Divisional Round, Cubs over Phillies in the NLCS.

NL CY YOUNG = Carlos Zambrano P Chicago Cubs

NL MVP = Hanley Ramirez SS Florida Marlins


AMERICAN LEAGUE PREDICTIONS

East – New York Yankees. The Yankees have a chance to theoretically do what the Marlins did a decade ago, buy a World Series. After spending half a billion, that’s right half a billion in the offseason, their staff could be the best in MLB. Wang, Sabathia, Burnett, Chamberlain, it’s ridiculous. And you know they’re good on offense with Rodriguez and Mark Teixiera.

West – Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Defending AL West Champs. Bobby Abreu in left field is an upgrade from Garret Anderson in my opinion and already makes an explosive liveup that much stronger. Rangers definitely have the offense to win the West, but the pitching isn’t there after Kevin Millwood and Vincente Padilla. Too many questions marks in the bullpen for Texas.


Central – Chicago White Sox. Power hitters in the outfield and and a solid bullpen. Bobby Jenks as the closer and Octavio Dotel as the setup man? That’s good. Buerhle, Colon, Gavin Floyd in the rotation. The hardest division in baseball to project in my opinion.

AL Wild Card – Boston Red Sox.

Angels over Red Sox in the Divisional Round, Yankees over White Sox in the other Divisional Round, Angels over Yankees in the ALCS.

AL Cy Young = Chien Ming Wang P Yankees

AL MVP = Vladimir Guerrero RF Anaheim Angels

Just for giggles, AL Comeback POY = Dontrelle Willis P Detroit Tigers

Braves lose weekend series to Patriots, 2-1

The UNCP baseball team fell to 10-4 (1-2 PBC) over the weekend after staving off a three-game sweep Sunday in a series in Florence, SC against Francis Marion.The Braves fell 6-5 and 8-5 on Saturday before winning today’s contest 10-7.

Seth Kivett's 4-for-5 day at the plate with a homerun highlighted the Braves' offense in today's 10-7 win. Jason Coker also HR'ed, pushing UNCP's tally to 17 this season through 14 games.

UNCP travels to Wingate Wednesday before returning to Sammy Cox Field next weekend to host Post for a four-game series.



UNCP HR TALLY THROUGH 14 GAMES = 17

Gamecocks prepare for Duquesne

A year removed from last season's star-studded starting nine, the University of South Carolina baseball team is set to open the season on Saturday in Columbia against Duquesne. (3-game series)

Coach Ray Tanner and the Gamecocks will be playing in the first game at the brand-new state-of-the-art Carolina Baseball Stadium. South Carolina's new venue sits nearly 9,000 and costs $36 million to construct over the last two years. It should be confines suitable for the long ball.

Baseball writers have pegged this year's squad 4th in the SEC East, a surprise if you follow Gamecocks' baseball. South Carolina has made a postseason regional eight consecutive years and earned a trip to the College World Series three times since 2000. The Gamecocks have won the SEC twice during that span. (NCAA runner-up in 2002, 12-6 loss to Texas)

Without 1B Justin Smoak, C Phil Disher, SS Reese Havens and 3B James Darnell (all current pro's and draft picks last season), it may be a long year for the Garnet and Black offense. As always though, pitching wins championships.

Junior heading back to Seattle

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution gets it wrong . . . again.

A few weeks after reporting Rafael Furcal is coming back to Atlanta (he re-signed with Los Angeles) Tuesday's report of Griffey to the Braves was all but a sure thing. Wrong. Griffey signed a one-year $2 mil deal with the Seattle Mariners yesterday, saying no to a previous offer from the Braves. Griffey said the AJC's story on him agreeing to an ATL contract was "completely false".

Can a newspaper really affect a player's decisionto sign with the Braves? That's twice the AJC has dropped the ball.

Braves in talks with The Kid

Atlanta Braves general manager Frank Wren and Ken Griffey Jr.'s agent have began talks about the possibility of bringing Jr. to Atlanta for the 2009 season.

Griffey said he is willing to split time in left field with Matt Diaz.

The former Seattle Mariners' phenom lives in Orlando, home of Atlanta's spring training site at Disney's Wide World of Sports. It would be great to see Griffey come to Atlanta, but it's about 5-7 years too late . . .

Going Deep with UNCP - Second Entry

UNCP senior Kevin Dietrich un-officially has the Black and Gold's longest homer at Sammy Cox Field this season.

Dietrich's gargantuan blast to left in the bottom of the fourth this afternoon was his second of the game, giving the Braves a 10-5 lead. UNCP would go on to beat Millersville in the first game of a weekend series, 17-7. It was Dietrich's first multi-homer game of his career.

Dietrich lifted a high fastball on a 1-1 pitch into the pine trees about 15 feet above the wall. Coach Paul O'Neil's quote after the game: "Diets hit a tape-measure shot. That ball is still stuck in the mud out there somewhere."

Tom Porricelli added a solo homer to left in the third. The Braves' 17 runs was the highest total this season. Game one of tomorrow's doubleheader starts at 1 p.m.

UNCP BASEBALL Robesonian Preview


UNCP HR TALLY THROUGH SEVEN GAMES = 12