It is akin to an engine-maker taking back two cylinders. To reducing 3G speed back to 2G. To trimming Twitter characters from 140 down to only a hundred, say it ain’t so

It was around this time a year ago that the NCAA’s new mandate for a safer aluminum bat was just getting into full swing — smaller sweet spot, less pop, fewer bullets flying — and college-baseball hitters around the country were in a tizzy.

Pitchers, understandably, rejoiced at the idea of slowing things down.

Home-run aficionados, however, cried.

And those from UL were no exception.

Fast-forward, though, and it’s apparent that, like with so much in life, time has helped heal the wounds of change.

"Of course I would love to hit with the old bats," said infielder Tyler Frederick, who along the rest of his Ragin’ Cajun teammates opened the 2012 season this weekend at the Texas State Bobcat Classic in San Marcos, Texas.

"But I don’t think it’s as-big of a deal (as originally feared)," the junior from Acadiana High added, "because it’s not as much of a shock anymore."

Make no mistake, using the bats — whose inner composition must now meet a new BBCOR (Bat-Ball Coefficient of Restitution) standard intended to reduce the speed of hits — has altered the college game.

Many say it’s for the better.

But not all do, because home run hitting is down.

Runs scored are down.

And so too for many teams, including the Cajuns, are batting averages.

An undisputed upside, however, is safety.

And after a full season to become accustomed to the BBCOR bats, some suggest another positive produced is the newfound need for hitters to focus less on power and more on having a fundamentally sound stroke.

"Because you can’t just swing for the fence anymore," Frederick said. "You have to actually have a compact swing, and try to hit the ball for solid contact and not just swing it out of your shoes."

"You’d love to have the old bats in your hands and put (pitches) on the top of the trees," Cajuns senior third baseman Jordan Bourque added. "But I think it’s turned into more of a pitching game and small-ball game, to where we have to do the little things right."

• • •

The BBCOR bats are designed to perform more like the wood bats used before aluminum ones were first introduced to NCAA college baseball in 1974, in part so pitchers standing 60 feet away have time to duck when a delivery is returned straight at them

Gone is the forgiving trampoline-like effect of the old bats, which previously were measured by what was known as Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR).

The new BBCOR standard is a complicated formula, replete with parenthesis, that looks suspiciously similar to those lengthy equations that make most hate math class.

In sum, it both measures and limits the bounciness of the bat rather than the speed of the ball after it is struck.

The bats still weigh the same, and it’s no longer or shorter than those previously used.

It simply has less pop — not quite like waiting for dial-up, but a lot like a modem with a governor.

The upshot of it all is that long-ball hitters are tamed, poor hitters are exposed and pitchers are better protected.

"I think all good hitters are going to hit, no matter what you put in his hands," Cajuns coach Tony Robichaux said. "I just think it (takes) the power away from the seven-, eight-, nine-hole hitter that the other bat gave."

As much as many of his hitters had a kneejerk reaction of discomfort with the change at the start of last season, though, Robichaux heard virtually equivalent silence as this season approached.

Oh, there are still occasional cracks — like when a hitter jokes that his double in batting practice would have been a homer back in the day.

And true freshmen who did not use the BBCOR bats in high school still are adjusting.

All in all, though, familiarity seems to have crushed most contempt.

"Now they’ve been with it," Robichaux said, "so it’s not even really an issue any more as much as it was."

"You can’t change it, so you may as well accept it," Frederick added. "Everybody has to deal with it, so it’s a pretty even playing field."

• • •

As accepting as they are, though, there is no doubt that the Cajuns’ 2011 statistics were impacted adversely by the BBCOR bats

UL averaged 1.2 fewer runs last season than in 2010, down to 5.2 per game.

Its team batting average dipped 14 points to .277.

Cajun hitters produced 31 home runs last season, their fewest since 1996, and they averaged .53 homers per game in 2011, down from .75 in 2010.

But they’re hardly are alone.

"You can look at the numbers from across the country — it’s obviously brought the home runs down," said Frederick, who admits to having taken the old BESR bats for granted. "Even the top-five programs — they’re all the way down."

It’s true.

Teams ranked No. 1 through No. 10 in the final USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll all had a drop in their per-game home run average from 2010 to 2011.

Defending national-champ South Carolina saw its home run average plummet from 1.39 per game to .67, and runner-up Florida’s average dropped from 1.30 to .96.

No. 3 Vanderbilt, No. 4 Virginia and No. 5 North Carolina all experienced long-ball dips as well.

Ditto for the top five teams in the USA Today/ESPN preseason coaches poll for 2011 — No. 1 Florida, South Carolina, Stanford, North Carolina and Texas.

Georgia Tech — ranked No. 10 in this year’s preseason poll — actually had 122 homers while playing 62 games in 2010 and just 48 in 63 games during 2011.

Moreover, according to NCAA.org, "Division I teams in 2011 averaged 5.58 runs per game, well off the record 7.12 in 1998 and below 6 for the first time since 1977 (5.83) "» (and) home runs left parks at an average of .52 per team per game in 2011 compared with .94 last year."

Case closed, then.

• • •

What’s open to consideration, however, is how to best take advantage of the BBCOR bats.

It’s not as if hitting a homer, after all, is impossible these days.

"Now we’re hitting home runs in BP," Frederick said.

And, sure, there are oddities.

A ball to the gap in right, for instance, sometimes seems to fade rather than shoot like it might have in the past.

"It’s in your head," Frederick said. "I can definitely tell the exit speed is a lot slower.

"You feel like you really have to hit the ball well to get a hit. There’s no more getting jammed and hitting it in the gap. You really have to hit the ball well. From the standpoint, it was tougher — because hitting is already tough enough. Now, you’re getting less opportunities to get hits."

Despite all that, though, the mental wall that may have been up for some last season is slowly but surely crumbling for most.

"It looks like there’s a belief," Robichaux said, "that they can hit the ball out of the ballpark with this bat now."

Yet hitters also understand they cannot assume they will be able to go deep to break open a close game, which perhaps changes their mindset from seasons past.

"It’s not like when we can get back up to bat and just hit a home run, like it was with the old bats," said Bourque, a Teurlings Catholic product. "You’ve got to keep pecking away."

For someone like Bourque, who is not known as a power hitter anyway, that may be easier than it is for others.

But UL’s home park — Tigue Moore Field — has never been known as a homer haven either, so perhaps the new bats play better in Cajun hands than they were willing to admit early on a season ago.

"We’re still going to hit the ball up the middle, play small ball," Bourque said, "and when you get a hold of one you get a hold of one."

 HOMERS TAKING A HIT

   A look at how home run production dropped last season with the introduction of BBCOR bats, based on the average number of home runs per game for both UL and for the top five teams in the final 2011 USA Today/ESPN Coach’s Poll:

   Team "» 2011 homers per game "» 2010 homers per game
   No. 1 South Carolina "» .67 "» 1.39
   No. 2 Florida "» .96 "» 1.30
 No. 3 Vanderbilt .77 "» .95
No. 4 Virginia "» .37 "» .94
No. 5 North Carolina .58 "» .75   
UL "» .53 "» .75