Let’s Party Like It’s 1999!

The Alabama Crimson Tide is headed to Omaha for the College World Series for the first time since 1999. The Tide defeated St John’s in two straight games in the Tuscaloosa Super Regional to earn the right to head to the Mecca of college baseball. Bama defeated the Red Storm late Saturday night 8-0 in game one and took a 7-2 win which played out over Sunday afternoon, night, and Monday morning. An NCAA decision to move the start of Sunday’s game from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. because of weather back fired. The game was set for a 2 p.m. first pitch but was pushed back to a 3 p.m. start because of a threat of bad weather. The weather came, but not until the 8th inning of the game. Both rain and lightning were steady. Had the contest started on time the game would have been over, instead the players, staff, employees, and the fans (that held out) were subject to a 5.5 hour rain delay as the expected start time kept getting pushed back, until it the field was deemed unplayable. The suspended game was picked up at 11 a.m. on Monday morning. Alabama improved to 42-19 while SJU fell to 36-26 on the season.

Junior left hander Zane Adams toed the rubber at Sewell-Thomas Stadium for the last time on Sunday for the Tide, facing off with St John’s left hander, and former Alabama player, Evan Chaffee. In a quirk that most baseball fans don’t like, Bama was the visitor in the game. The NCAA Baseball Tournament is pretty close to perfect, but the host of Regional and Super Regional play should be home team for the whole series.

Chaffee tossed a quick top of the 1st with two strikeouts and a ground out. Adams followed with two strikeouts and a fly out in the bottom half. Jason Torres shot a double the opposite way for the Tide in the second, but three ground balls later he was unable to advance. Adams set the Johnnies down in order in the bottom with another strikeout.

Bama broke through in the 3rd. Luke Vaughn led off with an opposite field double and scored when Peyton Steele poked a single through the right side to score Vaughn. Bryce Fowler then doubled to put runners on 2nd and 3rd base. After Justin LeBron was retired, Brady Neal grounded out to scored Steele for a 2-0 lead. St John’s cut the lead in half in their at bat in the third inning. Rob Mansour singled with one out and moved to third on a ground rule double by Dylan Fitzsimmons. Jon LeGrande grounded out to score Mansour, cutting the score to 2-1. Another ground ball ended the inning.

Alabama answered in the top of the fourth. Johnny Lemm was hit by a pitch leading off and was forced out at second on an Eric Hines ground ball. Brennan Holt singled to right to advance Holt to third base. A perfect safety squeeze bunt by Vaughn brought Hines in for a 3-1 lead. Adams worked around a one hit single and a hit batter in the bottom of the 4th to hold the lead.

Chaffee kept the Tide off balance, and despite a few well hit fly balls, held Bama at bay for the next two innings, ending his outing after 6 innings, allowing six hits, with no walks, four strikeouts, and three runs. Adams allowed a one out home run to Adam Argresti, but finished off the inning with a fly out and a strikeout.

The Tide broke the game open in the top of the seventh. Steele beat out an infield single with one out and Fowler followed with an infield hit of his own. Fowler was out at second base on a Lebron ground ball, putting runners on the corners. Neal worked a walk to load the bases, bringing Torres to the plate. Torres drove a 1-0 pitch deep in the right field plaza for a grand slam home run, and putting the huge Sewell-Thomas Stadium crowd into a frenzy. With a 7-2 lead, Adams was back for the 7th inning. After notching his 8th strikeout, Mansour lined a single to center field. With 111 pitches under his belt, Adams was replaced by Matthew Heiberger. It took Heiberger three pitches to induce a ground ball back to the mound. The lefty hurler fielded the ball, turned and fired to LeBron covering second base, who in turn fired to Vaughn at first base for a nifty double play.

Holt led off the 8th inning for the Tide and walked. At that point the first lightning delay happened, followed by rain, more lightning, more rain, and so on and so on. Every several minutes there was speculation of a 7:30, 8:30. 9:45 etc, restart before yet another lightning bolt would strike. Finally the decision was made to pull the plug and return at 11 a.m. on Monday.

When play resumed Evan Hoeckele was on the mound for the Red Storm and Holt was on first base for the Tide. Hoeckele used two strikeouts and a fly out to retire Bama. Heiberger returned for Bama and retired the first two SJU hitters in the bottom half. After a single and hit batter, Heiberger struck out Will Cowan to end the threat.

In his last at bat at The Joe, LeBron walked and stole second leading off the 9th inning. Hoeckele retired the next three batters to set up the Johnnie’s last chance. Heiberger got a pop up to LeBron, a strikeout looking, and a fly ball that Fowler ran down in center field to end the game and give the Tide the 7-2 victory.

Alabama hit 9-35 in the game with four walks, one hit batters, three doubles, one home run, one sac bunt, a stolen base, struck out seven times and left seven on base. Torres was the big guy with his 2-4 night/day with a double, grand slam home run , and four driven in. Fowler finished 2-5 with a double, Steele was 2-4 with two runs and one driven in. Vaughn and Neal drove in the other Bama runs. Adams improved to 8-4 with the win.

St John’s hit 7-33 in the game, and only had nine hits in 62 bats in the two games for a .145 batting average. The Storm had two hit batters, one double, one home run, no walks, two hit batters, with 10 strikeouts and six men left on base. Agresti was 2-3 with a hit by pitch and his 20th home run of the season. Chaffee pitched great but was the losing pitcher and fell to 7-5 on the season.

The Tide will open World Series play on Saturday at 2 p.m. CT against a familiar foe, conference opponent the Oklahoma Sooners.Bama defeated the Sooners in Norman two games to one during their series on April 2-4. The game will be on ESPN.

Words can’t describe how special this is personally. As someone that has been very involved with this baseball program for over two decades this is so gratifying. Rob Vaughn came to Tuscaloosa with a plan ( dare I say a process ?) and things have fallen into place as he planned. The Tide battled multiple season ending injuries to players that were expected to be big contributors this year. Along with that there were the normal bumps and bruises-and concussions and broken fingers- that teams battle during the year. One thing the team has is an intact starting rotation that never missed a start. Tyler Fay, Adams, and Myles Upchurch, took every turn and almost always went deep in games and alway gave the Tide a chance to win. Bama was the only team in the SEC to send the same three hurlers out in the same three spots for every series of the schedule. The lineup took its lumps during their year, but are peaking at the right time. If things run right the there is no telling how far the Tide can ride those two factors in Omaha. Pitching coach Jason Jackson can not be given enough credit for the job he has done.

Roll Tide

Bama Baseball Fever, Catch It! There is still room on the bandwagon!