i actually think he was good on that move. he never had anything moving towards the plate (particularly his leading foot, it never broken the plan in either direction until the move to step off). the talked about it the next inning, and the fact that nobody from the ODU staff even spoke to the umps made me think they knew he just fooled the runner with a great move (also, the runner should NEVER have been going, he’s scoring on a single there regardless and there were two outs so no benefit to being on 3rd).
but you are completely correct, nobody ACTUALLY knows what a balk is, so this is just based off my understanding dating to high school games…
Ex-Wahoo great Javi Lopez was doing color for the Giants-Rangers game tonight. During a replay of Mike Tauchman’s first career grand slam (which gave the Giants a two-run lead), he said “Is he excited or what? It’s like he sent his team to a regional in the College World Series.”
In the Super Regional… how does home team work? Since UVa is the higher seed, I’d assume they are considered home team for the first game, but does Dallas Baptist get home team honors the second game and then UVa again in the decider or is it like a weekend series where Virginia is the home team for all games?
The host team, in this case I think that is UVA, is the home team game one, the visiting team game two, and if there is a third game home team is determined by a coin flip.
Wish I could be in Columbia this weekend. My sister was stationed at Shaw AFB in nearby Sumter, SC for several years… so I got the chance to visit a few times.
Taking my kids to Europa Park on Friday… told them we couldn’t go on Saturday because of important baseball stuff. LOL!
Because UVA and Dallas Baptist are equal seeds (regional 3 seeds), there’s a coin flip to determine the home team for game one.
The loser of the coin flip is the home team for game two.
Another coin flip will determine the home team for game three, if necessary.
Exact language for Super Regional home team determination from the 2021 host manual…
HOME TEAM – SUPER REGIONALS
• Two Teams Advancing With Different Regional/National Seeds. For Game One, the better seeded team will be the home team. The lower seeded team will be the home team in Game Two.
The better seeded team will be the home team in Game Three, if necessary.
** If a super regional is a matchup of two national seeds (i.e., #8 national seed vs. #9 national seed) the team with the better national seed will be the home team in Games One and Three).
• Two Teams Advancing With Equal Regional Seeds. For Game One, the winner of a coin flip will be the home team. The loser of the coin flip will be the home team in Game Two. A second coin flip will determine the home team in Game Three, if necessary. These coin flips must both take place during the pre-tournament meeting. The traveling team will call the coin toss for Game One, while the host team will call the coin toss for Game Three or defer the call to their opponent.
And a link to the manual should anyone want to read the entire thing…
