Photo by: John Quackenbos
Birdball Refocused For New Run In 2020
February 13, 2020 | Baseball, #ForBoston Files
After narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament, the Birds return to finish the deal.
At the end of last season, Boston College baseball head coach Mike Gambino sat down to begin his customary breakdown of the completed season. He broke down his team, analyzing individual performances, and tried to find areas of improvement. During that review, a light went off in his brain, and he remembered something he told the Eagles prior to the first series against Jackson State.
"I believed we were a bubble team last year," Gambino said. "I knew we could be noisy at the end of the year, and if we could just get into the tournament, we had a good chance to go to Omaha. So as a team we had to ask if we could do enough to win that extra game here or there. Everyone understood the importance of every game and how it could give us a real chance in the ACC Tournament (to clinch a national spot)."
That conversation became very real on Selection Monday when the NCAA Tournament brackets did not include Boston College in the field of 64 teams. The ACC sent eight teams to the national tournament, and two teams - both from the Atlantic Division - qualified for Omaha's College World Series. The league's .614 win percentage in the tournament and 27 wins stood second to only the SEC. Louisville advanced to the National Semifinal before losing to Vanderbilt, the eventual national champion.
Boston College, however, watched it all from the sideline. The Eagles went 31-27 last year with 14 aggregate conference wins, nearly an identical record as Duke, which went to the dance, and shocked the ACC by winning its bracket in the conference tournament. In the semifinal round against North Carolina, which won the ACC Tournament, the Eagles rallied from a 7-1 deficit with a four-run seventh inning. It was arguably a better resume than teams from other conferences, but it wasn't enough.
"(Jack Cunningham) hit that homer in the seventh inning, and we were still in that game," Gambino said. "So our confidence boomed that we could make some noise. We flew back that Sunday and watched the selection, and it really left a sour taste to get that close. We knew we missed that tournament berth by maybe one or two games. But it just highlighted, to us, how the league is so loaded, that one or two games create such a little margin of error. We have to play 30 games against teams with future big leaguers at every position, and the difference comes down to one or two plays here and there."
It created a unique offseason crossroads in Chestnut Hill. Coming that close to a second tournament berth in four years is a bitterness, but the emotion is also an ankle weight. It can bog down the next year if teams focus too much on what could have been, so there's a need to use it as motivation, a driving force forward, instead of allowing it to culture and grow in the shadows of the rearview mirror.
"We knew and understood not to look back (at last season)," Gambino said. "Everyone can look back and see situations where we could have done something different. But at that point, the game is broken down into really small things. There are always going to be situations where we want to bunt versus not bunt or take a walk in a fifth inning. Instead, we want to make sure that we're understanding the game and studying how to be the best team that we can be because we know we're always going to play our best baseball at the end of the year."
It means BC could hit an early stride if everything comes together out of the gates. The lineup returns nearly every major piece from last season and is adding a unique blend of power and speed, an unexpected jump for a lineup known for a small ball reputation. The rotation, meanwhile, is built out with a number of potential starters, including Mason Pelio, a fixture over the past two seasons and a flamethrower likely to draw attention from scouts.
"We lost Dan Metzdorf, who is a huge loss to the rotation," Gambino said. "And we lost Matt Gill (drafted by Cincinnati), who threw a lot of innings for us. But we're excited about our weekend rotation. We believe Mason is a true ace and Emmet Sheehan is a developing ace. And we have both Joey Walsh and Joe Mancini back."
It starts this weekend with a series against Northern Illinois in Winter Haven, Florida. The Huskies improved to 14 wins in the Mid-American Conference and pushed Ball State to extra innings before falling in the conference semifinals last season. It was a step forward for head coach Mike Kunigonis, a former Massachusetts baseball standout at American International who spent time with Gambino as a volunteer assistant coach at Virginia Tech.
The four-game series, which includes a doubleheader, precedes a trip to Arizona State for a three-game series, so there are plenty of early opportunities to bang some noise on the national radar. It's a fast start to the season, especially before a four-game series against North Carolina A&T and Fairfield in Greensboro, and leads directly into conference play, which opens up at Clemson after a game at South Carolina.
The home schedule doesn't open up until March 17, when Northeastern makes a short trip down to the Harrington Athletics Village, but three straight conference series follow, including consecutive weekends against Louisville and Florida State, the two teams that went to Omaha last season.
"Baseball in general is getting better," Gambino said. "Teams are investing across the board, and you can see it in the ACC. Every program has committed to getting better, and everyone keeps getting better across the board. The ACC and the SEC are the two leagues everyone considers the best in college baseball, and if you're in a position to get ten or 11 teams into the tournament, you know every game is going to be that much more important."
"I believed we were a bubble team last year," Gambino said. "I knew we could be noisy at the end of the year, and if we could just get into the tournament, we had a good chance to go to Omaha. So as a team we had to ask if we could do enough to win that extra game here or there. Everyone understood the importance of every game and how it could give us a real chance in the ACC Tournament (to clinch a national spot)."
That conversation became very real on Selection Monday when the NCAA Tournament brackets did not include Boston College in the field of 64 teams. The ACC sent eight teams to the national tournament, and two teams - both from the Atlantic Division - qualified for Omaha's College World Series. The league's .614 win percentage in the tournament and 27 wins stood second to only the SEC. Louisville advanced to the National Semifinal before losing to Vanderbilt, the eventual national champion.
Boston College, however, watched it all from the sideline. The Eagles went 31-27 last year with 14 aggregate conference wins, nearly an identical record as Duke, which went to the dance, and shocked the ACC by winning its bracket in the conference tournament. In the semifinal round against North Carolina, which won the ACC Tournament, the Eagles rallied from a 7-1 deficit with a four-run seventh inning. It was arguably a better resume than teams from other conferences, but it wasn't enough.
"(Jack Cunningham) hit that homer in the seventh inning, and we were still in that game," Gambino said. "So our confidence boomed that we could make some noise. We flew back that Sunday and watched the selection, and it really left a sour taste to get that close. We knew we missed that tournament berth by maybe one or two games. But it just highlighted, to us, how the league is so loaded, that one or two games create such a little margin of error. We have to play 30 games against teams with future big leaguers at every position, and the difference comes down to one or two plays here and there."
It created a unique offseason crossroads in Chestnut Hill. Coming that close to a second tournament berth in four years is a bitterness, but the emotion is also an ankle weight. It can bog down the next year if teams focus too much on what could have been, so there's a need to use it as motivation, a driving force forward, instead of allowing it to culture and grow in the shadows of the rearview mirror.
"We knew and understood not to look back (at last season)," Gambino said. "Everyone can look back and see situations where we could have done something different. But at that point, the game is broken down into really small things. There are always going to be situations where we want to bunt versus not bunt or take a walk in a fifth inning. Instead, we want to make sure that we're understanding the game and studying how to be the best team that we can be because we know we're always going to play our best baseball at the end of the year."
It means BC could hit an early stride if everything comes together out of the gates. The lineup returns nearly every major piece from last season and is adding a unique blend of power and speed, an unexpected jump for a lineup known for a small ball reputation. The rotation, meanwhile, is built out with a number of potential starters, including Mason Pelio, a fixture over the past two seasons and a flamethrower likely to draw attention from scouts.
"We lost Dan Metzdorf, who is a huge loss to the rotation," Gambino said. "And we lost Matt Gill (drafted by Cincinnati), who threw a lot of innings for us. But we're excited about our weekend rotation. We believe Mason is a true ace and Emmet Sheehan is a developing ace. And we have both Joey Walsh and Joe Mancini back."
It starts this weekend with a series against Northern Illinois in Winter Haven, Florida. The Huskies improved to 14 wins in the Mid-American Conference and pushed Ball State to extra innings before falling in the conference semifinals last season. It was a step forward for head coach Mike Kunigonis, a former Massachusetts baseball standout at American International who spent time with Gambino as a volunteer assistant coach at Virginia Tech.
The four-game series, which includes a doubleheader, precedes a trip to Arizona State for a three-game series, so there are plenty of early opportunities to bang some noise on the national radar. It's a fast start to the season, especially before a four-game series against North Carolina A&T and Fairfield in Greensboro, and leads directly into conference play, which opens up at Clemson after a game at South Carolina.
The home schedule doesn't open up until March 17, when Northeastern makes a short trip down to the Harrington Athletics Village, but three straight conference series follow, including consecutive weekends against Louisville and Florida State, the two teams that went to Omaha last season.
"Baseball in general is getting better," Gambino said. "Teams are investing across the board, and you can see it in the ACC. Every program has committed to getting better, and everyone keeps getting better across the board. The ACC and the SEC are the two leagues everyone considers the best in college baseball, and if you're in a position to get ten or 11 teams into the tournament, you know every game is going to be that much more important."
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