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Alabama Baseball Out of Its Element in Loss to NC State

The Crimson Tide gave up five home runs to Wolfpack batters and is now facing elimination on Saturday

Five home runs.

That’s the number given up by Alabama baseball on Friday in the first game of the NCAA Ruston Regional, where the NC State Wolfpack downed the Crimson Tide 8-1. Combine that home run with solo shot by Alabama left fielder Jackson Tate, and the total home runs in the double-elimination tournament’s opening game was six.

While most of the blame can be placed on the Crimson Tide’s poor performances on the mound, another factor was also in play throughout the overcast afternoon: the wind combined with a small field.

The park reopened in 2021 after extensive renovations due to a tornado in April of 2019 that wiped out the facility. With a left field of 315 feet, a right field of 325 feet and a center field of 380 feet, the park was a lot smaller than Alabama pitchers were used to throwing in.

That being said, Crimson Tide head coach Brad Bohannon noted that despite the Wolfpack’s solid long-ball performance on Friday, his team had the ability to do the same with such a short distance to the fences.

“The dimensions are small,” Bohannon said. “It’s a small park and yesterday in practice it wasn’t quite that offensive. Obviously the wind has a little bit to do with it and I thought if there were six home runs hit in the game, three of them were out of almost any park and three of them probably don’t get out of any other park. It is what it is.

“All the other teams are playing on the same field and NC State is probably built a little more for this than we are but they didn’t move the fences back for us and good win for them. We got to do a better job executing pitches and keeping the ball out of the air and leaving fastballs out over the plate when we’re down on the count.”

One unique aspect of the sport of baseball is that there is no strict regulations regarding field sizes. While most stadiums average out to be the same distances from home plate to the outfield walls, there are some exceptions that serve as outliers.

Combine the small field size and a wet all-turf field, and Alabama was completely out of its element.

“That’s a unique thing about the sport of baseball is every field is different,” Bohannon said. “Every basketball court is the same length and width and baseball is a lot different. There was a lot of rain in pregame — both teams had batting practice through a moderate rain. I was concerned that that was going to play a part in the game — that the position players were going to have a hard time throwing accurately and baserunners were going to slide past the base and I’m glad that we got a game with wet turf under our belts and didn’t have any issues with that.

“It may rain again in the next couple of days and at least if that does happen we’ll have had this experience and hopefully be able to deal with it as effectively as we did today.”

With the loss, Alabama now has to face the loser of this afternoon’s game between No. 1 seed Louisiana Tech and No. 4 seed Rider. Should the Crimson Tide lose, it will be eliminated from the tournament on Saturday.

“Honestly a little disappointed,” Bohannon said. “Kind of felt like our guys played today like they were just glad to be here. Really haven’t done that much. NC State threw a couple of punches there early and a four-run lead in this park is absolutely nothing and it felt like we wobbled a little bit — or wobbled a lot — and we really haven’t done that much this year.

“All we can do is flush it and get rested up tonight and get ready for tomorrow.”