Baseball Notebook
A National League Scout noted, “[Rob] Nickle, a big strong guy, he has some tools but you’ve got to put up numbers to match the tools…If you’ve got aluminum in your hands, in this ballpark, you’ve got to put up big numbers. It’s hard to draft a guy hitting .260 who doesn’t have any homeruns here.” Nickle is hitting .313, eighteen points below last season’s average, and has three home runs …
The College of William and Mary has led the CAA in fielding percentage the last two seasons with a .971 percentage in 2008 and .969 in 2007. The Tribe’s .958 percentage as of March 26 is the team’s lowest percentage since its .961 mark in 2006, Head Coach Frank Leoni’s first at the College, and currently ranks second-to-last in the CAA…
Jeff Jones consistently played only a couple of steps in front of the warning track in left-field Sunday. “He gets beat more deep and he’s really good lateral[ly]” Leoni said. “Sometimes he gets bad reads on balls in front of him but he’s better at balls coming up than on balls over his head.”…
James Williamson has 13 hits on the season, with over half of those going for extra bases. Williamson has 3 doubles, 3 triples and one home run …
Williamson’s three errors in the tail of Saturday’s double header were one less than the total number of errors the senior second baseman had last season…
Freshman Stephen Arcure may see some time on the mound before the season is over. Arcure, who is hitting .268 in 71 at bats this season, has played only in leftfield and centerfield so far this season, but Leoni said, “We only have two lefties,” Leoni said. “Stephen’s got a good little arm; he pitched in high school. We actually recruited him a little bit to pitch here, we haven’t used him at all in that capacity, but we’re kind of doing open auditions right now to get this thing under control.”…
After the doubleheader Saturday, Leoni remarked Tyler Truxell has “picked up his play a little bit.” Over the past four games, Truxell has hit .500, going 9-18 with 3 doubles and a walk. Five of the twelve hits by the junior centerfielder this season have gone for doubles…
An Opposing CAA Pitcher on:
The Tribe lineup: “They hit the inside pitch very well. They get their hands extended out there pretty good and they battle more than anybody…Outside I felt like I handled them pretty well, it’s when I left them in when I made a mistake that they made me pay for it, regardless of who it was…I felt like I could have lived outside a little more, hit my spots, got not so deep into counts, it would have been a little bit better. But they put swings on it man, they make you work for every out. They’re a group of guys who really won’t punch a whole lot. They’re a good enough CAA team to get into the [Conference] tournament. .”
Rob Nickle: “We went back to the cutter on him after we threw him a couple. He really wasn’t seeing my changeup too well. But he fouled a good one off so we tried to go back to that cutter and I ran one in on him. He got his hands extended and kind of ran into one.”
Tyler Stampone: “I tried to pitch him backwards. I had a tough time with him last year; I don’ know exactly what he was last year, but he barreled some balls up so I tried to pitch him backwards a little bit. I got one great call on an outside fastball—everybody in the nation knew it was a ball, except the umpire, but I’ll take it. He’s not a guy who’s going to punch a whole lot.”
Jeff Jones: “Jeff, last year he barreled it up on me too. If I make good pitches on him, he’ll battle. First inning, I think he had like an eight pitch at-bat or something like that against me…He’s one of those guys who I may get him out every now and then, but I’ll get him out and he’ll barrel one up still.”
