I guess Arizona's coach figures if it works in softball it should work in baseball.**
Seriously, this DOES seem to be the year to throw out everything because there is no logical reason that the NC series would have ever come down to AZ and CC.
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I don't disagree but none of that is the point. We had moved on from Woodruff well before then. He was never a factor. He had nothing to do with the final series in Omaha. Other things can rightly be blamed for us losing that series. Namely, UCLA was just good. Sort of like Arizona right now.
Sure, they cost us a national title...by beating us. UCLA cost us a national title in 2013. Florida cost us a national title in 2012. These teams beat us in the NCAA Tournament and kept us from advancing with a chance at winning a national title.
These are all pretty clear facts.
I agree with the bold. If you want to say Woodruff getting hurt maybe cost us a national seed....sure, I can go with that. But you said in the original post that he was a killer in the Finals. That's not true. He wasn't even really a part of the team at that snapshot.
Killer in that we would have been able to match up much better and increased our odds of winning by a good bit. We'll never know for sure- but when you have a future MLB pitcher throwing for you in college in general your odds of winning go up a good bit.
You're trying to take what I said and turn it into an absolute when that wasn't what I was saying at all.
Yep, and left our best short relief guy, Blake Smith, sitting in the bullpen until the game had already been tied. Humphreys hadn't pitched since May 20th and used up a lot of energy getting us out of the 8th. Humphreys fast ball in the 9th dropped about 5 mph on what he was throwing in the 8th. Even if Smith wasn't brought in when Humphreys was in the 8th he absolutely should have been the one pitching the 9th. And that's not really hindsight as I was saying it at the time of as well.