Batter Batter Swing

Previewing the openers for NC State's Baseball and Softball, with both the Puerto Rico Challenge and Clearwater Invitational coming soon.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Logan Brumley

What is In The Den?

"In The Den" with host Logan Brumley covers everything from the NC State Wolfpack's NCAA, intramural and club sports. "In The Den" is a podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

Logan Brumley: Hello and welcome to WKNC's official sports podcast in the Den Today we're going to be seeing the tip off of the softball and baseball seasons as NC State softball team will head to the Shriners, Clearwater Infantational and NC State will be heading to Puerto Rico for the Puerto Rico Challenge.
Logan Brumley: I'll be kind of going over the rivals and how both teams are looking so far, so get your headphones on.
Logan Brumley: Let's get straight to it.
Logan Brumley: Well, we'll start off with the softball since there is a little bit of momentum going on.
Logan Brumley: They are currently 2 and 3 after coming off the Baton Rouge invitational.
Logan Brumley: Two of the slots is coming to softball powerhouse LSU.
Logan Brumley: Hannah Church has been looking really strong lately.
Logan Brumley: She's hit.267 with two home runs and four RBIs and freshman star Carly Short is hitting.444 and has been bringing in three runs of her own.
Logan Brumley: Not the most efficient NC State offense, but the pitching has been able to keep take care of business against these soldier teams.
Logan Brumley: Let's see Morgan Talley for instance pitching 11 innings and a 1-0 record as well as and our ace Wynne Gore having herself a three ERA and nine innings of her own.
Logan Brumley: So overall I mean the pitching isn't amazing, but it's been doing enough against lower tier teams and the offense, even though it's not filled with the biggest stars in the world, has kind of been meeting the expectations that we have.
Logan Brumley: I think the biggest shocker is Teagan Thrunk only has two at bats.
Logan Brumley: She must have gotten injured.
Logan Brumley: I'm not, I'm not sure, but it's pretty interesting overall about how I expected it's going to be a tough Clearwater Invitational.
Logan Brumley: They are going to be playing against plenty of tough teams including Texas A&M and [Texas Tech] at the latter end.
Logan Brumley: So really focused on Georgia and Missouri and UCF just to see if they could maybe get their head above water and have a.500 record headed into some of their other pre conference schedule softies if that makes sense.
Logan Brumley: So you know, kind of briefly go over everyone who's coming up.
Logan Brumley: Georgia ranked 17th with a 4-1 record, their only loss coming to Belmont University.
Logan Brumley: Georgia made a super regional last year as well, being now Duke into Durham Regional.
Logan Brumley: Offensively they're led by Tyler Ellison and Coastal Carolina transfer Kiersten Roose.
Logan Brumley: Both of them are hitting above .400 and Ellison especially leads the team in home runs and RBIs.
Logan Brumley: But the team is pretty lackluster in producing hits overall but have been able to drive Teams home, especially in lower competition.
Logan Brumley: So you know they've been able to get on base, get players going, bring them home and they're pretty much going to be carried by their defense.
Logan Brumley: Fisher, Harrison and Rolling all have less than one era.
Logan Brumley: The combined 27 innings, which I know isn't great, but it's early in the season they might be able to slow down NC State enough to gather momentum and sneak out a win especially since they are a higher ranked team and LSU has not looked great against power whatchamacallit 3 no power 4 pitching.
Logan Brumley: In those 3 games they have given up about 4 runs.
Logan Brumley: No, they scored 4 runs game which isn't bad but it's just the other end that is kind of not being too nice if that makes sense.
Logan Brumley: So that could be a game that they win, that could be a game that they lose.
Logan Brumley: Up next is probably a team that they could beat Missouri.
Logan Brumley: They entered a Tournament Unranked with a 2-3 record losing against Penn State, Oregon and Liberty.
Logan Brumley: While freshman pitcher Abby Carr has been playing pretty well with a 1.35 ERA in 10 innings total.
Logan Brumley: The Rest of Crew has a 3.74 ERA average which is obviously you know, that's not terrible, but it's not great either.
Logan Brumley: It's not 1.35 that Abby Carr has been doing and I do expect that to kind of start to get back to normal eventually but for a freshman it's not bad at all.
Logan Brumley: Offensively they have one good hitter, Abby Hay .375, another two home runs and six RBIs.
Logan Brumley: This could be a pitchers duel as well where it's going to be just try to get as many runs, just fight for every run that you can get and the better team is going to squeak out the win.
Logan Brumley: The next two matchups is where it's going to be.
Logan Brumley: I mean come on now it's going to be two losses right here.
Logan Brumley: NC A&M coming off their 45 to nine season, even though they lost against Liberty, they're ranked 11th.
Logan Brumley: They have all SEC player Mya Perez with 0.538 batting average and Oklahoma State transfer Tallen Edwards with 0.636 and six RBIs of her own.
Logan Brumley: So those are just two studs right there who can give this pitching squad a true hard to compete against challenge.
Logan Brumley: I mean kind of looking at it's just it's not going to be good for NC State in this matchup and I'd even go into their pitch and now that I'm looking at it but the pitch in doesn't seem like it's too bad.
Logan Brumley: They they're 4 and 1 loss is against the national runner up Texas Tech is tied for first place six zero record and we'll have a softy against Florida State before heading into the invitational.
Logan Brumley: Najari Canaday is back.
Logan Brumley: Caitlin Terry has a sub 1 era as well and 2 games started in the offense.
Logan Brumley: They they have Maya Williams and Taylor Pannell.
Logan Brumley: Both of them transfers with who I mean Williams has a. 647 13 RBIs and nine RBIs .421 average for Pinnell.
Logan Brumley: Another notable offensive player Lagi Quiroga with a.500 bat average and six RBIs.
Logan Brumley: That's gonna be a tough one.
Logan Brumley: Texas Tech is on a rampage and I think NC State just cannot let themselves get embarrassed.
Logan Brumley: They did get blown out by LSU.
Logan Brumley: Maybe we should expect something similar to that in this game.
Logan Brumley: But just when this team loses it's because they don't score.
Logan Brumley: If they are able to just get like two or three runs on the board I'd say that is a win for them.
Logan Brumley: Oh no no.
Logan Brumley: I'm being mistaken.
Logan Brumley: They have produced some quality amount of runs.
Logan Brumley: They just have to I think that'll keep them from being embarrassed is if their pitching just plays solidly enough to stay on track.
Logan Brumley: That could be a 2-2 record.
Logan Brumley: That could be an 0-4 record.
Logan Brumley: Probably be like a 1 and 3.
Logan Brumley: Maybe a 2 and 2.
Logan Brumley: The last matchup Central Florida unranked NC State could need this game to escape the Invitational with a winning record.
Logan Brumley: I don't think they do like a tournament and a championship thing but that's neither here nor there.
Logan Brumley: Just try to win.
Logan Brumley: The team has hit well enough to keep a 51 record.
Logan Brumley: They have Kendall Yarnall with a.417 10 RBIs and Sierra Humphries hitting.600 with nine RBIs.
Logan Brumley: Both of them had two home runs.
Logan Brumley: Those are some great hitters.
Logan Brumley: NC State hasn't shown their potential against great hitters yet.
Logan Brumley: We'll see if you know this weekend kind of tears them down and they're just kind of scraping by or if they could eventually hit their way into another win.
Logan Brumley: Especially since Central Florida's pitching is not that great.
Logan Brumley: They're all Big 12.
Logan Brumley: Pitcher Isabella Vega has a seven ERA but a freshman Hildie Dempsey has 2.52 and eight innings.
Logan Brumley: So we just have to see.
Logan Brumley: I hope they can get a winning record but this season will kind of show us how much of a step up can they make from last year I think just having a 23 win showing gives a strong sign for the ACC schedule, especially since most of these are SEC teams.
Logan Brumley: But I mean if they go like 1 and 405 then they might be in trouble and we have to go from there and see what works and what doesn't.
Logan Brumley: All right with that the way Let me go over the Puerto Rico challenge.
Logan Brumley: All right.
Logan Brumley: We'll finish up with the baseball.
Logan Brumley: They're ranked 17th.
Logan Brumley: Check out some of my earlier episodes.
Logan Brumley: I do have a deeper dive into what the roster looks like, what I like and what I don't.
Logan Brumley: I think that this is a great hidden team but a questionable pitching team.
Logan Brumley: But they play three generally softies that I think will help them kind of work out the kinks of their pitching squad.
Logan Brumley: First and foremost Washington who is last in the where are they?
Logan Brumley: Big Ten with a 29-28 record.
Logan Brumley: One of their greatest hitters has just moved on to the I think the minor leagues but I mean this would be a great revenge game for them taking our way our national title in mens soccer.
Logan Brumley: But they do have some decent hitters.
Logan Brumley: They'll keep their offensive productive.
Logan Brumley: They have Caesen Taggart and Breeden Terry both coming back.
Logan Brumley: Both of them hit above.290.
Logan Brumley: Both of them had like combined 10 home runs and each of them have 32 RBIs.
Logan Brumley: So you know those are the productive cornerstones of this offense.
Logan Brumley: I think this is a team that might need to figure out that all time home run leader AJ Guerero gap but I think that they are going to give NC State a tough first game.
Logan Brumley: This could be an upset or work even for NC State.
Logan Brumley: I think that would just kind of depend on Washington's pitching as well last year I mean their current return in ace has a 4.27 ERA in Jackson Thomas and Thomas Brandenburg has 466 both of them around 70 endings so I think there's a good chance that NC State will be able to win this game.
Logan Brumley: I just think that NC State it has a better track record over the past few years.
Logan Brumley: I would be worried if Washington's able to start off hot with their hidden but I mean we'll we will see about that.
Logan Brumley: I think this will be one they can get away with.
Logan Brumley: I think the same can be said for the other two.
Logan Brumley: Washington that's probably the biggest game to watch out for.
Logan Brumley: But Indiana State they had a 24:30 record.
Logan Brumley: They do have a couple of all Missouri Valley players with Carter Beck hitting 56 RBIs with them as an outfielder.
Logan Brumley: Their catcher Jeremy Martinez as a freshman with a.255 average and three home runs, 21 RBIs.
Logan Brumley: Shradha Bhatia has a.335 baton average but did not seem like he transferred out.
Logan Brumley: You feel like a number like that Maybe not Power 4, but you'd expect someone like that to try to transfer somewhere.
Logan Brumley: Let's see, he is so if Carter Beck and Indiana State he can spend a third year with Indiana State and probably transfer there or maybe even get drafted.
Logan Brumley: Ty Brooks is their other right handed pitcher for 6.5 ERA and 11 starts.
Logan Brumley: We'll see how the pitcher can handle the dominance of NC State's offense but the questionable defensive core.
Logan Brumley: I do have the Wis as an upset or though but I just do not feel strongly about it.
Logan Brumley: The more that I look at it I think this is another one where it's like they have some good hitters for smaller level competition.
Logan Brumley: But let's be honest here.
Logan Brumley: I mean event see State's able to start off the gate real strongly then Indiana State just does not have a shot.
Logan Brumley: This isn't like a Washington where they're facing tougher competition or more battle tested and the same could go for Seton Hall which also had a loosen record.
Logan Brumley: They do have some decent pitchers but they don't have any notable hitters.
Logan Brumley: They have a lot of their bottom tier hitters still there.
Logan Brumley: A lot of the top ones either transferred, graduated or went to the MLB draft.
Logan Brumley: They do have Steve Stevenson who has a 4.41 ERA and 10 starts.
Logan Brumley: I do expect him to be at the forefront of this NC State.
Logan Brumley: This would be probably their toughest opponent and John Downing their relief had four saves on the season.
Logan Brumley: He's first team all Big East.
Logan Brumley: Stevenson is preseason pitcher of the year for the Big East Conference.
Logan Brumley: So they have competitive defense.
Logan Brumley: Their offense is a gigantic question mark.
Logan Brumley: I don't think that they'll be able to stifle NC State's offense and I don't really expect their offense to be able to handle our pitch.
Logan Brumley: I think by this point they might have been able to kind of fine tune what the pigeon identity is going to look like and this would just kind of be like all right, let's just kind of test it out, see what we can do and it's going to look great.
Logan Brumley: I think they can go three now.
Logan Brumley: All right, well that's kind of all I had for you guys today.
Logan Brumley: Hope you have a good one and go pack.