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March 6, 2013
THIS WEEK: The Washington baseball team returns to the road this week for a three-game series at eighth-ranked LSU Friday through Sunday. The Huskies will be making their first-ever, regular-season visit to an SEC school. Game times are 7:00 p.m. CT/5:00 p.m. PT on Friday, 6:30/4:30 p.m. on Saturday and 1:00 p.m./11:00 a.m. on Sunday. Washington will start junior RHP Austin Voth on Friday, junior RHP Nick Palewicz on Saturday and sophomore RHP Tyler Davis on Sunday. Fans can follow live stats of all three games and can also access, via subscription, live video and radio via the LSU website. Click on the links for more. HISTORY WITH THE SEC: As noted, Washington has never made a regular-season visit to an Southeastern Conference program, but the Huskies have other links to SEC opposition. For one, the Huskies have played regular-season series at both Missouri and Texas A&M (as well as some early-season tournaments and an NCAA Regional at A&M), but neither of those two schools were members of the SEC when the UW played them. Additionally, the Huskies played in NCAA Regionals at Mississippi State (1997) and Ole Miss (2004). The Huskies have never played LSU, but have faced a number of other SEC teams. Here's a breakdown (current SEC membership): 1-0 vs. Arkansas; 1-0 vs. Kentucky; 1-0 vs. Ole Miss; 1-4 vs. Mississippi State; 3-5-1 vs. Missouri; 1-1 vs. Tennessee; and 1-8 vs. Texas A&M. QUICK HITS: Washington's Austin Voth currently leads the Pac-12 Conference in strikeouts with 31 ... he had three vs. SeattleU on Tuesday, moving him out of a tie with Stanford's Mark Appel, who has 28 ... Voth also leads the Pac-12 in called strikeouts with 12 ... Washington has only traveled east of the Mississippi River during the regular season only three times in its history: a tournament in Viera, Fla., in 1998, a three-game series at Georgia Tech in 2004 and a tournament at East Carolina in 2007 ... as mentioned previously, the UW also played in NCAA Regionals at Mississippi State and Ole Miss ... senior Jayce Ray is currently on an eight-game hitting streak and ranks No. 6 in the Pac-12 in batting with his .391 batting average (entering Wednesday's games) ... TEAM BREAKDOWN: Washington's 2013 roster includes 13 players who had an at bat for the UW last season and eight pitchers who made at least one appearance on the mound (that total does not include Jeff Brigham and Joshua Fredendall, who will miss this season due to injury but should return in 2014). Those 13 returning position players accounted for 1,256 at bats (69.1 percent of the UW's total of 1,818 last season) and for 346 of the Huskies' 518 hits (66.8 percent). On the mound, returning pitchers made a total of 24 starts in 55 games last season (43.6 percent) and accounted for 251.3 of the 485.0 innings pitched (51.8 percent). Returning pitchers combined for a 20-11 won-lost record in 2012. ANOTHER STRONG SCHEDULE: Well-known college baseball website BoydsWorld.com released its strength of schedule numbers for the coming baseball season and, as usual, Washington's ranked very high. In fact, the 2013 Husky baseball schedule ranks as the third-hardest in the nation, behind only USC and California. Of course, the top nine on the list are all Pac-12 programs with only Washington State (24th) and Arizona (49th) ranking outside of the top nine. The rankings list all 298 Division I programs. NEXT UP: Washington returns home from the LSU trip take on Portland next Tuesday, March 12. From there, the Pac-12 season gets underway March 15-17 when the Huskies travel to Jackie Robinson Stadium for three games vs. UCLA. HOME GAMES ON VIDEO: Washington fans can watch live video broadcast of all Husky HOME games this season (other than the May 25 game vs. Arizona State, which will air on Pac-12 Networks). There is no cost for this service and you can find the links via the UW baseball schedule page, or on future game and series previews like this one. GAME PREVIEWS: GoHuskies.com has done away with the old, traditional "weekly notes" for many sports this academic year, so for the coming baseball season, this will be the manner in which each week's games will be previewed. The hope is that, with all of the links provided (particularly to the team's roster and bios, which will be regularly updated throughout the season, including updated career statistics), that fans will have much more information at their fingertips via this page than they ever had via old-style notes. If you have any thoughts on other links or information that might be included, please click on the "feedback" link at the very bottom of this page and let us know. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
