Baseball, What Works and What Hasn't, & Pro Day: March 23, 2026, Green Wave Report
Welcome to the Green Wave Report from ON SI Tulane. I'm Doug Joubert. The Green Wave Report is a weekly rundown of stories we've put together, analysis of what went on, and what you can expect later in the week from On SI Tulane, part of the Sports Illustrated Network. If you like what we produce each week, we’d appreciate it if you’d like our stories and subscribe to our YouTube channel. It helps us in knowing what you like and don’t like.
Today, we take a look at a conference opening weekend for the Sluggerbirds, Tulane’s nationally ranked bowling team keeping their fingers crossed, and Wave football players getting their chance in the NFL sun. Our video for this week's Green Wave Report, can be found here.
We start in Turchin Stadium, where the Tulane baseball team took on the bottom of the American Conference barrel to start league play. The Wave lost Friday night to the Memphis Tigers 7-6, took Saturday’s game 11-6, then mercy-ruled Memphis on Sunday, 12-2.
Let’s Talk Pitching First
The on-again, off-again starts of Friday night starter Trey Cehajic are a puzzle. He showed some promise in his early season starts, giving up five runs in 13-and-a-third innings pitched through three games. But in his last three stints on the Friday mound, the 6’ 8” graduate has given up sixteen runs in 11-and-two-thirds innings.
Jay Uhlman and pitching coach Anthony Izzio moved Saturday starter Beau Sampson into the bullpen after three rough outings in a row. Sampson’s collective ERA sat at 15.12 after the TCU contest. Since moving into the pen, Sampson’s ERA for the last three games is exactly zero. He hasn’t given up a hit or a base-on-balls in those three appearances and has struck out eight.
Jack Frankel’s move to a Saturday starter hasn’t been a roaring success, but a success nonetheless. And starting J.D. Rodriguez on Sunday and using the bullpen to support him has turned out to be, again, not sensational, but sturdy and reliant.
Now, it’s time to get that Friday slot where it needs to be.
The TU Offense
On the batting side of things, this is not a Tulane team that will overpower you with home runs. We knew that going into the season. But there is speed on the 2026 version of the Green Wave, and Uhlman used it to his team’s advantage on Saturday when the Wave bunted five times in an inning. We know a Jay Uhlman team hasn’t done that at Tulane before, but we cannot remember the last time we’ve seen any college team bunt that many times in a frame. Ever. True, that was a bad Memphis team, but it was good to see how well the Green Wave could poke the ball up the line like that. As always, baseball is completely situational, so could we see this again? We can hope that we will, but it will depend on the situation.
Meanwhile, Tulane batters have gotten into the habit of scoring runs in droves. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but it would be nice to see the Green Wave score first and not have to battle from behind the way they had to do against all three Memphis games and for the entire Creighton series when both visiting schools took the early lead.
This week, Tulane football players eligible for the NFL draft will be showing their wares to pro scouts at the Tulane Pro Day. Players who are eligible for the NFL draft in late April are performing for pro scouts. We will have a complete rundown on who attended the Pro Day for the Green Wave and what we saw..
On Tuesday, Tulane holds its annual Pro Day. We will be covering that for you and bringing you a special edition of the Green Wave Report on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. We hope you’ll join us for that.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.