10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2017
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
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Cupcakes
aside, now it
gets tougher
for No. 7
Washington
By TIM BOOTH
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Enough with the
cupcakes and empty calories.
After gorging on weak oppo-
nents for three weeks, No. 7 Wash-
ington gets its fi rst real test when it
travels to Colorado for Saturday’s
rematch of the Pac-12 title game
from last season.
It’s the second straight year in
which the nonconference schedule
for Washington (3-0) has left the
Huskies looking good and proving
little. Yes, they are very talented
and probably worthy of being the
overwhelming favorites in the Pac-
12 North as the conference season
beings for them this week.
But the quizzes Washington
has faced so far against Rutgers,
Montana and Fresno State hav-
en’t required much extra effort.
That changes with the beginning of
conference play, and for their part,
the Huskies sound ready for the
challenge.
Or as Washington coach Chris
Petersen put it on Monday, “Away
we go and now we start the hard
part of our season.”
“The one thing that you notice
for the most part it everybody real-
izes league has started now and the
intensity of those games kind of
feel a little bit different,” Petersen
said. “It’s not like kids play harder
or don’t play harder depending on
the game ... but maybe leading up
to it there is a little more focus.
Everybody understands how com-
petitive this league is that we play
in.”
SPORTS
IN BRIEF
Oregon State QB
Jake Luton back
home after injury
CORVALLIS — Oregon State
quarterback Jake Luton is back
with the Beavers after taking a
scary hit in their loss to Washing-
ton State and being removed from
the fi eld on a stretcher.
The school tweeted Satur-
day night that Luton had been
released from Pullman Regional
Hospital and returned to Corval-
lis. Luton had movement in all of
his extremities, but after the game
Oregon State coach Gary Andersen
did not have an update on Luton’s
condition.
According to The Oregonian,
Luton’s father, Judd, posted on
Facebook that his son had a “prob-
able thoracic spine fracture.” Luton
himself tweeted his thanks for the
messages of support.
Luton was injured when he
was hit awkwardly by Washing-
ton State safety Jalen Thompson at
the end of a 9-yard run early in the
fourth quarter.
LB Peyton
Pelluer of No. 18
Washington State
out for season
SPOKANE, Wash. — Line-
backer Peyton Pelluer of No. 18
Washington State broke his foot
in Saturday’s victory over Oregon
State and is done for the season,
likely ending the senior defensive
leader’s college career.
While Washington State does
not disclose injuries and declined
to confi rm the reports, Pelluer’s
father, Scott, described the injury
to The Seattle Times.
Pelluer, a 6-foot, 225-pound
middle linebacker, left the Ore-
gon State game early in the second
quarter and did not return.
He was coming off a 14-tackle
performance against Boise State
that earned him Pac-12 defensive-
player-of-the-week honors.
The Cougars host Nevada on
Saturday.
Associated Press
SMASHING!
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton rounds second base after hitting a home run against the Philadelphia Phillies.
MLB HOME RUN RECORD
ON TRACK TO FALL TODAY
By RONALD BLUM
Associated Press
N
EW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton’s
smacks, Aaron Judge’s jolts and all
those dizzying long balls helped
Major League Baseball move another poke
closer to the inevitable.
Nearly two decades after the height of the
Steroids Era, the sport is on track to break its
season record for home runs on Tuesday —
and not just top the old mark, but smash it
like one of those upper-deck shots that have
become commonplace in the Summer of the
Slugger.
There were 5,677 home runs hit through
Monday, 16 shy of the record set in 2000.
Juiced balls? Watered-down pitching?
Stanton’s renaissance? Sensational starts by
Judge and Cody Bellinger?
“I don’t think that we are ever going to
have a single explanation for exactly why
we’ve seen so many,” baseball Commissioner
Rob Manfred said. “But players are bigger
and stronger. They’re playing a little differ-
ently, in terms of the way they swing. Pitchers
throw harder. The one thing I remain comfort-
able with: Nothing about the baseball, accord-
ing to our testing, is materially different.”
There were 5,610 homers last year, an
average of 2.31 per game, and this year’s
average of 2.53 projects to 6,139. That would
be up 47 percent from 4,186 in 2014.
In just three years, home runs will have
increased by 1,953 — an extra 149 miles of
long balls at this year’s average home run
length of 400 feet, or 15 miles more than the
driving distance between Philadelphia’s Citi-
zen’s Bank Park and Washington’s Nationals
Park.
“The game has changed,” New York
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “From
when I started, there’s a lot less stolen bases,
there’s a lot less bunting, there’s a lot less hit-
ting-and-running. You don’t give outs away,
and you let guys swing the bat.”
Already 108 players have hit 20 homers
this year, just two shy of the record set last
season — and up from 64 in 2015, according
to the Elias Sports Bureau.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge hits a
three-run home run against the Balti-
more Orioles.
“The ball seems to soar from people that
are hitting it farther than maybe they did
a year ago ... and they kind of look like the
same person,” Minnesota manager Paul Moli-
tor, a Hall of Famer hitter, said before Monday
night’s game at Yankee Stadium.
Along with sailing shots come strikeouts,
which will set a record for the 10th consecu-
tive year. There were 37,083 whiffs through
Monday, an average of 8.25 per team per
game that translates to 40,103 over the full
season.
“The focus is hitting homers and tolerat-
ing strikeouts,” Reggie Jackson said. “I don’t
really like all the strikeouts, and I was the
king.”
Baseball offi cials are worried about
decreasing action and have been alarmed by
the strikeout rise. This year’s total is up from
38,982 last year and headed to an increase of
nearly 8,000 from the 32,189 in 2007. The
strikeout spike coincides with a rise in fast-
ball velocity; four-seamers have averaged
93.2 mph this year, up from 91.9 mph in 2008,
according to MLB data.
“These bullpens are making it extremely
diffi cult. From basically the starter on you’re
going to have elite, hard-throwing guys that
are looking to strike you out every single
time,” said Baltimore’s Mark Trumbo, last
year’s home run champion. “The game right
now is as max effort as I’ve seen it. Guys
are throwing harder. At the plate sometimes
you have no choice. It’s hard to steer the ball
around when it’s 98 miles an hour and up in
the zone.”
Jackson set a record with 2,597 career
strikeouts, maxing at 171 in 1968. Six players
already have reached 171 this year, led by the
Yankees’ Judge at 198. He could break Mark
Reynolds’ season record of 223, set in 2009.
“You’d have been on the bench,” Jack-
son said. “But I don’t know if you set a guy
on the bench with 90 RBIs and 40 homers.
That’s Judge. You ain’t going to sit that on the
bench.”
Steroids fueled the home run surge in the
late 1990s and early 2000s, and power sub-
sided after the start of drug testing with pen-
alties in 2004. The home run average dropped
in 2014 to its lowest level since 1992, then
started rising during the second half of the
2015 season.
MLB has the UMass-Lowell’s Baseball
Research Center conduct periodic testing
of baseballs and University of Illinois phys-
ics professor emeritus Alan Nathan consults
as part of quality control. The sport has said
repeatedly that baseballs fall within the speci-
fi cations in the rules.
Manfred isn’t worried some undetectable
substance is fueling the new rise.
“I have never said that it’s impossible
there’s something out there that we’re miss-
ing,” he said. “What I am saying is we’re
doing more, more frequently, less predictably,
with better testing, and that’s all you can do.”
For 2nd straight season, Seahawks offense struggles
By TIM BOOTH
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. — If the script
written by the Seattle Seahawks
sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the
same one from a year ago.
Two weeks. One touchdown.
Plenty of handwringing in the Pacifi c
Northwest about what’s wrong with
the Seahawks offense even as they sit
at 1-1.
No, this isn’t a fl ashback to 2016,
when the exact scenario played out.
It’s where the Seahawks stand cur-
rently after Sunday’s lackluster 12-9
win over San Francisco and heading
into a Week 3 road trip to Tennessee.
They are sputtering on offense, failing
to convert on their limited red-zone
opportunities and providing more
work than they want for punter Jon
Ryan.
If not for Russell Wilson escap-
ing a potential third-down sack and
Paul Richardson playing through
AP Photo/John Froschauer
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver
Paul Richardson, left, is greeted
by teammates Tyler Lockett and
Rees Odhiambo after Richardson
caught a pass for a touchdown
against the San Francisco 49ers.
a dislocated fi nger to connect on a
fourth quarter TD pass, the Seahawks
may still be searching for their fi rst
touchdown.
“It was ugly, but that’s football,”
Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin
said. “When you grind it out like that,
there’s something special to that. It’s
not pretty, we had a lot of mistakes,
but for us to come out of there with a
victory and to grind it out like we did,
it’s the beautiful part of the game.”
What was beautiful to Baldwin
appeared to be an unsightly slog to
others. In a way, the victory over the
49ers only raised concerns rather than
soothing any worries. It was one thing
to struggle on the road against Green
Bay in the season opener and lose to
a team considered one of the favorites
in the NFC. It’s another to see some
of the same problems emerge against
rebuilding San Francisco.
Seattle coach Pete Carroll
remained optimistic Monday that
there was improvement from Week 1
to Week 2.
“I thought we did some things bet-
ter than we did the week before. But
we still didn’t score enough points
like we like to,” Carroll said. “But
we’re working at it. Glad to get a win
at home, would have liked it to have
been a little bit different.”
SCOREBOARD
PREP SPORTS SCHEDULE
TODAY
Volleyball — Astoria at Tillamook,
7 p.m.; Seaside at Valley Catholic, 7
p.m.; Warrenton at Catlin Gabel, 6 p.m.;
Knappa at Faith Bible, 6:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Girls Soccer — Valley Catholic at As-
toria, 7:15 p.m.; Scappoose at Seaside,
7:15 p.m.
Boys Soccer — Astoria at Valley
Catholic, 7:15 p.m.; Seaside at Scap-
poose, 4:15 p.m.
THURSDAY
Volleyball — Banks at Astoria, 7 p.m.;
Tillamook at Seaside, 7 p.m.; Warren-
ton at Clatskanie, 6 p.m.; Knappa at
Naselle, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY
Football — Astoria at Valley Catholic,
7 p.m.; Seaside at Scappoose, 7 p.m.;
Warrenton at Nestucca, 7 p.m.; Ilwaco at
Toutle Lake, 7 p.m.; Naselle at Oakville,
7 p.m.
SATURDAY
Girls Soccer — Astoria at Seaside,
5:30 p.m.
Boys Soccer — Astoria at Seaside,
7:15 p.m.
Cross Country — 3-Course Chal-
lenge, 9 a.m.