Vanderbilt 8, Tennessee 5:
Ryan Flaherty launched a mammoth three run home run over the scoreboard in right center in the first inning, lifting Vanderbilt over Tennessee at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville.  The College Baseball Blog took in the action and provides this quick recap of the action.

Tim Corbin extended his dominance over arch rival to the east to a 13-5 record.  This was the first matchup between Corbin’s Dores against new Tennessee skipper Todd Raleigh.  The new coaching staff in orange has many ties to the Dores, with Corbin and Raleigh both Jack Leggett disciples.  Raleigh coached VU recruiting coordinator and first base coach Erik Bakich at East Carolina.  And while Corbin was an assistant at Clemson, both UT assistant Brad LeCroy and VU Director of Baseball Operations Mike Calitri were players (credit to Brandon Barca at VU for the research).  This has added a level of respect to a coaching staff rivalry where there was very quiet, but brutally clear animosity during the Rod Delmonico era.  If there are two teams in the SEC who have truly hated each other more than VU and UT over the last three years, I’m surprised a riot didn’t break out.  One can anticipate that the rivalry may turn more cordial in the future.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: SEC, SEC Recap, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Rivals.com division Rivals High released their first ever Top 100 High School Baseball Players this week.  The rankings (found here) are topped by Griffin, GA SS Tim Beckham (pictured left), a Southern Cal commit and probable top 5 pick in the upcoming draft.  Joining him at the top are Cooper City, FL 1B Eric Hosmer (Arizona State); Long Beach, CA OF Aaron Hicks (Southern Cal); Wentzville, MO P Tim Melville (uncommitted); and Santa Ana, CA P Gerrit Cole (UCLA).  The top five are widely speculated to all go pro after the 2008 MLB Draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, 2009 Recruits, MLB Draft, Perfect Game, Rivals

In a game that was filled with drama that seemingly wouldn’t end, Vanderbilt outlasted South Carolina 4-3 in 13 innings and 4 hours and 14 minutes.  Leading the way was All-American Shortstop Ryan “Flash” Flaherty (5-6, 2R, 2RBI, BB).  Flaherty singled in his first three at bats and launched a game tying home run to center with two outs in the bottom of the 9th.  In the bottom of the 13th, with the bases loaded and one out, Flaherty bounced a single through the right side for the win.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: SEC Recap, South Carolina, Vanderbilt

Redshirt Freshman Caleb Cotham was dominating, before tiring late against the Louisville Cardinals in a midweek Top 25 clash at Hawkins Field in Nashville. Cotham (7IP, 4ER, 7H, 1BB, 9K) used a heavy and hard fastball and a sweeping curve to handcuff the Cards, including recording the golden sombrero on UL star Chris Dominguez (1-4, 3K) in his first three ABs. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Big East, Louisville, SEC, Vanderbilt

Preseason Player of the Year Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt suffered what was called a “slight arm injury” at some point after yesterday’s 8-1 win over Oregon State.

In today’s game between #3 Vanderbilt and #1 Arizona State will feature RS Sophomore Andrew Giobbi at 3rd base.

UPDATE: Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com reports that Pedro injured his arm during pregame warmups and that he is being held out for precautionary reasons. The injury is not considered serious. Read Kendall’s report, here.

GAME UPDATE: There’s not much to say other than the fact that Vandy’s array of new pitchers cannot find the plate and have made this game painful to watch. The highlights of the day have been the arcs of Brett Wallace’s MAMMOTH Grand Slam and his equally stuning 3 run homer. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, Arizona State, Pac 10, SEC, Vanderbilt

Lance Lynn of Ole Miss picked upwhere David Price left off in 2007, representing the SEC as one of the nation’s most starters. Lynn struckout the first 8 batters en route to a 5IP, 2H, 12K performance in Ole Miss’ 8-1 win over Minnesota.

Meanwhile UGA won a slugfest over Arizona (raked #1 by some publications) after beating up preseason All-American Preston Guilmet. Josh Fields impressed with a HR and the big save. Fields is this correspondent’s 1st Team Preseason AA closer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

The Vanderbilt Commodores used grit to knock off top seed Rice in the season opener at the Minute Maid Classic last year.  Facing two-time defending champ Oregon State at the ASU-Demarini Classic in today’s opener, they Flashed pure dominance from start to finish.

Sophomore Mikie Minor was nothing short of brilliant on the mound, throwing quickly and setting down OSU in the first five brisk innings.  In the first and second, he allowed baserunners (single and HBP), but picked each man off with his solid move to first base. 

On the offensive side, Vandy struck early and often.  A bases-loaded 2RBI single from All-American SS Ryan Flaherty gave Vandy an early lead and extended Flash’s SEC record hitting streak to 36 games, dating well back into last season.  Senior LF Parker Hanks (2-4) added a mammoth 2nd inning solo-shot to the highway beyond left field in the second.  Vandy would tack on additional runs in the 4th and 5 innings to hold a comfortable 5-0 lead at the halfway point. 
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Tags: Arizona State, Game Recap, Miami (OH), Oregon State, Vanderbilt

A wedding in Delhi and a stunning workload have kept me from putting together my Vandy and SEC baseball previews (I’ll try to get them up this weekend), but there’s some great news out of Nashville: Vanderbilt will be streaming free webcasts of their games in the opening weekend tournament. You can watch by going to VUCommodores.com and going through a brief, free registration process that will give you access to the video streams of all home Vanderbilt games as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Season Preview, Arizona State, Miami (OH), Oregon State, Series Preview, Vanderbilt

Baseball America has released their preseason top 25 list.  The full ranking is available here.

Leading the way are the UCLA Bruins in the top spot.  Arizona, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and North Carolina landed in spots 2 through 5, while Missouri, Oregon State, Michigan, ASU and Miami rounded out the top 10.

Tags: ACC, Arizona, Arizona State, Miami (FL), Michigan, Missouri, Ole Miss, Oregon State, SEC, UCLA, UNC, Vanderbilt

At the International Power Showcase, which took place at Tropicana Field, Maryland Terp signee Zach Helgeson came out on top, cracking 16 total homeruns and 8 in the final round. Vanderbilt signee Matt Marquis hit the most homeruns overall, at 17.

The IPS website, found here, includes video on several of the performers.

Tags: 2009 Recruits, ACC, Maryland, SEC, Vanderbilt

We check in with Aaron Fitt over at B.A. tonight with a chat and a key piece of news out of the NCAA meetings in Nashville.

Aaron hosted his first chat of the year. Among the various topics discussed are the top five college prospects in the 2008 MLB draft: Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt, Aaron Crow of Missouri, Brian Matusz of San Diego, Justin Smoak of South Carolina and Brett Hunter of Pepperdine. Aaron says Alvarez is the class of the draft, featuring the top tools in the game. Aaron also discusses Texas’ reloading and the top three in the SEC (Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), among other issues.

Aaron also gives a recap of the failure of attempts to override the drastic revamp of many rules in NCAA baseball in a Blog Entry found here.

Tags: ACC, Baseball America, Big 12, Miami (FL), Missouri, Ole Miss, Pepperdine, SEC, South Carolina, Texas, University of San Diego, Vanderbilt, West Coast Conference

Start in Tempe with Oregon State and Vanderbilt. Close it out with UCLA visiting Fullerton. You might have to violate several physics laws to make it happen, but if you make all the games in between, you’d witness the greatest non-conference road trip of all time.

Boyd’s World has put together a list of all the top non-conference games featuring teams with top 50 ISRs between February 22nd (the date of the OSU-VU matchup) and May 20th (when the Bruins travel to Fullerton). I’m still not quite sure of Boyd’s ISR system and its built-in West Coast bias, but there’s hardly a game on the list that isn’t must-see CBB.

You can read the full list here.

Tags: 2008 Schedules

Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt has been named the Pre-Season National Player of the Year for the 2008 season by Louisville Slugger.

Joining Alvarez on the first team are Pitchers Jacob Thompson (UVA), Preston Guilmet (Arizona), Anthony Shawler (ODU), Brian Matusz (USD), Josh Satow (ASU), Scott Gorgon (UCI) and Reliever AJ Griffin (USD). Rounding out the infield are Brett Wallace (1B, ASU), Blake Stouffer (2B, TAMU), Johnny Giavotella (2B, UNO), Alex Buchholz (SS, Delaware) and Buster Posey (C, FSU). In the outfield are Dominic De la Osa (Vanderbilt), Kyle Russell (Texas) and Brad McElroy (Charlotte). Josh Romanski of San Diego made the first team as a Utility player.

For those who are wondering: Yes, Ryan Flaherty earned 2nd team honors at SS, though I’m wondering how Vanderbilt’s Mikie Minor was not deemed among the twenty-nine pitchers selected to the three team All-America list which can be read here.

Tags: ACC, Arizona, Arizona State, Atlantic 10, Big 12, CAA, Charlotte, Delaware, FSU, Louisville Slugger, Old Dominion, Pac 10, Pre-Season All-American, SEC, Texas, Texas AM, UC-Irvine, University of San Diego, UVA, Vanderbilt, West Coast Conference

The Arizona State Sun Devil start off the season as #1 in the latest publication to release a Top 25… err… 30 list.

The release can be found here.

Tags: 2008 Preseason Poll, Arizona State, Pac 10, Ping Baseball

Vanderbilt Coach Tim Corbin took questions from fans via VUCommodores.com this past week. Here’s the results. See if you can guess which three came from me. I’m sure Brian can nail at least one of ‘em.

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Tags: SEC, Vanderbilt