Waves' Season Ends With Big Series Vs. USF
6/11/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 27, 2010
Pepperdine Baseball Game Notes (May 27, 2010) 
FRIDAY'S GAME: Is game one of a three-game weekend series between Pepperdine and San Francisco ... Waves are 11-11 at home ... 19-19 during day games ... 9-9 vs. WCC opponents [Santa Clara (1-2), Gonzaga (2-1), Portland (0-3), Saint Mary's (3-0), LMU (2-1), San Diego (1-2)] ... 4-8 on Fridays and 15-18 during weekend contests.
WAVES VS. DONS: Pepperdine is 106-38 all-time vs. San Francisco ... 54-9 at Eddy D. Field Stadium ... 52-29 at Benedetti Diamond and neutral sites ... Lost two of three games at USF in 2009 [L, 1-15; W, 7-6; L, 2-4], which was their first series loss to the Dons since 2000 ... Swept San Francisco last time they faced the Dons at home in 2008, winning 11-2, 11-10 and 8-5 ... Are 32-13 vs. the Dons since 1999 and 17-7 against them with head coach Steve Rodriguez at the helm.
PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS: Friday vs. San Francisco : Matt Bywater, lhp (5-5, 2.29) vs. Doug Murray, rhp (8-5, 3.03) - 3 p.m./Wave Casts
Saturday vs. San Francisco: Cole Cook, rhp (4-6, 3.08) vs. Matt Lujan, lhp (6-4, 4.30) - 1 p.m./Wave Casts
Sunday vs. San Francisco: Robert Dickmann, lhp (7-4, 4.88) vs. Matt Hiserman, rhp (1-4, 6.62) - 1 p.m./Wave Casts
LITTLE LEAGUE SUNDAY: Little League players will receive free admission when they wear their uniform to Sunday's home baseball game vs. San Francisco (May 30) ... Additional promotions include a postgame running of the bases, in-game Bingo prize drawings, free Pepperdine baseball posters, Junior Waves announcers and an autograph session.
SOUND + VISION: Subscribers to "Wave Casts" can catch all Pepperdine baseball home games on the internet at www.pepperdinesports.com ... Go to the Pepperdine Athletics website and look for the Wave Casts link ... An annual pass costs $69.95 and monthly subscriptions are also available ... Live statistics will be available for all home matches free of charge, and links are provided to the home team's website when the Waves are on the road.
A REALLY BIG SERIES: Pepperdine needs to win this weekend's series vs. the Dons to avoid both its first losing season at home and in the West Coast Conference since 1973 ... The Waves finished 9-12 at home and were 7-11 vs. conference opponents in their first year on the Malibu campus, but have since rattled off 35 consecutive .500 or better seasons in each category ... Pepperdine enters the season's final weekend in fourth place at 9-9 ... A sweep of the Dons combined with a Gonzaga sweep of Portland would push the Waves into a second place ... Dropping the series to USF could place the Waves anywhere from fourth to seventh place in the conference ... The Waves haven't placed lower than third in the WCC since 1983, when they finished fifth.
GOLDEN GOOSE EGGS: Thanks to the team at BoydsWorld.com, we're able to tell you with complete certainty that junior Matt Bywater is the NCAA leader in solo shutouts with four entering this week and is one of four pitchers tied for first with five 9.0 inning complete game victories ... As a team, Pepperdine ranks third in the country with 13 complete games and is second only to Texas with seven shutouts ... Waves pitching also has given up the ninth fewest doubles (73) and fourth fewest home runs (24).
ONE HIT AWAY: If senior Ryan Heroy can collect one more hit over his last three games, he will become just the 11th Wave in program history to produce 20 career home runs and 200 career hits ... Heroy slammed home run No. 20 in the second inning of a 10-7 loss vs. Cal State Fullerton on May 12 ... His 199 career base hits currently rank him 30th on Pepperdine's all-time list and his 20 round-trippers tie him for 13th with former professionals David Matranga and Andy Stankiewicz ... Current Texas Ranger farmhand Chad Tracy in 2006 was the most recent Wave to reach 20 home runs and 200 hits ... Heroy enters the final week on a seven-game hitting streak and is batting .296.
STREAK TALK: With the respective 14 and 11-game hit streaks of Joe Sever and Brian Humphries extinguished last week Tuesday at Cal Poly, the new clubhouse leaders are Heroy, Colin Rooney and Zachary Vincej ... With a 2-for-5 game Tuesday at Long Beach, Rooney established a career best 10-game hitting streak, which began May 11 vs. UCSB ... Rooney has lifted his average 27 points to .297 over the last few weeks and has raised his team-leading multi-hit game total to 21 ... Vincej's career-best seven-game hit streak started in game two of last week's LMU series, but he's only been able to raise his batting average by one point to a team-best .317.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING: Pepperdine lifted its season doubles total to 102 Tuesday with three two-baggers against Long Beach ... The Waves have hit 39 doubles over their last 13 games, including six through all three games of the San Diego series, plus four in a 9-8 loss last Tuesday at Cal Poly ... Last year's club finished with 87 doubles ... The team season record of 150 was set in 1999.
WAVES IN THE STANDINGS (98): Have spent the following days alone or tied at each position in the West Coast Conference standings: FIRST - 0, SECOND - 8, THIRD - 13, FOURTH - 20, FIFTH - 14, SIXTH - 1, SEVENTH - 0, EIGHTH - 0 ... Have spent 2 days above, 4 days at and 92 days below .500 this season ... Began their year 1.5 games behind Portland and in a six-way tie for second place after the Pilots swept a three-game series at Santa Clara on the weekend of April 2 ... Finished tied for third last year with San Francisco at 12-9 ... Since placing fifth in 1983, the Waves have finished first 14 times, second place 10 times and third on two occasions.
THE HEAD COACH: Steve Rodriguez is in his seventh season as the head coach of Pepperdine Baseball and owns an all-time record of 238-171 (.582) ... Is three victories away from tying Andy Lopez for the fourth most wins in Pepperdine history with 241 and should pass Frank Sanchez (257) and John Scolinos (263) for third and second-place on the all-time list in 2011 ... Managed his 400th game as the Waves' head coach on May 11 vs. UCSB ... Only Dave Gorrie (611), Scolinos (482) and Sanchez (418) have managed more games than Rodriguez (409) while wearing the Pepperdine uniform ... Has guided his clubs to three West Coast Conference titles and five NCAA Regional appearances ... Served as an assistant coach under Sanchez from 2000 to 2003 ... Played second base for Lopez on Pepperdine's 1992 national championship team ... Named Top Chef at the second annual Southern California Baseball Coaches Cooking Challenge hosted by ESPN Zone in Anaheim in late January.
WAVES ON THE ROAD (10-19, .345): Lost their final two road games of the season by matching 9-8 scores against Big West opponents; games which, they both led ... The 19 road losses are their most since 2004, when they dropped 19 during head coach Steve Rodriguez' first season ... Won their second straight series at Loyola Marymount's Page Stadium to finish the road portion of their conference schedule at 8-4 (1-2 at Santa Clara, 2-1 at Gonzaga, 3-0 at Saint Mary's, 2-1 at Loyola Marymount) ... Pepperdine's eight road victories vs. WCC opponents were its most since 2006 when it won nine of 12 away from Eddy D. Field Stadium ... Their sweep at Saint Mary's marked the first time Pepperdine had won three-straight road games since Feb. 25-28, 2009 (at USC and UC Davis) ... Was also the Waves first sweep of a conference opponent on the road since taking all three from Portland in May of 2007 ... Guaranteed themselves a fourth-straight losing season on the road following a 12-5 loss at Fullerton on April 20 ... Have claimed just four winning seasons on the road over the past decade.
WAVES AT EDDY D. FIELD STADIUM (11-11, .500): Dropped two of three games to San Diego this past weekend and are in danger of experiencing their first losing season at home since 1973 unless they win this weekend's series vs. San Francisco ... With a 1-5 record vs. the conference at home this season are guaranteed their first losing conference home record in close to three decades ... Have not experienced a losing season at home since 1973, which was their inaugural year on the Malibu Campus and the last time they posted a losing record vs. WCC opponents ... Since then have posted 36 consecutive win-loss records of .500 or better ... This stretch includes 31 seasons of posting a winning percentage of .600 or better ... 12 years above .700 ... 7 seasons above .800, including the 1992 campaign in which the Waves finished 24-1-1 (.942) ... The Waves have completed 37 seasons at Eddy D. Field Stadium, where they own an all-time record of 806-315-12 (.717).
ABOUT PEPPERDINE: Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won a total of nine NCAA championships in five different men's sports - one of just 14 schools to have accomplished this feat. Of the 14, Pepperdine is the only non-BCS school and has by far the smallest enrollment. The majority of Pepperdine's teams are ranked nationally year after year and compete for conference and national titles.
