Crimson Tide Baseball Team Off To Entertaining Start
By Matt Blake
March Madness is getting set to kick off soon. Unfortunately for Alabama fans the Crimson Tide basketball team didn’t come within a country mile of making the tournament. There’s one Alabama men’s team playing this time of year that hasn’t been a disappointment. Bama Baseball has been highly entertaining to watch so far this season with excellent pitching leading the way through the first couple of weeks and timely hitting finally joining the party the last couple.
Alabama’s new right field terrace style seating area has been a huge hit amongst the fans. So has the Crimson Tide’s pitching and defense.
The Tide’s pitching staff has been second to none. Despite facing some pretty tough competition the pitchers have accumulated a very respectful ERA of only 1.91 in over 165 innings pitched, while holding opposing batters to just a .185 batting average. Those are All-Star type numbers.
Leading the way among the starters is Spencer Turnbull. In five starts and 29.2 innings pitched he’s given up only .031 earned runs a game while accumulating a 2-1 record. Turnbull was the victim of an offense that got off to a very slow start this season and Alabama was only able to stay in games in part due to his strong pitching. Justin Kamplain, while not totaling as impressive an ERA, has still done almost as good a job as Turnbull when it comes to keeping Alabama in ball games. His 3.67 ERA and 2-2 record aren’t overly impressive, but the 27 innings he’s pitched so far this season is, as it’s the third highest total on the team.
Jon Keller is 4-0 with a 1.63 earned run average pitching mostly in middle relief, though he has made two starts. Thomas Burrows on the other hand hasn’t given up a single earned run so far this season in 11 innings pitched while earning a 3-0 record. Nick Eicholtz has totaled a 1.23 earned run average in 22 innings pitched, making three starts and pitching out of the bullpen to earn a 1-0 record.
Alabama’s strong pitching has played a big part in the teams winning record with the teams bats struggling a bit to start the season, particularly with runners in scoring position. Only two of it’s regular starters, Austen Smith and George Salem, have batted over .300 on the season. The team as a whole has batted just .262 on the season thus far.
Smith leads the team in both average, at .333, and RBI’s with 14. Salem is second on the team with a .316 average. Among starters Will Haynie leads the team with a .468 slugging percentage and is third among the starters with a .298 batting average.
While the starters have produced solid if not spectacular numbers the Tide’s bench has struggled mightily. In 78 at bats they’ve managed to produce just 15 hits, score just 9 runs, and drove in only four runs so far this season. Perhaps the most telling stat of all is the two extra base hits in 78 at bats. Just one double and one homerun. Those numbers won’t cut it over the long haul of a season and if the Tide hopes to maintain it’s winning ways it’s bench will have to drastically improve it’s offensive production.