Shark Bites: Notes from Tuesday's intrasquad baseball game

The best thing about playing intrasquad games, USC Beaufort baseball coach Rick Sofield often says, is no matter what happens, the Sand Sharks win.

Unless, of course, it ends in a tie.

And that was the case Tuesday night at Hilton Head Island High School, where the Sand Sharks took their fall practice schedule on the road and played a seven-inning scrimmage. The gray team rallied for four runs in the bottom of the seventh to force a 5-5 tie, and the Sand Sharks called it a night, because these things aren't really about who wins, anyway.

This was more about allowing the community to get a glimpse of the Sand Sharks before they wind down their fall practice schedule at the end of next week and move into their winter strength and conditioning program. And what the modest crowd saw, by and large, was a better baseball team than the one that went 33-21 last season.

That's because almost every key player from last year is back -- and a few of them provided highlights Tuesday, as Jeremy Webb hit a three-run home run, Spencer Jackson launched a two-run shot and Kyle McCullough and Jared Campbell threw two scoreless innings apiece -- and they're joined by a recruiting class loaded with transfers who immediately began competing for playing time.

"We do have some depth, which is what we wanted," Sofield said. "Now the trick is to try to keep the depth happy and figure out a rotation of guys playing and not getting stale and all that, which is what you get paid to be the head coach for. ... There's a lot of competition on a daily basis out in Hardeeville, and nobody's standing around, which makes everybody better."

More on the depth chart later, but for now, let's dispense with a few notes:

PITCH PERFECT

For the most part, the pitching was at least a half-step ahead of the hitting Tuesday, and Sofield said that can be partly attributed to not getting the hitters as many reps as he would like during fall practice. But there's also a simpler explanation.

"Our pitching is better," Sofield said. "We're a little bit smarter, we made some adjustments. We're better pitching-wise. Hopefully a lot better. And if we are a lot better, it will be a different team, for sure."

McCullough and Campbell each pitched two scoreless innings, Andres Castro and Coleman Farrell threw one scoreless frame, Spencer Cromer allowed one run in two innings, and Adam Miller, Ryan Philpott and Ryan Kroko each pitched one scoreless inning before getting roughed up a bit in their second inning of work.

With the addition of a couple of potential front end of the rotation starters in Cromer and Miller, the return of last year's ace Campbell and hard-throwing righties Cory Burgess and Castro joining established relievers such as McCullough and Kroko in the bullpen, the pitching staff should be much improved. And it wasn't bad last year.

THAT WON'T SHOW UP IN THE BOX SCORE

OK, so it was an intrasquad scrimmage, and there technically wasn't a box score, but whatever.

Right-handed pitcher Stephen Richards made a sacrifice that helped the team, but won't show up on the stat sheet: He loaned his gray pants to second baseman Larry Perry, who brought the wrong color of bottoms to go with his gray top.

Perry legged out two infield singles, stole a base, drove in a run and scored the tying run in the bottom of the seventh -- just what the Sand Sharks are looking for from their new leadoff man.

SLIMMED DOWN

After starting fall practice with 56 players on the roster, the Sand Sharks have trimmed the roster to 48 -- 25 position players and 23 pitchers -- and that's where they'll stay for now.

"I think we're at 48, and we're going to stay there for a while," Sofield said. "We had enough sweatshirts for 48 guys, so we're good."

All eight cuts were position players, because you can never have too much pitching. Some players could end up redshirting this season, but other than that, Sofield expects to stick with what he has.

The team will continue to dress everyone for home games and take 27 players on the road. But because only 24 players can be active for the Sun Conference tournament, Sofield plans to start cultivating a 24-man base right before the playoffs to get players more accustomed to their roles in that situation. He also figures on taking more pitchers to the conference tournament than last year.

I promised you a depth chart, and I'm going to give you one, but with this caveat -- I've only seen these guys a couple of times this fall, so take this with a grain of salt. Based on what I've seen and what Sofield and pitching coach Mike Wallace have told me, this is a rough sketch of how I see the depth chart at the moment. But Sofield loves to play a lot of different players, and he especially likes to go with the hot hand, so the vast majority of these guys will get a good bit of playing time.

C: Joe Waropay, Clay Bonds
1B: T.J. Kemp, Jon Schmidt
2B: Larry Perry, David O'Neil
3B: Zach Rossetti, Weldon Smith
SS: Blake Sanders, Gabe Torres
LF: Paul Cheeks, Spencer Jackson, Denzel Campbell
CF: R.J. Neal, Brandon Cooksey
RF: DeShontay Berry, Kiefer Youmans
DH: Jeremy Webb, Brandon Collins

As far as I can tell, third base and center field are the only jobs with clear-cut starters. Rossetti and Neal carried this team at times last year, and you can count on them being in the lineup just about every day. Every other position is anyone's guess. I expect to see a lot of different combinations at the corner outfield positions, plenty of right/left platooning and more liberal use of the flexible NAIA substitution rules to make offense-for-defense switches and vice versa.

I'm not even going to attempt a pitching depth chart, because I think those roles are even farther from being settled. I will say I see Cromer, Miller and Campbell as the front-runners to be the weekend starters, but I think McCullough, Philpott and Jorge Olmo have a shot at cracking that rotation, too, as well as Kenny Anderson when he returns from Tommy John surgery. It looks like Burgess is in line to take over the closer role, and working backwards from there, I see Castro, Kroko and Farrell as set-up men. There's a ton of depth on this staff, which was one of the team's biggest weaknesses last year.

I know Feb. 6 can't get here soon enough for Sofield, and I have to admit I kind of share that sentiment. I think this team is going to be a lot of fun to cover, because I think it will contend for the Sun Conference title and a trip to the NAIA World Series.

See you at the Shark Park.

JJ

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