WSU Baseball: Practice Report And Coach Marbut Audio

Taylor Ard (35) was a huge part of the WSU offense in
2011.

Instead of editing the last post with the audio from my interview this afternoon with Coach Marbut I decided a new post might be in order.

In the two days I've been around practice one of the names I've heard most often from Coach Marbut is freshman Ty Jackson. The staff really likes his bat and expects him to contribute.

As I tweeted yesterday, J.D. Leckenby will be this years Friday night starter. Leckenby was one of the better relievers for WSU last season and showed some flashes of brilliance. His sinker is dirty and if he can limit his walks he could potentially be one of the better pitchers in the conference.

Here is Leckenby's stats from 2011, if you're interested. Marbut audio and some other tidbits after the jump.

Player	IP	AB	H	HR	K	BB	HBP	ER	ERA	WHIP	FIP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	Opp Avg
J.D. Leckenby	27.2	99	17	0	5	14	6	7	2.28	1.12	5.53	1.63	4.56	0.00	0.172

Another pitcher to look out for is freshman Tanner Chleborad. Tanner is the Sunday starter as of right now and the coaches really like his potential. Yesterday at the scrimmage I spent some time in the dugout with pitching coach Gregg Swenson and he mentioned that he could see Chleborad being the Friday night guy at some point in his career.

One last thing to pass along before the Marbut audio is on defense. Last year defense was a huge liability for WSU, anyone who watched any games knows the defense was frustrating at best and maybe even cost the team a few wins.

After watching a couple practices I can say that so far the defense looks better than last year. It's still not great but it's absolutely improved over last season.

Finally, here's the audio of my interview with Coach Marbut from this afternoon. It's worth listening to, as always there's a fair amount of coach speak but Marbut is always good for some quality quotes too.

Coach Marbut (Click Me To Play)