Hitter of the week
Dax Flowerree- Culver- Stockton: 12 hits in 26 at-bats, 7 runs, 1 double, 5 homeruns, 21 runs batted in. This stretch included 2 grand slams and a 11 RBI game.
Pitcher of the week
Spencer Strobel- Indiana Tech: 6.2 innings pitched, 1 save, 0 hits allowed, 0 runs, 2 walks, 16 strikeouts over 2 appearances including a 6 inning outing out of the pen.
Touching Base- Week 12
First and foremost all of us here at NAIA Ball would like to thank Georgia Gwinnett College and every one involved in honoring our friend and founder Cody Butler. I was disheartened with the fact that American Airlines canceled my flight from McAllen to DFW about 6 hours before take off, leaving me and many others with no viable backup plan. Thank you Mickey & Melissa Butler for understanding that I did all I could to be there. Thank you to the Grizzly Digital Network & Matt Mahony for having me and Conner on the broadcast to talk about our friend. We miss Cody everyday here, and everything we do is with him on mind and in heart. So to see a place that he loved like GGC taking the steps to honor him was absolutely beautiful. He was a genius at this yes, but he was a caring friend and y’all never really got to see that. That is what I miss, the TikToks, the DM’s, the phone calls, the random conversations. We actually would bump heads quite often when it came to this level of baseball, we had differing beliefs in some aspects. To say theres not a day I dont think of him is an understatement, he wasn’t just a business partner, or a co-host. He was one of my best friends. While we may not understand the bigger picture or why things happen the way they do, I also believe it is not always our place to understand. Sometimes faith carriers us deeper than anything we will ever see. For Cody. Psalms 46:9-11.
At this very moment (extremely late on a Monday night), 4 teams have secured conference regular season championships. Tennessee Wesleyan continues to pillage the Appalachian Athletic Conference with 11 straight regular season titles, and 21 years running of winning some sort of conference hardware whether it be regular season or tournament related. LSU-Shreveport wins the RRAC regular season title for the 7th time (the RRAC website is incorrect in listing LSUS as regular season champion in 2013; I would know, I was there). The Pilots are the first team in 2023 to earn qualification for the national tournament. The Mid-South has a very different tournament style, using the last weekend of the year as a way to get all of it’s programs into a feel of postseason baseball. I cant tell if I love it yet or not, but Cumberlands (KY) has secured the top overall seed in the tournament. According to the conference site this is the 7th regular season title for the Patriots. This regular season title also ties UC with Cumberland (TN) and Campbellsville (each with 7) for most regular season MSC titles (conference archives date back to 1997). Rust wins the GCAC regular season title edging out Dillard, it is the first GCAC title for Rust, and it is the first time the conference has crowned a champion in baseball since 2017 according to its website.
As we enter the final week of the regular season we are quickly approaching the best time of the year in the postseason. This has been a season that feels full of offense in a variety of ways, and which programs have capable pitching could make the difference in how far you go this season. 6 different programs have hit more than 100 homeruns in less than 48 games played (SEU, KWU, Bryan, CUNE, Cumberland (TN), Cumberlands (KY)). 13 programs produced more than 500 hits with at least 1 to 6 new programs joining that club this weekend. 78 programs are currently hitting with an average over .300. And there are 6 programs which are slugging at a clip of over .600SLG%. On the other side of the aisle 13 programs are working with a staff Earned Run Average (ERA) below 4.00 which is an incredible mark. 17 programs have a K/9 (strikeouts per 9 innings) of over 10. And 9 teams have struck out over 400 batters this year with more about to join. So how does this compare to previous years? It is actually on par for the direction this league has gone the last few seasons as far as full seasons have been played. It does seem like the offense has had more of an impact, especially the long ball where in 2022- 7 teams hit over 100 homers, and most of them reached that playing in Lewiston. This year they seem to have gotten there a lot sooner, but the overall number of teams remains on average. On the pitching side the overalls look a bit different when you compare year over year, strikeouts are down for staffs overall, and there are less teams with staff ERA’s below 4.00. So are the bats better or the arms down? Well you can draw your own conclusions from a small look at year over year numbers, and it’s likely a mix of both things. COVID-19, the transfer portal, players getting extended stays in college, all of that could be contributing factors on both sides. Just something to think about as we quickly approach the start of the postseason.
- Robby Gutierrez