After winning NCAA title, OSU’s baseball team never stopped; now fall drills begin on Monday

By Brooks Hatch
Corvallis Gazette-Times

The shortest offseason in Oregon State baseball history ends Friday when the reigning national champions reconvene for the organizational meetings and physicals preceding Monday’s opening of fall practice.

The Beavers, who defeated North Carolina on June 26 to win the 2006 NCAA championship, will hold four or five weeks of workouts at Goss Stadium or the Truax Indoor Center. The 2007 schedule hasn’t been completely resolved, but OSU will open the year in late January with an exempt series at Hawaii-Hilo.

“The day after we got back from the World Series, (head coach) Pat Casey and I were scouting in Portland” assistant Dan Spencer said. “Then I flew to Reno (to recruit) and Pat went to raise money.

“(Assistant) Marty Lees worked on our camp. There was no real rest for the weary until about two weeks ago. But that’s a real good thing. You wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”

There’s unprecedented interest in the program. More than 1,000 season tickets will be sold, there’s a new scoreboard in right-center field; fall practice may be curtailed after four weeks to hasten the installation of the new synthetic infield, and Casey is spearheading a fund-raising campaign for a $2 million expansion project that would double Goss Stadium’s permanent seating to about 2,500.

“We’ve got people asking for the fall practice schedule,” Spencer said. “We tell them, ‘We haven’t figured our scrimmage days out,’ but they’re just looking to come out and watch practice.

“That stuff is all good, but it’s a different beast. We’re all the same guys, doing the same thing. We’re just trying to get back to the promised land.”

Ten players from the 2006 team turned pro after the College World Series. Catcher Mitch Canham (.299, 7-54) returns after spurning the St. Louis Cardinals, but there are numerous holes to fill on the pitching staff, infield and outfield.

“Mitch will catch, (Darwin) Barney (.330, 0-36) will play short, and you’d think that John Wallace (.326, 0-19) and Scott Santschi (.271, 2-29) are going to be in the outfield somewhere,” Spencer said. “But there is going to be good competition everywhere else, with good players.”

Almost every returnee played in a summer league. One exception was junior pitcher Mike Stutes (8-2, 3.10), who rested a tender arm this summer and will be “milked along” during fall camp as a precautionary measure.

“He’s fine, he’s healthy,” Spencer said of Stutes, OSU’s projected Friday night starter this season.

Also, senior pitcher Anton Maxwell, suspended just before the CWS for a violation of team rules, has been reinstated and is a candidate for a place in the starting rotation. He was 11-1 in 2004 but slipped to 3-3, 5.50 in a problem-plagued 2005 season.

Junior Daniel Turpen (3-0, 2.90), stuck behind an impressive rotation the past two years, is the early projected Sunday starter.

Spencer said a top priority in fall camp will be determining a preliminary rotation; locating setup men to precede projected closer Eddie Kunz (5-1, 3.61) and Joe Paterson (1-1, 4.11), who may be a starter this season; finding some right-handed hitting outfielders; solidifying second base, and evaluating the new players.

“The good thing is we have work-hard guys coming back from a good club,” Spencer said. “They don’t think things will just fall into place. They understand they have to get after it to go back to where they want to go.”

The Beavers lost 2006 signee D.J. Lidyard, a left-handed pitcher, to the Milwaukee Brewers last week. Signees Steven Marquardt and Taylor Green, both infielders, signed this past June.