Arizona Wildcats CWS Game 1 recap: Bullpen is aces (plus video, stats, links)
Saturday, June 16th, 2012
Joey Rickard gets ready to high-five Alex Mejia as he scores the go-ahead run in the 12th. Photo by Matt Ryerson-US PRESSWIRE
The one question about the Arizona Wildcats baseball team: The bullpen.
No one dominant emerged. This season’s pitching staff is the reverse of Andy Lopez’s last great team. The 2008 squad had Daniel Schlereth, Ryan Perry and Jason Stoffel in the back end, and Lopez learned hard on those guys, able to get multiple innings from each to finish games.
That trio combined to throw 176 1/3 innings in 61 games.
This season, Lopez is riding his starters as long as he can. The not-so Big Three relieving crew of Tyler Crawford, Mathew Troupe and Stephen Manthei have combined for only 107 1/3 innings, also in 61 games.
But two of them came up huge Friday night in the first round of the College World Series.
Crawford and Troupe — a pair of freshman — combined to throw 4 1/3 innings of scoreless relief, successfully holding down the fort while Arizona finally solved Florida State’s All-American closer Robert Benincasa in his fourth inning of work.
