Major League Baseball's opening day is still 40 days away, but it's already that time of year again for the Eagles' team.
The 2007 season kicks off this Friday against the Belmont Bruins in Nashville, Tenn., and from there it will be nonstop excitement.
The ACC features six teams in the Baseball America Top 25, including North Carolina and Clemson at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively; this season should be a challenging one for the Eagles, but thrilling nonetheless.
The Eagles will go into the season with a new rotation, as senior Kevin Boggan moves from the bullpen to the rotation, joining the finally healthy Adam Crabtree and Nick Asselin as the third starter.
The rotation will be bolstered when Terry Doyle, who as Boggan commented, "should be an impact arm for us," returns from injury within the first month of the season.
Coach Mikio Aoki discussed Doyle's situation, "Terry's on the shelf for us this weekend. He has a bright future professionally and he's going to be a big part of whatever success we have this year, so you don't want to rush him back."
The bullpen will feature fifth year senior Nate Jeanes, senior Ted Ratliff, and closer Dan Houston.
Boggan, who spent last summer plying his trade for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, will get the nod in BC's opening tilt with Belmont.
The 6-2 right-hander talked about that start, "I'm excited, I'm a senior, but surprisingly it's my first college start, so I'm really looking forward to it. I've been geared up for it for about four months now."
Boggan's battery mate is yet to be determined for that night, although it will most likely be junior Jett Ruiz.
Ruiz, from Lakeside, Calif., will split time with freshman Tony Sanchez, who comes to the Heights from Miami, Fla.
Both will also see time serving as designated hitter as well.
The outfield will be comprised of junior Johnny Ayers, senior Jared McGuire, senior co-captain Peter Frates, and junior Brandon Ziemann.
McGuire has been named to the pre-season Wallace award watch list, an award that is given annually to the best player in college baseball.
The senior from Harwich, Mass. won Big East player of the year in 2005, but struggled a bit last year in the ACC, batting .264 with three home runs and 37 RBIs.
Ayers, the punter on BC's football team, will again be looked to as the catalyst for the Eagles' offense.
The junior right fielder led the team last season with a .340 batting average and stole 17 bases in 24 attempts last year.
Middle-infielder Ryan Hutchinson, who will hit behind Ayers, hit .308 in 2006 and swiped 18 bases on 25 attempts. Senior co-captain Pete Frates, who will start in center field collected 19 steals last season, and said that BC will continue to play scrappy baseball, "We're still going to play our birdball approach, where we bunt, steal, do all that stuff, but I think we are going to knock some runs around and when we need to go run-for-run with some of these bigger teams that like to hit homeruns, I think we'll be able to stay with them."
The Eagles offense will face a major test when it embarks on its annual spring break trip to Florida to face the Boston Red Sox and newly signed pitcher Daisuke Matuszaka.
The Japanese rookie will be making his long -awaited debut for the Sox, and the BC hitters will face one of the most talented pitchers in the world.
Frates, a Beverly, Mass., native, talked about the excitement of facing Daisuke: "We get The Herald at school, and every day it's Daisuke on the cover. Every day. It's going to be wild, playing the Red Sox every year is one of our most exciting games and everybody wants to know about that so we look forward to that, but this year, there's almost a mystery around it, because no one has seen him pitch here in the states and it's going to be his first outing and the Japanese media is going to be there, so it's going to be wild."
McGuire talked about the approach he will take against the Sox import, "It's going to be awesome. He's proven himself in Japan, and the MVP of the World Baseball Classic, we're just going to try to have fun with it. I don't really know how to approach Daisuke, he's got seven pitches, but hopefully I'll get a fastball during my at-bat."
Mikio Aoki takes over at the helm for the Eagles this season, after former coach Pete Hughes left to take the head coaching position at Virginia Tech.
Aoki, the former pitching coach, talked about the senior leadership on this year's squad, "These kids have been in situations, as freshmen being down at Auburn, being in that type of atmosphere, having gone through the ACC, having been to a few Big East championship tournaments, they know what it takes to win and you can sift through a lot of things, but it really comes down to how you execute and playing baseball, regardless of what the stage is."
The Eagles hope that their second go-round in the ACC will yield more success than last year did, when they compiled a 28-25 mark. Last year's team lost eight games by two runs or fewer and as Frates said, "I think last year, the one main thing was that it took us a while to figure out how to win in this league. We played a lot of tight games in the ACC, but you look at the scores of some of the games and a hit here or there, or an error here or there, we come out on top. We learned that late in the year that we can win in this league."
If you have some free time some spring afternoon, make a stop over at Shea Field - yes, the same Shea Field where people tailgate for football - and support the Eagle's baseball squad.
Aoki's team should be much improved from last season and their style of ball is fun and exciting to watch. n
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