For those who live in Nebraska, Omaha is their state capital. In Colorado, Omaha is a pre snap call that Peyton Manning used to death during his tenure with the Broncos. People who live in Arizona view Omaha as the second home of the Wildcats baseball team. With their clinching of a College World Series spot last week it marked the 17th time the school would take part in the tournament, ranking them seventh most all-time. The team they face however has been equally accustomed to taking the trip to Omaha.
The Miami Hurricanes will go into their 25th College World Series ranked as the number three team in the tournament. They won their Super Regional matchup last week in walk off fashion as well but sparked some controversy after a grand slam home run against Boston College put them up 9 to 3 when Edgar Michelangeli decided to add a little pizazz to his homer by staring down the ball and flipping the bat half way down the first base line. The benches cleared and Michelangeli had to be held back by his teammates. Lucky for Miami no blows were thrown but this kind of attitude and grand standing has been a common thing for the Hurricanes this season.
It is the exact opposite of how the Arizona Wildcats have played this season under rookie manager Jay Johnson. He has been pushing the Wildcats to embrace this kind of underdog mentality that has pushed them to this position after upsetting number six Mississippi State in the Super Regional. The first match the team won it 1 to nothing and in the second they took it 6 to 5 in the bottom of the 11th. Johnson has been knocking the idea into his team’s head that they must be able to take victories in whatever games they face and more importantly be the better team in one run games, which it seems the team has already taken towards with flying colors.
A major issue however with this Arizona team is the lack of a dominant offense even though they have had opportunities this season to bust games wide open with better play. Against Mississippi State in the second game Arizona had eighteen hits with only six runs scored. The game could have easily ended in the tenth or even the ninth, but the team just struggled with runners in scoring position throughout and finally broke through with a bases loaded single in the bottom of the eleventh. Not to mention the Wildcats did not steal a single base or a successful sacrifice bunt even though the chances for those squeeze type plays were prevalent throughout.
With how difficult it has been to score for the team, it may be even harder to score on them once the starters get off the mound. The bullpen has become a weapon for Johnson this year with four strong relief pitchers in Tyler Crawford, Cody Deason, Rio Gomez and Cameron Ming who earned the win against Mississippi State in the second game after he combined with Gomez to pitch three innings with no hits against either from the ninth to the eleventh. One thing that this group of pitchers needs to keep in their mind is that they must keep their nerves controlled and not let the moment catch up to them as Miami has a way of getting under people’s skin, which could make them sloppy and leave a pitch in a perfect spot to carry.
Johnson will need all his players to be on the top of their game, including his freshmen like Cesar Salazar and Alfonso Rivas III who knocked out the tying and game winning hits in the Super Regional. If everyone in the pitching crew and the one through nine hitters keeps their heads cool and prevent Miami from collecting any kind of momentum they have a chance. This is an underdog run that may just find itself not only going into the next round, but maybe even taking Omaha altogether.