It’s Showdown Time for USC, Etherton

Seth Etherton knows how much $75,000 is worth, or more properly, what it’s not worth.

It won’t buy an 88-mph fastball, and it won’t buy a degree in business marketing from USC. It won’t buy a senior year, and all that goes with it.

It wouldn’t buy his right arm for the St. Louis Cardinals, who made him their ninth-round pick in the 1997 free-agent draft. Instead, that offer served as a springboard into the weight room, into the health-food store and then onto the beach.

“I took a summer off from baseball,” Etherton said. “It’s the first since my freshman year in high school.”

Off from baseball, perhaps, but a summer spent with pitching in mind. He pumped iron, ate diet supplements and body-surfed at Laguna, all of which translated into 10 more pounds of upper-body development and a fastball that now touches 91 mph, an 8-0 record and an opportunity to match arms Friday night against Stanford’s Jeff Austin, who also is 8-0 and considered by many scouts the No. 1 pitcher available in this year’s draft.

USC’s No. 1, Etherton, against Stanford’s No. 1, Austin. That’s No. 2 USC against No. 1 Stanford, at least in one poll, in a three-game series at Dedeaux Field.

“It’s going to be an exciting weekend,” Etherton said.

Austin’s future is pretty much set, along with those of pitching teammates Chad Hutchinson and Brent Hoard. All three are juniors, and all have been called first-round prospects.

Etherton is another story. A senior now, he watches, pitches and wonders.

“I was going to be here three years and then I was going to play professional baseball,” he said. “Then, when I was drafted, it was tempting but I never really got any answers from the Cardinals. I expected to go higher.

“Now the attention is on the juniors, and I’m a senior and I don’t know. I hear that scouts are more impressed, but I don’t really know. I do know that I’m having a great year, and getting a degree was my No. 1 priority.”

He will get that degree after another semester.

He has heard his ninth-round status was a product of an 87- to 88-mph fastball, possible, even when scouts tell you the average major league fastball is 85 mph.

“I’m not a 6-5 guy who looks like I can overpower anybody,” said Etherton, who is 6 feet 1, 205 pounds. “But I thought the idea was getting people out. If you get people out, you’re successful.”

Etherton has done that all season, struggling in only two games, against Arizona State and last weekend at California, where he was breezing in the fifth inning of a cold, cloudy day and was then told to hurry things along, to make certain a 9-1 lead held up against impending rain.

In his haste, he lost his rhythm.

The outings against Cal and Arizona State have his earned-run average at 2.44, more than respectable but still not the 1-plus he carried the first month of the season.

Austin’s ERA, by the way, is 1.75.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Etherton said of his matchup with Austin. “In the past, it was [USC No. 1 Randy] Flores against [Stanford No. 1 Kyle] Peterson, and we pitched against each other in relief.”

Now, they pitch against each other for the scouts, who will flock to Dedeaux to see No. 1 against No. 1, and for fans, who will be there to see No. 2 against No. 1.

MAY I HAVE SOME MORE?

Joe Sulentor had a 10-for-14 weekend for Loyola Marymount (16-13-1), and Kevin Hook, the West Coast Conference’s leading hitter with a .435 average, Anthony Angel, Scott Walker, Curt Flore and Chad Ohira hit home runs in the same game for a school record. The Lions scored 41 runs in a three-game series at San Diego--and lost two of the games.

It took 16 runs to win the final game of the series, 16-8, and the culprit all weekend was pitching. Loyola is the only team in the conference with more walks than strikeouts, 163-160, and in WCC play, the Lions have walked 60 batters and struck out only 65. Loyola is hitting .331 as a team, but has a 6.95 earned-run average, though it’s not the WCC’s worst. That dubious distinction belongs to Gonzaga, at 8.03.

OK, ENOUGH ALREADY

Pepperdine (24-14) pounded Portland over the weekend, scoring 56 runs in a three-game sweep to move within half a game of San Francisco in the WCC. The 1-2 teams will meet this weekend by the Bay.

During the Portland series, Wave freshman Dane Sardinha hit four home runs, scored eight runs and drove in eight, and his 10 homers are the most in the WCC, one more than teammate G.J. Raymundo and Santa Clara’s Bill Mott. No freshman has won the WCC home run title.

FOUND ON THE MOUND

Cal State Fullerton (22-11) has been struggling, its team ERA going up more than a run--2.97 to 3.98--in the last nine games, over which it has been 4-5, and the Titans faced their annual exhibition with the Angels on Monday with an idea of just getting out alive.

They pitched Ruben Jurado, the ninth man on an eight-man traveling staff, which means he has stayed at home all season.

Jurado, from Riverside, will be on the bus to Pacific this weekend after shutting out the Angels for five innings and striking out Tim Salmon, Darin Erstad and Paco Martin. He also learned something when someone yelled from the dugout, “Throw a fastball and challenge somebody.” Jurado threw one, then ducked when it was hit past his head and thereafter threw mostly breaking pitches.

BUNTS

When the Angels’ Phil Nevin singled home the tying run at Cal State Fullerton on Monday, his sister, Michelle, put it up on the scoreboard. She is a senior, working with the Titan program. . . . Fullerton went 23 games before starting a right-handed pitcher and has started Kirk Saarles, the righty, only twice all season. . . . When Cal State Northridge’s game at Reno was canceled Sunday because of cold weather and the threat of snow, it was the 10th time this season a Nevada game has been canceled or postponed because of weather. The teams played Monday, with Northridge (20-17) winning its seventh consecutive game, 14-11. . . . Pepperdine is 9-1 in Saturday games.