Arizona baseball: Wildcats move up several spots in national polls

The team is now right around 15th in most polls

The Arizona Wildcats are 4-0 on the young season, so it’s no surprise that they have climbed up a couple spots from where they were in the preseason rankings.

Here’s a look at where UA now stands in the first in-season polls of 2017:

The USA Today Coaches poll had not been released on Monday.

Arizona moved up three or four spots in every poll that they weren’t already ranked in the top ten.

Two of the four games against Eastern Kentucky were not particularly impressive, but this is a young team that’s probably going to take a little bit of time to truly discover its true potential.

“There’s two kinds of experience,” head coach Jay Johnson said after Monday’s dramatic walk-off hit by pitch victory. “There’s inexpensive experience and expensive experience, and you end up losing that game it becomes expensive experience where we’re trying to figure things out.”

“Some guys are trying to get out of their sea legs in college baseball, and we’re working through it,” coach continued. “They’re all here because they’re not perfect, and it’s our job to keep developing them. But toughness and competitiveness; there’s nothing but positives off of that.”

Arizona played several freshmen for a significant number of innings over the weekend, including Nick Quintana starting all four games, and Cameron Cannon starting the last two.

But the Wildcats’ head coach isn’t going to let them being freshmen be an excuse for inconsistencies at the plate and in the field.

“I think when I start excepting anything but the very best level of play, it’ll be time to do something else,” Johnson responded when asked if he accepts the reality of growing pains. “So the answer’s no. Wednesday we’re going to get after it. It’s not going to be one of those ease your way into the weekend type deals. We’re not there as a team, and we’re gonna work hard, and I’m looking forward to it.”

The team has Tuesday off, practices Wednesday, then starts a four-game series against a McNeese State team that is currently 3-0 on Thursday.

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