Feb. 19, 2007
Notre Dame Baseball 2007 Opening-Week Photo Gallery
The Notre Dame baseball team has returned from a challenging opening-week start to its 2007 season. A photo gallery with images from the first and third games in San Antonio is linked above. Look for similar photo galleries throughout the season.
The current season features possibly the most challenging start in the program’s 115-year history, due to a combination of the following factors:
• Notre Dame spent the fall and winter preseason adjusting to a brand new coaching staff and their playing system. The 2007 squad is the first Irish baseball team since 1995 – and just the fifth in the past 73 years – that has entered a season under the direction of a new coaching staff.
• The Irish had the rare task of replacing the entire 3-man weekend rotation from the 2006 season, with each of those pitchers being selected in the 2006 Major League draft. A sampling of the previous 17 seasons reveals that none of those ND teams had to replace all three of their top starting arms from the prior season. Only five times since 1989 – in 1993, ’99, 2001, ’03 and ’04 – has an Irish team even faced the task of replacing two top starting pitchers.
• Only three of the nine everyday starting position players from the 2006 team have returned to action this season, as five were lost to graduation and one (catcher Sean Gaston) to injury. The 2006 team’s top backup catcher (rightfielder Cody Rizzo) was among the 2006 seniors, as were two others with catching experience. The sampling of the 17 previous ND teams shows that none faced the challenge of replacing six position starters. The only thing comparable came in 2003, when five starters graduated from the 2002 College World Series (one of them the DH, with four starters in the field returning for ’05).
• The 2007 team essentially returned only two everyday starters in the field – current juniors Brett Lilley and Ross Brezovsky – as sophomore Jeremy Barnes was the primary DH in 2006. Current senior centerfielder Danny Dressman did log 51 starts in ’06, primarily in right field (often when Rizzo was shifted to catcher). The four players listed above include just one – second baseman Brezovsky – who has returned to his same primary position from 2006 (Barnes had moved to first base and Lilley from third to shortstop).
• When looking at the 12 overall “top starters” (9 position players, 3 pitchers), no ND team in the previous 17 seasons has had to replace more than five of those players – while the 2007 team is replacing 9-of-12 starters from 2006 … comparable to replacing 4-of-5 starters in basketball of 18-of-24 in football (including the kickers).
• The Irish are coming off the the challenge of a season-opening doubleheader – vs. two southern, D-I teams, no less – for the first time since 2001 and just the second time since 1992. The Irish originally were slated to open with a 3-game series vs. felow Midwest team Northwestern (in San Antonio), but the Wildcats pulled out of the commitment.
• Notre Dame opened with three road games vs. southern D-I teams for only the 15th time in the program’s history (ND now has gone just 17-28 in those tough 3-game starts).
• The challenge will continue, as the next four games also are vs. southern D-I squads (UNC-Wilmington, TCU, Coastal Carolina and Stetson). UNCW is 3-4 but returns 16 letterwinners from its 2006 NCAA Tournament team. TCU is 6-1 and ranked 12th in the nation while Coastal Carolina (7-0) just cracked the national top-30 and Stetson – pitcked to win its conference and advance to the NCAAs – is off to a 5-2 start that includes two big-margin wins (8-1, 14-1) over nationally-ranked LSU. Only two previous ND teams have opened their season with seven (or more) straight games vs. southern D-I teams: the 1973 squad (went 2-8 in Tulsa, vs. all southern D-I teams) and the 1994 team (started 4-3, after 3-game series at Tulane and Alabama and a game vs. Tennessee).