Ping.
The sound pitchers dreaded: the high-pitched sound of aluminum sending the ball far through the air, sometimes regardless of how well the hitter made contact.
It was the sound of ex-Bobcats such as Marc Krauss and Gauntlett Eldemire clobbering home runs so deep it made parking in the lot behind Bob Wren Stadium a hazard for windshields. It was the sound of a time when offensive numbers steadily rose in the NCAA, a time when, as coach Joe Carbone puts it, “the poor pitcher didn’t have a chance.”
Crack.
That is the sound pitchers welcome: the dull smack of ball-on-bat that often starts with the hitter catching the sweet spot but ends with the ball dying in shallow center field.
It is the sound of the Bobcats’ pitching leading them into conference play with their best record since 2007 despite losing sluggers Krauss, Eldemire and Robert Maddox. It is the sound of a time before aluminum bats supercharged the college game and a return to what Carbone calls “true baseball.”
The NCAA changed college baseball this season by instituting a new aluminum bat that replicates the pop and power of wooden ones. Gone are the Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) models responsible for near-record highs in home runs and batting average in recent years.
The new Ball-Bat Coefficient of Restitution bats (BBCOR) not only sound different — they have the ‘thud’ of wooden bats instead of the high-pitched ‘ding’ Little Leaguers are familiar with — but they’re heavier, too, and have a smaller sweet spot. Balls leave the bat at slower speeds than before.
Various Internet publications say that whereas the BESR measured the speed of the ball coming off the bat, BBCOR regulates the “bounciness” of the bat when hit by a ball. The new specifications make bats stiffer, so the ball has less energy coming off the bat.
For the Bobcats’ hitters, this season has been an ongoing adjustment.
“I feel like the ball dies a lot faster with these new bats,” senior Adam Gecewich said. “Where the metal bats, they normally might’ve carried over the fence, or gotten to the gap quicker for extra bases. For the outfielders, it’s easier to cut off the ball and hold (players) to singles.”
A combination of the new bats and the loss of four players to the MLB Draft during the last two years has caused Ohio’s power numbers to drop this season.
The Bobcats are on pace to hit 40 home runs, far short of the 72 they hit last year. The team batting average has dropped from .303 at the end of last year to .249 so far in 2011. Run production has dipped from 6.9 to 5.2 per game.
In 2009, the Bobcats hit 102 homers, and Krauss led the nation with 27 while playing in a home stadium with larger dimensions than most.
Across Division I, home runs per game rose from .68 to .94 from 2006 to 2010. Runs scored per game (6.15 to 6.98) and ERA (6.62 to 6.87) also increased.
But it’s not only the Bobcats who are having offensive problems. Offense has sunk throughout the nation. Last weekend, Mid-American Conference squads hit a total of 24 home runs across 18 games, an average of .66 per team per game.
“For about 10 years here, the poor pitcher didn’t have a chance,” Carbone said. “They’d jam a guy, it’d be enough to get over the infielder’s head. Guys would make good pitches and not get the results. If the wind was blowing out, you could fool a hitter, get him out in front and swing one-handed. And if he was decently strong, it’d go up in the air and blow out of the ballpark.
“So this is more back to true baseball. You have to earn what you get.”
The power of the BESR bats allowed hitters to get away with bad mechanics. Not so with the BBCOR.
That is the reason Carbone has players use wooden bats in the fall and winter. Without the extra pop in their bats, hitters’ flaws emerge soon.
“I had freshmen not get a hit all fall and just be ready to be in tears,” Carbone said. “And we’d say, ‘This is because your mechanics aren’t good.’”
If the past 10 years belonged to the hitter, then it seems as if 2011 signaled the return of power to the pitcher. And that’s fine with Carbone.
“It’s going back to giving the pitcher a chance,” he said. “You just have to develop a good swing and hit it on the sweet spot, just like it used to be.”
nm256306@ohiou.edu
@ThePostSports
