BC Interruption - Boston College Baseball Vs. Maine: Full CoverageA Boston College Eagles Community.https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/47285/bci-fave.png2016-05-17T13:25:22-04:00http://www.bcinterruption.com/rss/stream/114532652016-05-17T13:25:22-04:002016-05-17T13:25:22-04:00Today's BC Baseball Game Against Maine Cancelled<h3 class="link-title"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://twitter.com/BCBirdBall/status/732619974854873088">Today's BC Baseball Game Against Maine&nbsp;Cancelled</a></h3>
<div class="description"><p><p>Due to "complications with Maine's travel," the Eagles' non-conference finale has been cancelled. Boston College heads to Georgia Tech this weekend to wrap up ACC play.</p></p></div>
https://www.bcinterruption.com/2016/5/17/11692238/todays-bc-baseball-game-against-maine-cancelledElectric Boogaloo2016-05-17T12:00:02-04:002016-05-17T12:00:02-04:00Boston College Vs. Maine: First Pitch
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<figcaption>Courtesy BC Athletics | John Quackenbos</figcaption>
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<p>One last time, we dial it up at Shea Field before the stadium returns to its hibernation as a football tailgate parking lot.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><b>Maine Black Bears vs. Boston College Eagles<br>First Pitch: 4 PM</b></p>
<h3>On Paper</h3>
<p><b>Record: </b>18-31 (7-13 America East)<br><b>Last Time Out: </b>The Black Bears played their home finale this weekend, losing two out of three to Stony Brook. They'll end the season with four games on the road, with this as their final non-conference game. Following this game, they'll head to Binghamton to finish out 2016. They've been eliminated from contention for the AEC Baseball Tournament.</p>
<h3>Around The Horn</h3>
<p>Three freshmen form the core of Maine's next rebuilding step at the plate, a team that hits just .249 but averaged just under four runs per game. Behind them, there's a group of three or four hitters who will graduate, meaning they'll need to find bats to replace the middle chunk behind their core moving forward.</p>
<p>Danny Casals is the team's lone .300 hitter, entering this game with a .305 average and an OPS of .829. He's the team's catalyst with 12 stolen bases, 54 hits, and 25 walks drawn. A freshman, he only has 15 runs batted in and a limited amount of extra base hits, but he's shown a knack for scoring runs, with 28 runs scored placing second best on the team.</p>
<p>Colin Ridley is the team's second best hitter for average at .299, and despite having a lower OBP than Casals, his OPS is higher at .852. That's because of a .513 slugging percentage and an ability to hit for extra bases. The team leader with 36 RBI, Ridley's 19 extra base hits account for nearly half of his base knocks.</p>
<p>Jeremy Pena is the third hitter, and while he's the worst of the trio in average, his average still hovers around .275-.280. He works a little bit of a Swiss Army knife-type hitter. He doesn't lead the way in many offensive categories, but he's near the top in hits, one of only two players (along with Casals) with 50 on the year.</p>
<p>Behind the three, Tyler Schwanz, a junior, has 17 doubles and 48 hits. He's the team's fourth best hitter. But unfortunately, that's where it ends. The next three hitters who have seen regular action this year are all seniors, and as the batting averages dip low, Maine runs into a problem of finding depth players to build out and around in their lineup. While they have an opportunity to do that in recruiting, that's not really something we ought to care about from a Boston College perspective late in the year of a non-conference game.</p>
<p>What does all of this mean? To be honest, it means BC can't overlook a team on a single game, which is the case any day of the week. But it also means that Maine is legging out the end of its year, with a number of players who are getting their final cuts as college athletes. That's an underlying story to keep an eye on, to see if they get ultra aggressive and take chances because it's the end of the road.</p>
<h3>On The Bump</h3>
<p>The Black Bears enter the season with a 4.86 team ERA, including three shutouts on the year. But opponents are hitting .262 against them, and BC has been on an absolute tear in this regard over the last month or so.</p>
<p>It's incredibly hard to predict midweek games because teams never use their weekend starters in this slot. Even when they only have two games, teams have midweek pitchers that they rely on for limited innings. With the big series against Georgia Tech on the horizon, this is actually something that may work in Maine's favor.</p>
<p>The Black Bears are eliminated from AEC Tournament contention, meaning they just have to toss arms out there and use the final innings of the season. BC will need to be much more judicious in their approach. Expect a diet of the midweek staff, including pitchers like Thomas Lane, who has been the bread and butter all year in midweek games, with relievers like John Witkowski, who pitched on Sunday, and Dan Metzdorf. We're likely to see Bobby Skogsbergh throw if the game is tight, but I wouldn't be surprised to see if a couple of arms are totally off limits - guys like Jesse Adams may be used for only one inning or less down the end of the game if he's needed at all since he just pitched on Saturday.</p>
<h3>Meteorology 101</h3>
<p>Weather on Tuesday in Boston is going to be absolutely gorgeous, similar to the conditions seen on Saturday in the sunshine. It's going to be on the dry side with temperatures skyrocketing as the day goes on. While it'll be in the low 50s when the sun comes up, it'll be near 70 when the game begins, with overcast skies giving way to patches of sunshine. There's a slim chance for some sprinkles in the mid-afternoon, but any gusting winds will mellow down to breezes as the day moves on.</p>
<h3>Where in the World is Boston College Baseball?</h3>
<p>For the final time this year, Boston College plays at Shea Field.</p>
<p>I've really hammered home the stadium situation this year simply because it's a necessary point. When Boston College announced there would be a baseball stadium, I had a palpable excitement for roughly 15 minutes. Then that excitement turned to fear. When you're hoping and wishing for something for so long, finally getting it makes you feel afraid and have a little bit of panic.</p>
<p>The question I've always had is - what if they mess this up? What if they build Shea Field with turf? My fear drips on that simply because it would set the program back years if it's not built with an indoor batting cage, lights, or anything that can help this team and program push forward. If it's done on the cheap just to placate the calls for a new stadium, you're almost asking for trouble.</p>
<p>This team during this season has been an odyssey. We've seen that they can be a national tournament contender with subpar facilities and next to nothing in comparison to the rest of the ACC. They've done it by team building and becoming a gritty program the likes of which the rest of the conference doesn't have.</p>
<p>But you don't want to be that forever. You don't want to be the gritty team with a not-really-good-enough field and subpar facilities. You don't want to be punching above a weight class every year. You want to move up and be a contender.</p>
<p>As this season's gone on, I hope that's been the realization in all of these comments and posts. As someone who's followed the growth of this program, building the right stadium is so important and so vital to the next step. Don't make BC have to punch above a weight class year in and year.</p>
<h3>Music to close out your home schedule</h3>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xGytDsqkQY8" height="315" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Semisonic - Closing Time.</b></p>
<p>An annual rite of passage at most sporting events I've been to for the past 15 years or so is to hear this at the end. So since this is the last home game, just remember that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. This is the end for the 2016 regular season in Boston. What happens next comes from this beginning's end - whether it's a trip to Durham, a trip to the NCAA Tournament, or a trip home.</p>
<h3>Random Fact(s) of the Day</h3>
<p>Of the seven teams in the America East Conference, only six are eligible for the postseason because UMass-Lowell is still technically transitioning from Division II to Division I. Last year, this played a role in the postseason seeding because the River Hawks finished fourth.</p>
<p>In last year's standings, Maine finished tied with UML for third place with 10-10 conference records, while Hartford finished fifth with a 10-12 record. Had UML been eligible for the postseason, they would've finished third because they defeated Maine, two games to one, in their weekend series. That meant Maine would've played Stony Brook in the first round, and UMBC would've played UMass-Lowell. Instead, Maine wound up as the #3 seed and Hartford wound up as the #4 seed.</p>
<p>Maine went out of the AEC Tournament in two straight games, losing to UMBC in the first round before losing to Hartford in an elimination game.</p>
<p>The AEC Tournament, by virtue of having UMass-Lowell among its ranks, now plays its conference tournament at LeLacheur Park, the home of the River Hawks and the Lowell Spinners. It will stay there through 2017.</p>
<p>Maine has had success in the conference tournament, winning it in 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2011 since the turn of the century.</p>
<p>A number of notable Mainiacs have gone onto success in Major League Baseball. Mike Bordick is probably the best known, having played for four organizations, most notably Baltimore, between 1990 and 2003. He was an All Star for the Orioles in 2000.</p>
<p>Jack Leggett, the former coach of the Clemson Tigers who was fired after last season, is a Maine grad, as is Boston Red Sox third base coach Brian Butterfield and Bill Swift, who led the National League in ERA in 1992 while also winning a silver medal at the 1984 Olympics when baseball was a demonstrationsport. He played for Seattle, San Francisco, and Colorado throughout his career.</p>
<h3>Prediction Time</h3>
<p>It's actually going to be a little sad to see Shea Field closed down after the game. This has been a memorable season for all parties involved in following this ballclub. But the end of the road means the looming shadow of that Georgia Tech series. It's best for the Eagles right now to focus on the game at hand, take care of business, then look forward to those games with the Yellow Jackets that amounts to playoff games for their postseason lives.</p>
https://www.bcinterruption.com/boston-college-baseball/2016/5/17/11684324/boston-college-baseball-vs-maine-first-pitchElectric Boogaloo2016-05-17T09:00:04-04:002016-05-17T09:00:04-04:00The Road To Durham, Update #8
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<figcaption>Sara D. Davis/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The last weekend is here, and virtually nothing is a sure thing.</p> <p>If the ACC were an artist's canvas, the season would've started easy enough. It would've been an Bob Ross work, with some happy little trees. Slip ups and losses wouldn't have been mistakes, just happy accidents on the road to the ACC Tournament in Durham, North Carolina. Everything, at least in the eyes of the beginning of the season, have a way of evening out, especially in a sport notorious for its numbers like baseball.</p>
<p>Well the last weekend of the regular season is here, and the canvas didn't turn into a great mountain view or beach scene. It ended with the paint cans getting thrown around in a fit of rage and anger, as if poor Bob just flat out snapped and went ham. In the place of a soft soundtrack is a thrash metal band, and there's flat out carnage left in its wake.</p>
<p>In a season where nothing is as it seems, the teams once again shifted. As expected for Boston College, not playing games during their exam break cost them, especially when Duke decided to throw some blue paint into the mix by taking two out of three against Florida State.</p>
<p>The trickle-down effect was huge. The Atlantic Division is going to finish this year as the stronger of the two divisions in conference play, meaning the tiebreaker <a href="http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston-college-baseball/2016/5/11/11653426/boston-college-baseball-explaining-the-acc-tiebreaker-procedures" target="_blank">scenarios requiring</a> divisional breakdowns will trend to those seven teams first. When FSU lost two out of three to Duke, Louisville snuck into the driver's seat in the Atlantic. That means potential three-team tiebreakers would trend to the Cardinals before the Seminoles or even Miami.</p>
<p>Pretty much every seed is wide open still, save for last place (clinched by Virginia Tech), and the bubble is still pretty huge. Georgia Tech, a team that started Monday in eighth place, could easily finish outside of the running, while North Carolina, a team that was considered a lock to make the tournament because of their non-conference resume, could finish <i>13th</i>.</p>
<p>Here's how things are shaping up. Clemson holds a head-to-head tiebreaker over Wake Forest, so they take the sixth slot over the Deacs. UNC also holds the head-to-head over Duke, so they went essentially from 12th to ninth with their win on Monday over Notre Dame.</p>
<p>As for the Fighting Irish, a loss to the Tar Heels meant they fell outside of the race. Tied with Boston College, the Irish have the head-to-head tiebreaker over BC, meaning the Eagles fall back to 12th spot.</p>
<p>Then there's Pittsburgh. The Panthers have head-to-head tiebreakers over BC and Notre Dame while playing Duke this weekend. Despite being in 13th place, they have an open door with a good weekend to one of the final two slots in the tournament.</p>
<p>As for Georgia Tech, they can't be too careful either. The Ramblin' Wreck split with Pittsburgh and lost to Duke, so while they have a head-to-head over Notre Dame, this weekend will go a long way to ensuring their safety as well.</p>
<p>Depending on how the weekends shake down, Pittsburgh could still finish ahead of Clemson, although not in their current positions. That shows just how volatile this weekend is going to be and how three nights are going to go a tremendously long way to determining who is in, who is out, and what happens in between. It also shows just how razor thin the margin for error is going to become.</p>
<p>As the teams depart for their destinations for series going from Thursday through to Saturday, here's what the ACC standings look like. This is just a sampler as to where we'll begin the week, since we'll bring it back together later in the week to show you what each team's scenario looks like by winning percentage so fans can see where their team might actually finish. We'll also list out opponents:</p>
<table align="center" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Place</b></td>
<td><b>Team</b></td>
<td><b>Record</b></td>
<td><b>Winning Percentage</b></td>
<td><b>Overall Record</b></td>
<td><b>Opponent</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>C1)</td>
<td>Miami</td>
<td>19-6</td>
<td>.760</td>
<td>40-9</td>
<td>@ FSU</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>A1)</td>
<td>Louisville</td>
<td>19-8</td>
<td>.704</td>
<td>42-10</td>
<td>@ Wake</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3)</td>
<td>Florida State</td>
<td>15-8</td>
<td>.652</td>
<td>33-17</td>
<td>vs. Miami</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4)</td>
<td>Virginia</td>
<td>16-11</td>
<td>.593</td>
<td>33-18</td>
<td>vs. Virginia Tech</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5)</td>
<td>NC State</td>
<td>13-12</td>
<td>.520</td>
<td>32-17</td>
<td>vs. UNC</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6)</td>
<td>Clemson</td>
<td>13-14</td>
<td>.481</td>
<td>34-18</td>
<td>@ Notre Dame</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7)</td>
<td>Wake Forest</td>
<td>13-14</td>
<td>.481</td>
<td>31-20</td>
<td>vs. L'ville</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8)</td>
<td>Georgia Tech</td>
<td>12-14</td>
<td>.462</td>
<td>33-18</td>
<td>vs. BC</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9)</td>
<td>North Carolina</td>
<td>12-15</td>
<td>.444</td>
<td>32-19</td>
<td>@ NC State</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10)</td>
<td>Duke</td>
<td>12-15</td>
<td>.444</td>
<td>31-21</td>
<td>@ Pitt</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i>11)</i></td>
<td><i>Notre Dame</i></td>
<td><i>11-14</i></td>
<td><i>.440</i></td>
<td><i>27-24</i></td>
<td><i>vs. Clemson</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b><i>12)</i></b></td>
<td><b><i>Boston College</i></b></td>
<td><b><i>11-14</i></b></td>
<td><b><i>.440</i></b></td>
<td><b><i>29-18</i></b></td>
<td><b><i>@ Ga. Tech</i></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i>13)</i></td>
<td><i>Pittsburgh</i></td>
<td><i>10-16</i></td>
<td><i>.382</i></td>
<td><i>25-23</i></td>
<td><i>vs. Duke</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i><strike>14)</strike></i></td>
<td><i><strike>Virginia Tech</strike></i></td>
<td><i><strike>6-21</strike></i></td>
<td><i><strike>.222</strike></i></td>
<td><i><strike>19-33</strike></i></td>
<td><i><strike>@ UVa.</strike></i></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
https://www.bcinterruption.com/boston-college-baseball/2016/5/17/11686904/boston-college-baseball-acc-playoff-update-version-8Electric Boogaloo2016-05-17T06:00:02-04:002016-05-17T06:00:02-04:00BC-Maine: How To Follow, Game Info, & More!
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eNcT9-0ksLnNC80g6MXGqr_YcyM=/0x26:684x482/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49602107/Cronin_and_Dunn.0.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Courtesy BC Athletics | John Quackenbos</figcaption>
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<p>For the final time this season, the Eagles play at Shea Field. Here's how you can tune in to catch the action.</p> <h3>Game Info</h3>
<p><b>First Pitch: </b>4 PM<br><b>Venue: </b>Eddie Pellagrini Diamond at Commander John Shea Field, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (Capacity: 1,000)</p>
<p>For the final time this season, the Boston College Eagles will play a game at Shea Field. Although it's a midweek game and will feature midweek staff, this has been a special season highlighted by home field dominance. BC enters today at 11-7 overall at home, substantially better than their 7-9 true road record.</p>
<p>Shea Field, warts and all, still stands as something of a competitive advantage to the Eagles. It's cramped, and it lacks any and all comfort. It long outlived its usefulness, but it has character. That's given BC a distinct advantage. So even though it's the last game, it's maybe worth checking it out for the first time if you haven't already.</p>
<h3>How To Watch/Listen To The Game</h3>
<p><b>TV: </b>N/A<br><b>Internet Streaming: </b>N/A<br><b>Audio: </b>WZBC broadcast available by clicking <a href="http://www.wzbcsports.com/" target="_blank">here</a><br><b>Live Stats: </b>Available through Boston College by clicking <a href="http://sidearmstats.com/bc/baseball/" target="_blank">here</a></p>
<p>For the final time this season, you'll be able to catch the games on WZBC. A tip of the hat to them for their work this year, making sure each game was covered. While the games aren't on ESPN3 or on any Internet streaming outlet because of Shea Field's limited capability, they've been there at each home game with a number of different young men handling the call.</p>
<p>Give them a listen on Tuesday. You can also tweet at them at @WZBCSports.</p>
<h3>Get Social</h3>
<p>I'll be there for this one since it's likely the last baseball game I'll be able to watch live and in person in a press box setting until next year. So be sure to give a follow to @<a href="https://twitter.com/bcinterruption" target="_blank">BCInterruption </a>and to me at @<a href="https://twitter.com/danrubin12" target="_blank">DanRubin12 </a>throughout the game.</p>
<p>You can also follow along by going to @<a href="https://twitter.com/bcbirdball" target="_blank">BCBirdball</a> for the BC main account or by following the Black Bears at @<a href="https://twitter.com/mainebaseball" target="_blank">MaineBaseball.</a></p>
https://www.bcinterruption.com/boston-college-baseball/2016/5/17/11683288/boston-college-baseball-vs-maine-how-to-listen-game-info-moreElectric Boogaloo