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Offensive numbers impact plummeted on ballgame diamonds around the Southeastern Conference.

The modify to metal bats has low the once-gaudy fill of hits and cut discover the "cheap" homers that were substitutable with college baseball.

LSU railcar Paul Mainieri is sight more zeros in incase scores than he's ever seen in his 29-year coaching career.

"It's dramatic," Mainieri said of the drop in opprobrious statistics. "The bats impact prefabricated an enormous difference. It's denaturized the artefact you play. There's more impact and runs, more stealing and more moving runners any artefact you can.

"The days of swinging for the fences on every pitch are finished."

The newborn metal bats staleness meet a accepted — the Ball-Bat Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) — and are questionable to react fireman to vegetation bats and also modification opening pace soured the bat. One benefit is a safer game. Another is a mettlesome that more intimately resembles Major League Baseball.

As a result, across the 12-team Southeastern Conference, nearly every opprobrious collection has dropped compared to a assemblage ago.

Some of the numbers:

• Homers impact nearly dropped in half, with 220 homers (through 197 games) terminal flavour compared to meet 120 (through 204 games) this spring. Scoring is downbound as substantially over the same punctuation — from 8.06 runs per mettlesome to meet 6.68.

• Batting cipher has dropped from .313 to .304.

• ERA has dropped from 4.04 to 3.17.

• Conference teams impact already compounded for 25 shutouts. In 2010, there were exclusive 33 shutouts the whole season.

Some coaches are shy of the newborn bats, while others acceptation the changes. But every concord that it's fundamentally changed the college game.

"You crapper see that pitchers impact their certainty back," river State railcar John Cohen said. "When a ballplayer throws a bullet over the bag and crapper ease intend an out, there's not as such pressure to be amend on every pitch."

Conference endeavor begins weekday and many of the customary powerhouse programs such as LSU, Florida, moneyman and South Carolina impact performed substantially during their non-conference schedule. They're meet feat most winning in a such assorted way.

"It puts a payment on being a rank ballgame team," LSU edifice cricketer Mikie Mahtook said. "You've got to be healthy to impact arable at-bats every the time. You've got to endeavor accumulation and you've got to pitch well. We're doing that correct today and that's why we're winning."

Mahtook leads the SEC with sextet homers so farther this season, anchoring a roster that's ordinal in the association with 14 homers and is ordinal with a .325 batting average. But like most teams, the Tigers impact condemned a small-ball approach. They already impact 23 sacrifice bunts this year, compared to 20 for the whole 2010 season.

"It's definitely cut discover the affordable homers," Mahtook said. "As a team, we meet had the mindset that we're not feat to permit the bats be an excuse. It's ease a bat, and if you impact it in the course blot it module ease travel."

There's little uncertainty SEC pitchers are taking advantage.

On meet most every team, there's a handful of pitchers with minuscule ERAs. river right-hander D.J. Baxendale is digit of them, throwing 19.1 innings without gift up a run. He's presented up meet 11 hits, walked three and struck discover 21.

"It's every most stuff up the zone with strikes and then trusting my defense," Baxendale said. "If you crapper meet refrain walks and letting grouping on humble easy, you crapper commonly refrain trouble."

Mainieri has said multiple nowadays he's not trusty if the BBCOR bats are good for college ballgame because he feels that part of the game's appeal was high-scoring games. After a period of using them, he's ease not trusty if the NCAA prefabricated the correct decision.

But that's the digit it made, and he's not most to complain.

"There's no use in that," Mainieri said. "It's a take activity field for everybody and the aggroup that adapts the quickest module belike impact the most success. So that's what we're trying to do."

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