WORLD SERIES NOTEBOOK / LON EUBANKS : Titans’ Catcher Loyd in Control Behind Plate

OMAHA —  Brian Loyd has a lot to worry about in each game as the Cal State Fullerton catcher.

As positions go, it might be the second-most demanding in baseball, behind only pitching.

For one thing, a catcher has to be a combination cheerleader and emotional therapist sometimes when he’s talking to a pitcher in a hot spot.

When Loyd walked to the mound Saturday after Ted Silva had given up two consecutive home runs to Stanford in the first inning of the Titans’ opener in the College World Series, he decided to try to take the edge off the situation.

“I just said something like, ‘Well, you didn’t think they weren’t going to score a run on you, did you?’ I said a couple of other things and once I got a smile out of him, I knew he was all right,” Loyd said.

That crisis quieted, he moved on to another one.

In the second inning, Stanford’s Troy Kent led off the inning with a double and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. The next batter, leadoff hitter Joe Kilburg, drilled a shot to right field that Robert Matos caught. But Kent tried to score after the catch, and just as he broke for home, Matos was already throwing the ball to the plate.

And there again was Loyd, standing in harm’s way this time, vulnerable to the on-rushing runner.

Loyd took the throw, and in one sweeping motion, came face to face with Kent. Their bodies met, three feet in front of the plate, and they both went down into the dirt, with Loyd’s mask jerked over the top of his head by the force of the collision.

Kent slapped for the plate, but it didn’t matter. Loyd already had made the tag and held on to the ball.

“I knew it was going to be bang-bang, so I was ready for it,” Loyd said Sunday. “Rob gave me a great throw, though, and that was the key.”

Then there was the fourth inning.

Jon Schaeffer led off with a single and all of sudden he was streaking for second. Loyd’s throw had him nailed. If it hadn’t, it would have meant another Stanford run because Brian Dallimore, who was the hitter, then doubled.

“I’m pretty sure it was a hit and run, and I don’t think he got a good jump on the ball,” Loyd said. “Teddy was holding runners well all day, and that really helped.”

All in a day’s work for Loyd, who has thrown out 27 base runners in the 57 attempts against him.

A sophomore from Placentia, Loyd seems to handle every part of his role well these days.

As a hitter Saturday, he was two for three, with two runs batted in and his ninth home run of the season in the 6-5 Titan victory. He’s hitting .361 with 69 RBIs for the year.

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Titan associate head coach George Horton said he believes Stanford had stolen his signs in the first inning when Silva was shelled for two homers and three runs.

Horton calls all the pitches from the dugout.

“I’m sure now that they knew what was coming, although Ted didn’t make real good pitches on those two home run balls in the first inning,” Horton said. “We changed the signs in the third inning, and kept changing them the rest of the game. It looks like we’re going to have to keep doing that.”

Horton blamed himself partially for Silva’s troubled start. “We asked him to keep the ball over the plate early, because we didn’t want any walks, and he was high in the strike zone for a while,” Horton said.

Horton said he still hasn’t received any definite word on whether Silva was drafted in the late rounds. Two other Titan pitchers apparently were drafted ahead of him, Jon Ward in the eighth by St. Louis and Tim Dixon in the 14th by Montreal. Horton said first baseman D.C. Olsen was picked in the 17th round by the Expos.

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The Fullerton players seemed to get a kick out of having Academy Award-winning director and actor Kevin Costner around over the weekend.

Costner, a Fullerton graduate who is a close friend of Coach Augie Garrido, rode the bus to Saturday’s game with the players and took some swings with the team in pregame batting practice. Costner’s 7-year-old son, Joe, rode around with Garrido on the three-wheel scooter Garrido uses following his surgery in early May for a ruptured Achilles’ tendon.

“It was pretty neat to watch him at batting practice,” Mark Kotsay said. “It was like watching Crash Davis.”

Davis was the character Costner played in the movie “Bull Durham.”

“I was surprised at how well he could swing the bat,” Kotsay said, smiling. “But I don’t think he should give up acting.”