I'm trying to understand why something happened the way it did. I've always been like that. It's hard for me to just accept that things are the way they are and move forward. "Just because!" is by far the meanest answer a parent can give. As a child, I needed to know why. The reason didn't entirely need to make sense, there just needed to be something, a string of somewhat-reasonable events that led to a result.

How, for instance, did Santa get down the chimney to deliver our presents, especially since we lived in a three-bedroom shack* in the middle of a Kansas wheat field? The house didn't even have a chimney. A chimney would have been too heavy, and our house would have fallen over like the Flintstones car when they delivered the rack of ribs.

(Promise if you stick this out we'll eventually get to Fresno State baseball.)

*There is no "I grew up poor" sob story here. It was definitely middle class. We had baseball mits. What else is there? I think all kids should spend at least part of their childhood growing up in a shack in a Kansas wheat field. It's good for the soul. Lots of soul in Kansas. Bob Dole did it and look how he turned out. War hero. Beautiful, charming wife. Extended professional career. In baseball terms, Bob was the Ted Williams of his era. Also, I think he would have been a first-rate president. My first ever presidential vote, in 1996, went to Mr. Dole. If he had won that election, I swear there would be world peace, zero hunger, and we'd have already inhabited neptune. (And you thought I couldn't avoid the obvious seventh-planet joke. Ha!) OK, where were we? Oh yeah, I also think everyone's first car* should be crappy enough that it needs some sort of regular repair that the father/son or father/daughter or mother/son (you get the idea) have to perform themselves. Oh, and oil changes. Kids should do their own oil changes. And blow out the air filter and check the tire pressure. I say "kids" because I was driving a tractor at age 12 and had a driver's license at 14, but I'm referring to pretty much any teenage year or younger.

But back to the shack in the field. This was a little white house built a long time ago, in the 1560s or something, with droopy tile ceilings, the kind you could throw sharp pencils at and they'd stick up there. Unfortunately, the roof leaked. Well this one winter, the snow on top of the roof piled up and as it melted, it leaked down through the roof and gathered above the tile ceiling. One night, my brother and I heard a crash and a scream I will never forget. The ceiling couldn't hold any more and my parents got a middle-of-the-night, no-warning ice bath from above. I cannot imagine how scary that must have been. They bulldozed that house a few years later. I still miss it a little.

Anyway, all I needed was a decent explanation for how Santa did it -- jets on his sleigh, moms and dads helping, a system of pullies and levers, whatever -- and I was fine with that. I didn't even mind being lied to, just as long as they kept it interesting. The single worst phrase of the 21st century is "It is what it is." Hate it. Who cares if it is what it is? How did it get that way? Why is it that way?

*My first car was a ... 1951 Chevrolet; tan, four-door, brakes usually worked, manufactured without seat belts or turn signals, gear shift on the steering column; "three on the tree," as they say. (You actually had to stick your arm out of the window and signal. It was awesome. And honestly, who needs seat belts when your car weighs 1,836,398,298,375,290,372 pounds?)

Fifth car ... 1997 Dodge Ram; easily my most beloved vehicle. We moved together from Kansas to Chicago, Chicago to Alabama, Alabama to Wisconsin, and then Wisconsin to California. They were all good times in the green machine. Will never forget driving down I-70, the tarp flapping and my possessions flying out into traffic. Mine was the short-bed and entirely dark green. Stereo system I put together myself, great tweeters that just blared the treble. I sold it when I moved to California and bought an engagement ring. Don't ever, ever do that. Somewhere, someone is rocking out in that truck and all I have is this blog. OK, that's not true. I have a car now, a fun car, but it just doesn't have character like these others Maybe someday.

The point of all of this is, I've been trying to figure out why the Fresno State baseball team has been so mediocre. It was supposed to be good. It had good returning pitching. It had good hitters. I swore in a column the Bulldogs were going to be good. Yet when the Bulldogs beat Cal-Poly Wednesday, 13-11, that was the first they've been at .500 since the first week of the season. They are 12-12 now. Let's try to figure out how this has happened.

It's especially remarkable when you consider how many quality starts the Bulldogs have gotten. As far as major league baseball is concerned, a quality start means going six innings and giving up three runs or less. In their 24 games, the Bulldogs have gotten 15 quality starts. If you were to adjust the quality-start standard for the college game -- which I think we should, to account for aluminum bats and shorter fences and just generally lesser defense -- by reducing the number of innings to five, then Fresno State would have two more. That's 17 quality starts of 24 total. If you look at the other seven, junior Justin Miller gave up just one run in 3 innings against UC-Davis, then he gave up two runs in 1 2/3 innings against Portland, then he gave up two runs in 4 1/3 against Hawaii (clearly, Justin Miller is built for the short, yet psuedo-quality, start), and finally, Holden Sprague gave up two runs in 4 innings against Cal-Poly.

What we're saying here, is that out of 24 starts, Fresno State starters have only really tanked three times. With as many home games as they've had (16), they should be 18-6-ish. AT LEAST. But they aren't. Obviously, something is going wrong. Let's start with relief pitching...

The Bulldogs have six pitchers who have strictly thrown in relief. Senior Brandon Burke has thrown most of the innings, 29 of them, with a 3.41 ERA, 16 K's and 9 walks. Not bad numbers. The other five -- junior Kris Tomlinson, freshman Jake Floethe, freshman Gene Escat, senior Jake Hower and senior Jason Breckley -- have together thrown 32 innings with an era of 10.125. Not sure why I needed to stretch it out to that third decimal point, it just seemed more dramatic. They have 23 walks in those 32 innings. Not quality relief work, by any stretch. There's a big part of the problem.

Before we forget, here are the starters' numbers ...

Tanner Scheppers - (Jr.; 6 starts, 6 appearances) - 1.89 ERA, 3-2 record, 55K, 9W
Justin Miller - (Jr.; 5 starts, 8 app.) - 2.05 ERA, 3-0 record, 20K, 16W
Holden Sprague - (Jr.; 3 starts, 10 app.) - 3.54 ERA, 0-2 record, 20K, 6W
Clayton Allison - (Sr.; 5 starts, 6 app.) - 3.82 ERA, 1-2 record, 16K, 6W
Justin Wilson - (Jr.; 5 starts, 6 app.) - 5.34 ERA, 2-3 record, 27K, 17W

Clearly, the starting pitchers are not the problem. Tanner Scheppers has been about as untouchable as your mom's good china. Secondly, I can't believe I have enough free time to calculate quality starts for all 24 of Fresno State's baseball games, but apparently I do. Just wait until tomorrow when we talk Bulldogs hitters. And, hopefully, we'll throw together some road/home and night/day statistical comparisons. One more time: tell your friends. More useless information, you will not find anywhere.