Friday April 2nd, 2004
1:27amOld Ag Update
These guys aren't really that old but they aren't students anymore. This idea popped into my head when someone on a chat room asked if any recent Ags were in the big leagues. The answer is none, but it got me wondering how all those guys that were drafted are doing....sooo....I looked it all up, typed it out and I now present it to you for your reading enjoyment....(I went back to the 2000 draft just out of curiosity)
2000 (2)
Daylan Holt: 3rd Round (#90 overall) by Oakland
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2000 Vancouver Nwest Oak 32 118 17 32 17 2 8 26/10 .271 2001 Modesto Calif Oak 101 341 31 61 39 2 18 90/40 .179 2002 Visalia Oaks Calif Oak 77 309 48 90 63 16 43 75/29 .291 .892 2002 Midland Texas Oak 57 201 18 56 25 4 14 50/15 .279 .715 2003 Wins.-Salem Caro ChW 112 340 50 88 58 11 39 68/35 .259 .764 2003 Birmingham Sout ChW 5 13 1 0 0 0 0 7/2 .000 .133Daylan left A&M after a MONSTER 1999 season and a so-so 2000 season. He holds the A&M record for career HRs (52), single season HRs (34, 1999), & RBIs (105, 1999). He was before my time, but I've heard stories about him.Chris Scarcella: 16th Round (#480 overall) by Oakland
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS n/a I don't think he played after signing2001 (3)
Chris Russ: 12th Round (#365 overall) by New York (AL)
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2001 Staten Island NYPL NYY 1-2 20 0 24.0 15 7 5 21/4 1.88 2002 Gulf Coast GCL NYY 1-0 5 0 8.1 4 5 5 0 6/6 5.40 2002 Greenboro SAL NYY 1-4 24 0 28.2 33 24 18 2 23/19 5.65 2002 Staten Island NYPL NYY 0-0 4 0 7.2 7 4 4 1 6/2 4.70 2003 Ariz.Rangers ARIZ Tex 1-1 5 0 5.1 5 2 2 0 4/1 3.38The thing that pops into my mind when I hear the name Chris Russ was the 2001 t.u. game at Olsen Field. It was the Friday night game of a home-away-away series with arch-rival texas and it was probably the most exciting game I've ever been to. I was a fish and I didn't know any better so I showed up to Olsen Field at the same time I had for all the other games I went to and I was too late to sit inside the stadium so I had a view from the RF bleachers. Russ was PRing on 1B and texas threw over to 1B a couple of times to keep him honest. Well, texas' 1Bman, Jeff Ontiveros was hitting Russ really hard with the tags and kept pushing and shoving so Russ was getting pretty fired up. There was an overthrow to first base and Russ took off, rounded second base and dropped his shoulder into texas' 3Bman, Ryan Brooks, completely leveling him. It was AWESOME! Brooks had to come out (I heard that he broke his jaw and I've heard he broke his nose, it could all be hearsay for all I know) and the 3rd largest crowd in Olsen Field history went NUTS! They kept showing the replay on the scoreboard to get the crowd frenzied up. A&M went on to win the game in the 11th with Justin Moore throwing 10.2 innings and not getting a decision.Brian Strelitz: 11th Round (#335 overall) by New York (AL)
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2002 Greensboro SAL NYY 1-2 8 1 10.0 21 16 16 3 1/4 14.40 2002 Tampa FSL NYY 2-1 27 0 44.2 54 29 22 4 20/22 4.43 2003 Inland Empire Cal Sea 4-2 29 1 54.1 51 25 21 9 29/11 3.48 2003 San Antonio Tex Sea 0-2 11 1 19.0 18 10 7 1 11/7 3.32Greg Porter: 45th Round (#1341 overall) by Anaheim
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2001 Provo Pion Ana 39 127 34 42 34 10 14 21/18 .331 2002 Cedar Rapids Midw Ana 77 266 29 61 38 1 16 39/28 .229 .608 2003 Cedar Rapids Midw Ana 79 279 48 85 52 4 26 52/30 .305 .825Porter could flat out hit the ball hard. I remember one game when he hit a screaming line drive to 2B and the fielder had to take a step back to keep from falling over. Porter will more likely go down in Aggie lore for his amazing just-before-halftime TD catch when we upset #1 OU at Kyle Field in 2002.2002 (9)
Khalid Ballouli: 6th Round (#169 overall) by Milwaukee
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2002 Ogden Pion Mil 4-0 15 12 59.2 78 31 29 6 65/11 4.37 2003 Beloit Midw Mil 5-4 15 8 56.1 60 34 26 1 45/14 4.15Ryan Warpinski: 8th Round (#233 overall) in 2002 by Florida
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2002 Jamestown NYPL Fla 2-4 15 15 76.1 70 31 21 3 61/29 2.48Eric Reed: 9th Round (#263 overall) in 2002 by Florida
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI SB XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2002 Kane County Midw Fla 12 50 11 18 2 7 1 11/3 .360 .776 2002 Jamestown NYPL Fla 60 250 35 77 17 19 6 30/17 .308 .684 2003 Jupiter FSL Fla 134 514 86 154 25 25 23 83/52 .300 .727Reed is a friend of one of my buddies (Prince....check out his site....it's linked down the left side of my page and is always a great read). Eric won the Cape Cod batting crown in 2001 and is currently ranked as the #7 prospect in the Marlins' farm system after being named the organization's 2003 Player of the Year. Great bunter and speedster in CF.Todd Deininger: 9th Round (#270 overall) in 2002 by Chicago (AL)
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2002 Bristol APP ChW 0-1 19 0 39.0 26 9 6 1 41/20 1.38 2003 Kannoapolis SAL ChW 6-4 32 14 110.0 90 63 45 10 103/56 3.65Neal Stephenson: 17th Round (#496 overall) in 2002 by Baltimore
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2002 Aberdeen NYPL Bal 70 255 30 79 40 3 26 50/13 .310 .808 2003 Delmarva SAL Bal 124 437 56 99 48 10 36 137/42 .227 .662I'll never forget the 2001 Sunday Nebraska game (it came 2 games prior to the texas game I mentioned in Chris Russ' blurb). Neal hit a double into the left-centerfield gap to knock in the tying and winning runs in the bottom of the 9th to knock off #1 ranked Nebraska for the 2nd time in 3 games.Steven Ponder: 17th Round (#501 overall) in 2002 by Colorado
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2002 Casper Pion Col 1-0 16 5 31.2 24 27 23 2 28/38 6.54 2003 Tri-City Nwes Col 0-0 1 0 3.0 5 7 6 3 5/3 18.00All I remember about Ponder was that he wore #12.Ryan Wardinsky: 30th Round (#899 overall) by Philadelphia
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2002 Gulf Coast GCL Phi 23 59 8 13 8 0 1 10/10 .220 .588 2002 Batavia NYPL Phi 26 84 8 22 7 1 3 24/8 .262 .668 2003 Lakewood SAL Phi 2 4 1 0 0 0 0 3/1 .000 .200 2003 Clearwater FSL Phi 61 195 15 39 18 1 6 52/21 .200 .527Travis Wong: 48th Round (#1410 overall) by Cincinnati
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2002 Gulf Coast GCL Cin 52 180 27 57 45 10 20 23/12 .317 .920 2003 Gulf Coast GCL Cin 11 43 6 10 6 2 4 13/3 .233 .702 2003 Daytona Midw Cin 48 177 14 33 26 3 11 48/8 .186 .537 2003 Potomac Caro Cin 21 76 7 13 12 2 4 21/4 .171 .493If Twong hit a ball it would go really far. I remember during one of the Oklahoma State games Twong stepped in to pinch hit with the bases juiced and he hit a Grand Slam over the scoreboard in left-centerfield. It was a bomb!R.Meyer: Non-draft signee with Kansas City
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2002 Spokane Nwes KC 7 21 2 2 1 0 1 6/7 .095 .4642003 (9.5)
Overall, that’s a whole lot of guys that have signed in the last 4 years. Some are doing very well for themselves while others aren’t.Brian Finch: 2nd Round (#44 overall) by Baltimore
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Aberdeen NYPL Bal 1-3 8 5 28.0 19 9 6 0 29/5 1.93Scott Beerer: 2nd Round (#47 overall) by Colorado
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Casper Pion Col 0-2 5 3 14.0 23 13 12 3 10/5 7.71Beerer was a stud. He set the school record with 13 saves in 2003 while hitting .335 with 11 HRs. He was named a 1st team All-American. He came into Inspirations after he was drafted while I was working one day to buy a couple of Aggie baseball t-shirts before heading off to Casper.Logan Kensing: 2nd Round (#53 overall) by Florida
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Jamestown NYPL Fla 2-4 8 6 33.0 48 23 21 1 20/6 5.73 2003 Greensboro SAL Fla 0-2 4 4 20.0 18 10 10 2 11/5 4.50Matt Farnum: 7th Round (#196 overall) by Texas
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Spokane Nwes Tex 5-1 17 13 75.0 70 22 20 2 57/17 2.40I always like Farnum when he was here. I think it was becase he was a freshman when I was and he threw really well for us and I was proud he was representing the Class of '04.Kyle Parcus: 12th Round (#355 overall) by Philadelphia
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Batavia NYPL Phi 2-4 13 11 60.2 59 28 27 3 36/13 4.01Zach Dixon: 22nd Round (#644 overall) by Baltimore
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Aberdeen NYPL Bal 4-3 14 14 68.0 65 26 22 3 70/18 2.91Robert Ramsey: 26th Round (#779 overall) by Houston
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Tri City NYPL Hou 3-2 20 0 39.0 21 6 6 2 47/27 1.38Dwayne Pollok: 27th Round (#802 overall) by Chicago (AL)
Year Team Lg Org W-L G GS IP H R ER HR SO/BB ERA 2003 Bristol App ChW 0-0 11 0 8.2 8 3 3 0 8/4 3.12 2003 Winst.Salem Car ChW 0-1 14 0 20.2 25 12 9 1 14/2 3.92Ben Himes (played in 2001 for A&M): 9th Round (261 overall) by Cincinnati
Year Team Lg Org G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS 2003 Billings Pion Cin 62 246 40 78 42 7 19 87/19 .317 .824Ben transferred into A&M from UVA after being named to the Freshman All-American team in 2000. I remember him having a gun out in RF, but not hustling very much. He transferred to Oklahoma City after just one year with the Ags (hence the .5 credit I gave him as an Ag....that's not fair but he wasn't drafted as an Ag so I get to make up the rules). That's all I've got on him.Once camps start breaking and guys get assigned, I'll put together another post letting you all know where everyone is starting off their 2004 seasons.
I’ve been out to some minor league games and I would imagine that those guys are having the times of their lives. How insane would it be if you went to “work” at 3pm, had to take batting practice for an hour while goofing around with your buddies, then had to play a game of baseball at 7pm. Even if there is little hope of making it to the show, it’s got to be better than getting a 9-to-5....
Thursday April 1st, 2004
1:27amAg's Bats Come Alive During Week Games
3/30/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 R H E TAMU 0 2 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 5 10 14 0 Texas State 0 1 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 14 4 I made mention of this game at the very end of yesterday's post with regards to the pitching.
I didn't make the trip out to Round Rock to catch this game (played at Dell Diamond-Round Rock Express; AA for Astros) but I listened to most of it on the radio.
Ray disappointed me again on the hill, but the bullpen was solid with Creps and Rampy going a combined 6.1 IP with 4 H, 1 R (earned), and 6K's to 1 BB.
Offensively, Cory Patton went 3-for-6 (2b, 1 R, 1 RBI) & Shindewolf went 4-for-5 with 3 R and a 2B.
3/31/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E UT-San Antonio 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 - - - 1 5 3 TAMU 0 0 0 7 4 0 x - - - 11 12 0 Anytime you see a bunch of those little dashes (-) in the line score for innings 8 & 9 you know that someone had a bad night. Fortunately for the good guys it wasn't us.
Doug Frame threw a spectacular game (hands down his best thus far) and the bottom of our batting order came up huge for us.
Framie's line: IP H R ER SO/BB GSc 5.0 3 0 0 9/1 75In fact, this game was the 5th most dominant performance by an Aggie starter on the year (using GSc):Name Date GSc 1. Z.Jackson 3/27 89 2. Z.Jackson 2/14 84 3. J.Moore 2/21 82 4. K.Marlatt 2/29 75 5. D.Frame 3/31 75 6. J.Meyer 3/26 74I only stuck Meyer on there to show that 3 of our top 6 GScs have been in our last 5 games. That is promising, but keep in mind that the other 2 GScs were a 19 and a 53.I don't think that Frame is worthy of a weekend start yet, simply because he is either hit or miss.
As I mentioned yesterday in my Pitching Review, if Frame can be more efficient with his pitches, he will be more effective. That is exactly what happened last night (I had him at 65 pitches when he left the game).
Date P/IP ERA GSc 3/17 19.5 2.25 56 3/23 31.0 9.00 34 3/31 13.0 0.00 75After Frame's first start (the Sam Houston game), I made this comment:
Well, last night I noticed in the 3rd inning that Frame actually started from the stretch base runners or no base runners. I wish I had been paying close attention in the 1st and 2nd inning if he had been doing the same thing to start out.At the end of the second inning he already had 5 Ks. One thing that I noticed is that Doug may have some difficulty throwing out of the stretch as opposed to the windup. I say this because 2 of his 3 walks were to the batter right after he gave up a single. While most people might say that hadn't settled down after giving up the hit, I think that there is a bigger difference between the stretch and the windup than most people think. We talked about this in my "Coaching of Baseball" Kinesiology class.I don't know if I was just WAAAY off the mark with my original comment or if he's been really working with Coach Lawler and they've figured something out. It could have been a between innings lesson/adjustment because Framie gave up a triple and a double to start off the 1st and 2nd inning, respectively, and then just shut'em down.
1st Inning: 3B, K, K, F9 2nd Inning: 2B, K, K (looking), KWhatever it was, I loved the results because we needed a big start from him, especially since we're in the midst of 5 games in 6 days (starting on Tuesday going through this Sunday we only have Thursday off).Offensively, I'm not exactly sure what to make of our ABs. We were only able to reach 2B once in the first 3 innings. Then, for reasons unknown to me, UT-SA replaced their starting pitcher and the party started:
BB, 2B, 2B, 5-3, 1B, 1B, BB, FC-E1-E4, Sac F8, F9 Each player who reached base safely scoredI don't know if we just feast on lesser talented pitching (ie. bullpen) or we just clicked, but the runs kept on coming.As mentioned earlier, our bottom 5 hitters were HUGE for us:
AB R RBI BA Hitters #1-4: 12 3 4 .250 Hitters #5-9: 16 8 5 .563My scorecard has this cool little design on it that almost makes an "h" (the filled in boxes where we scored runs). Of the hitters #1-4, #2 hitter, Cliff Pennington was 2-for-4 with 1 R and 3 RBIs.Brian Bowe has DHed for us recently and it looks like he went to 'Lil Kim's place and stole the "Magic Stick". He's 6-for-11 with 5 R, 2 RBI and a triple in his last 3 games.
Anyways, a great win for the Ags as we prepare to take on a hot OSU, who swept Baylor this past weekend.
Olsen Field Attendance
Olsen Field has seen 36,885 fans come through the turnstiles over the last 6 games played there. For you non-math majors, that is an average of 6,142/game, even after last night's lackluster ~4,000.3/19 5,629 3/23 7,428 3/26 7,472 3/27 7,252 3/28 5,028 3/31 3,967One more note....
The Aggie will return home next Tuesday against Sam Houston. The game is scheduled for 7pm, but it was announced tonight that game time has been moved to 6pm....mark that down somewhere so you don't forget.....
Wednesday March 30th, 2004
posted at 11:30pm on 3/29/04A Deeper Look at the Aggie Hurlers
Going into the season Aggie fans knew that with most of our offense returning, the key to the season would be how our pitching staff holds up. We lost 8 pitchers to the draft (only 2 of those were graduating seniors) and the guys we did have come back had a total of 5 starts between them.
Even with those losses we had some guys step up early in the season and our pitching was looking pretty strong.
Here's the total overall numbers for our staff through the texas tech series:
Overall Aggie Pitching Player IP G/GS H R ER SO/BB ERA AGs J.Meyer 32.0 13/1 18 4 4 42/12 1.12 74 Z.Jackson 43.1 7/7 39 18 18 46/9 3.32 58 J.Moore 37.1 7/7 46 22 20 18/11 4.82 46 --------- B.Rampy 13.0 8/0 3 0 0 14/5 0.00 - C.Pennington 0.2 1/0 0 0 0 0/0 0.00 - A.Creps 17.0 7/0 13 6 5 15/6 2.65 - J.Cline 6.2 3/1 3 2 2 2/3 2.70 64 D.Frame 8.2 5/2 10 5 3 11/9 3.12 45 D.Donaldson 14.2 7/2 15 7 7 8/8 4.30 44 K.Nicholson 22.0 9/0 25 16 13 8/13 5.32 - K.Marlatt 23.2 7/3 26 17 16 15/4 6.08 42 R.Ray 24.0 6/5 33 19 17 27/11 6.38 47 B.Boening 2.2 2/0 5 4 3 0/2 10.12 - K.Whelan 2.1 2/0 4 3 3 5/1 11.57 - T.Soeder 6.0 4/1 8 8 8 4/4 12.00 29 B.Jackson 2.0 1/0 3 3 3 2/1 13.50 -Those numbers are pretty much what I was expecting, except some of the player's names that are next to those numbers are different than I expected.Where the Ags have run into some problems has been over the last 3 weeks. I think that the Santa Clara series (March 12-14) was the breaking point in the season so far with regards to the pitching. Going into that Friday night game our pitching staff had a team ERA of 3.48 and things were looking great for the Ags. Since then the pitching has been a nightmare (with a few exceptions).
Here's a before & after look at it:
Aggie Pitchers Before 3/12 v. Since 3/12 Before Since G/GS IP ERA AGs G/GS IP ERA AGs J.Meyer 8/0 18.1 1.47 - 5/1 13.2 0.66 74 Z.Jackson 4/4 24.1 3.70 59 3/3 19.0 3.79 55 J.Moore 4/4 25.1 4.62 57 3/3 12.0 9.75 31 B.Rampy 5/0 6.2 0.00 - 3/0 6.1 0.00 - C.Pennington 1/0 0.2 0.00 - ------------------ A.Creps 3/0 5.2 4.76 - 4/0 11.1 1.59 - J.Cline 1/0 1.1 0.00 - 2/1 5.1 3.38 64 D.Frame 3/0 2.2 0.00 - 2/2 6.0 4.50 45 D.Donaldson 2/2 7.1 4.91 44 5/0 7.0 3.86 - K.Nicholson 5/0 13.0 4.15 - 4/0 9.0 9.00 - K.Marlatt 3/2 14.1 3.77 52 4/1 8.1 10.80 23 R.Ray 4/4 19.0 4.74 49 2/1 5.0 12.60 40 B.Boening 2/0 2.2 10.12 - ------------------ K.Whelan 2/0 2.1 11.57 - ------------------ T.Soeder 3/1 5.1 8.44 29 1/0 0.2 40.50 - B.Jackson ------------------ 1/0 2.0 13.50 - -------------------------------------------------------- Totals 51/17 150.0 3.48 52 39/12 105.2 5.28 46That scares me. Let's look at each pitcher's performances during the time in question (since 3/12; listed in order of IP; *Estimated Pitch Count):Zach Jackson
ZachJack: 19 IP, 3.79 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sat 3/13 6.0 6 3 1 8/0 24 24 88* 58 Fri 3/19 4.0 12 6 6 5/0 23 23 83 19 Sat 3/27 9.0 3 1 1 14/2 30 36 144 89Jackson has been somewhat spotty. His 3/19 game v. Baylor was a disaster but his 3/13 game was solid and the 3/27 game vs. tech was dominant. That said he has been the most consistent of our weekend rotation and he's still our ace. Hopefully that game against Baylor was just a random bad day. Even Casey Fossum had a couple of those.Jason Meyer
Meyer: 13.2 IP, 0.66 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sat 3/13 1.1 0 0 0 2/2 5 6 33* - Wed 3/17 1.0 1 0 0 3/0 4 4 21* - Sat 3/20 3.2 1 0 0 3/0 11 12 34 - Sun 3/21 0.2 0 0 0 1/0 2 2 14 - Fri 3/26 7.0 3 1 1 11/4 23 27 126 74Meyer has been HUGE for us. I can't tell you how important his success has been for the team. It's always great to have a guy who can just shut an opponent down. He showed great stuff last Friday v. tech in his first collegiate start. If the innings don't catch up to him Jackson better watch out if he cherishes his "ace" status. Jason moving to the rotation hurts us in the bullpen, but we need him more in the rotation right now than down the LF line.Justin Moore
J-Mo: 12 IP, 9.75 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Fri 3/12 6.0 7 2 2 3/0 24 25 83* 53 Sat 3/20 4.1 10 5 5 1/3 21 25 79 21 Sun 3/28 1.2 6 6 6 1/1 9 13 47 19Moore was a big question mark entering the season. He was awarded C.E. "Pat" Olsen Outstanding Pitcher in 2001 & 2002 before missing almost all of last year with arm problems. He showed promise at early on in the season, but over his those 3 starts shown above, you can tell things have gone south quite quickly. I don't know anything about medicine or pitching, but I think that there are some signs of injury being shown. I hope I'm way off the mark. I'd like to state here that J-Mo is a goofy looking guy on the hill.Austin Creps
Creps: 11.1 IP, 1.59 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Fri 3/12 3.0 1 0 0 3/0 9 9 37* - Tue 3/16 2.0 0 0 0 1/0 6 6 21 - Fri 3/19 4.1 5 2 1 5/2 18 20 65 - Fri 3/26 2.0 3 1 1 1/0 7 8 29 -Creps has been quite a pleasant surprise for us. Mark Johnson had this to say about Creps in the media guide:I agree."Austin Creps is the first freshman that would be on my list. He threw very well for us this fall and I see him as a guy that will immediately help us."Kyle Nicholson
Nicholson: 9 IP, 9.00 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sun 3/14 2.0 2 1 1 0/0 7 7 26* - Wed 3/17 1.0 2 3 3 1/1 5 6 26* - Tue 3/23 3.0 4 2 1 1/2 12 15 50 - Sun 3/28 3.0 3 2 2 0/1 11 13 48 -Kyle Nicholson is one of the 6 guys we have on the squad with +20IP and he just hasn't been really solid. We can bring him in with a big lead but I'd look elsewhere in close games.Kyle Marlatt
Marlatt: 8.1 IP, 10.80 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sun 3/14 1.1 0 0 0 2/0 4 4 20* - Wed 3/17 2.0 2 0 0 2/0 7 8 31* - Sun 3/21 4.2 6 7 7 3/2 16 22 70 23 Sun 3/28 1.1 5 3 3 0/0 9 10 35 -Kyle Marlatt threw great in his first start of the year, but hasn't showed much since. I suppose that he can bridge the gap between the starter to the closer, but I'd start an inning with him (not bring him in mid-inning to finish off someone else's mess).Dan has thrown great out of the bullpen, but poorly in his starts. I like that he can go 2-3 innings in relief, especially since our starter haven't been going deep consistently.Dan Donaldson
Donaldson: 7 IP, 3.86 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sun 3/14 1.1 0 0 0 2/0 4 4 20* - Fri 3/19 0.2 1 0 0 0/0 3 3 13 - Sun 3/21 0.0 0 0 0 0/1 0 1 5 - Tue 3/23 2.0 1 0 0 2/0 8 9 33 - Sun 3/28 3.0 2 3 3 0/3 11 14 49 - Blake Rampy
FishRampy: 6.1 IP, 0.00 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sat 3/13 1.2 0 0 0 2/1 5 6 29* - Wed 3/17 1.0 0 0 0 1/0 3 3 15* - Sun 3/21 3.2 2 0 0 2/3 12 15 50 -Rampy has been phenomenal for us. As a true freshman he has given up a total of 3 hits and 0 runs on the season and has become the closer for us. Haven't seen him on the hill for a while, but we'll see him during the week sometime I'm sure.Doug Frame
Frame: 6 IP, 4.50 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Wed 3/17 4.0 3 1 1 7/3 14 19 78* 56 Tue 3/23 2.0 5 4 2 2/2 11 13 62 34Frame hasn't thrown spectacularly, but I don't think anyone really expected him to. Framie's problem is his pitch counts. He can rack up the K's, but when he's at 50-60 pitches before the 3rd inning we're just not going to see too much of him. He doesn't walk a tremendous amount of guys but he goes to very deep counts on a lot of his hitter. If he could be more efficient I think he'd be more successful.Jon Michael Cline
JMCline: 5.1 IP, 3.38 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Tue 3/16 5.0 1 0 0 0/1 15 18 67 64 Tue 3/23 0.1 1 2 2 0/2 2 4 24 -Cline's overall ERA of 2.70 is a bit deceptive since he has a total of 6.2 IP on the season. He just doesn't really impress me with his stuff, and his delivery seems so rushed that I think things won't be great for him for long.Robert Ray
RRay: 5 IP, 12.60 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Sun 3/14 4.0 6 3 3 3/1 18 20 70* 40 Tue 3/23 1.0 5 4 4 1/1 8 9 40 -I like Robert Ray, but quite honestly, he has been the biggest disappointment of the pitching staff. He wowed us last season with a sparkling 2.19 ERA last year in 3 starts and 12 appearances (37 IP, 42 K's). Then he went into the summer leagues and lit up the Jayhawk League with a measly 0.86 ERA in his 21 innings there (29 K's). He is just out of gas. As I said with J-Mo, I don't know anything about pitching or medicine, but there could be something wrong here. As you can see, he has given up 7 ERs in his last 5 innings pitched which does not help his 4.74 ERA from the rest of his season. I thought that moving him to the bullpen would help....if his performance last Tuesday is any indication, it hasn't.The Rest
B.Jackson: 2.0 IP, 13.50 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Wed 3/17 2.0 3 3 3 1/2 9 11 40 - Soeder: 0.2 IP, 40.50 ERA Date IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP GSc Tue 3/23 0.2 1 3 3 1/1 3 6 22 -Brent Jackson and Todd Soeder are pretty much non-factors for the Ags. They only see the mound when we were either up by a ton or down by a ton.Now that we've looked at each pitcher's contributions, or lack thereof, since 3/12 we can look to see the differences between these guys splits as relievers and starters since then. Some guys have excelled in a different role while others simply haven't.
Break Down: As Starter v. As Reliever Since 3/12 Name IPs ERAs IPr ERAr IPt ERAt Z.Jackson 19.0 3.79 0.0 0.00 19.0 3.79 J.Meyer 7.0 1.23 6.2 0.00 13.2 0.66 J.Moore 12.0 9.75 0.0 0.00 12.0 9.75 A.Creps 0.0 0.00 11.1 1.59 11.1 1.59 K.Nicholson 0.0 0.00 9.0 9.00 9.0 9.00 K.Marlatt 4.2 13.50 3.2 8.44 8.1 10.80 D.Donaldson 0.0 0.00 7.0 3.86 7.0 3.86 B.Rampy 0.0 0.00 6.1 0.00 6.1 0.00 D.Frame 6.0 4.50 0.0 0.00 6.0 4.50 J.Cline 5.0 0.00 0.1 54.00 5.1 3.38 R.Ray 4.0 6.75 1.0 36.00 5.0 12.60 B.Jackson 0.0 0.00 2.0 13.50 2.0 13.50 T.Soeder 0.0 0.00 0.2 40.50 0.2 40.50 ----------------------------------------------- Totals 57.2 5.46 48.0 5.06 105.2 5.28You can see that our bullpen has a weak 5.06 ERA....but our starters have a miserable 5.46 ERA. Because of that we've had to move some of our bullpen studs into the rotation (i.e. Meyer and I think Creps will follow shortly). Doing this is going to obviously hurt the bullpen but hopefully it'll help the starting rotation.GSc For Aggie Games (bold since 3/12) Z.Jackson J.Moore R.Ray 2/14 84 2/15 48 2/15 38 2/20 58 2/21 82 2/22 51 2/27 31 2/28 41 2/27 70 3/07 64 3/06 57 3/05 38 3/13 58 3/12 53 3/14 40 3/19 19 3/20 21 3/27 89 3/28 19 D.Donaldson K.Marlatt D.Frame 2/17 49 2/29 75 3/17 56 2/28 38 3/09 29 3/23 34 3/21 23 2/29 T.Soeder 29 3/16 J.Cline 64 3/26 J.Meyer 74 AGs Before: 52 AGs Since: 46The huge drop off in GSc scores really bothers me. One huge factor of the GSc is IP. In the calculation of the GSc each out you get counts as a point and with each completed inning you get after the 4th inning you pick up an additional 2 points. Let's look to see if that is part of the decline in AGs....Average IP/Start Before Since GS IP AVG GS IP AVG J.Meyer 0 0.0 0.0 1 7.0 7.0 Z.Jackson 4 24.1 6.0 3 19.0 6.1 J.Moore 4 25.1 6.1 3 12.0 4.0 D.Donaldson 2 7.1 3.2 0 0.0 0.0 K.Marlatt 2 13.1 6.6 1 4.2 4.2 R.Ray 4 19.0 4.8 1 4.0 4.0 T.Soeder 1 4.0 4.0 0 0.0 0.0 J.Cline 0 0.0 0.0 1 5.0 5.0 D.Frame 0 0.0 0.0 2 6.0 3.0 ------------------------------------ Totals 17 93.1 5.4 12 57.2 4.8 Starters % of IP IPs IPr IPt %IPs %IPr Before 93.1 55.2 149.0 63% 37% Since 57.2 48.0 105.2 55% 45%Bingo. There's our problem. Our starters are only throwing 55% of our total innings compared to 63% from earlier in the year. That is putting a big strain on our bullpen.The way college baseball works is that with the exception of a stud closer, you usually throw your best pitchers as starters. If our starters (the best pitchers) aren't in the game as long then we probably have our not-best pitchers throwing. While our relievers aren't chumps, the Big XII is too strong of a conference for us to coast by with our starters not seeing the 5th inning. It's going to catch up to us and our bullpen will become less and less effective.
After looking at everything, we've just got to get our starters deeper into the games and we should be fine from the pitching standpoint. After Meyer and ZachJack our starting pitching looks a bit suspect. Hopefully we can change things back to what they were a month and a half ago and get some good starts from other players. I don’t know how to do that, but we’re lucky that we have the 2003 Assistant Coach of the Year on our staff as our pitching coach (Jim Lawler).
NOTE: This was what I was working on while I was listening to the game v. Texas State. The pitching in that game went as follows:
IP H R ER SO/BB GSc R.Ray 4.2 9 4 4 5/0 53 A.Creps 3.0 4 1 1 3/1 - B.Rampy 3.1 1 0 0 3/0 -Somewhat sadly, that actually lower's Ray's ERA since 3/12 from 12.60 down to 10.24. His overall went up slightly from 6.38 to 6.59.
Tuesday March 30th, 2004
12:01 amBaseball "Crushes"
Everyone had an elementary or middle school crush on some girl/guy that they were too shy to make eye contact with, let alone talk to. An anonymous Valentine’s card was the best you could do (although it's not as cool when they read it to the class and laugh about it....let me tell you, that hurts).
Even now-a-days, as my wedding date closes in, I still have crushes.....only these aren't crushes on girls. They're also not crushes on guys either. Well, sorta.
Ya see, each spring as I anxiously look forward to the upcoming season I get this feeling in my stomach about several players....some are guys I think are going to have big years....Others just guys I really like to watch play the game of baseball. They may have had a monster year last year, or they may have been riding the pine. Every situation is different and is brought up by some random source or even a single comment written about a guy.
For example, last year I thought that Jimmie Rollins was going to tear it up. Not only did he have Pat Burrell (coming off of a monster 2002 season), and Bob Abreu (a consistent All-Star caliber OFer) hitting behind him but he also had newly acquired Jim Thome sitting there to drive him in. On top of all of that, he spent the off-season working with Tony Gwynn on his swing.
How can he not be an All-Star?
We all know that a "crush" doesn't necessarily work out, as was the case with Rollins.
Some recent past crushes include: Pujols, Vernon Wells, Pat Burrell, Carlos Pena, Josh Beckett, Johnny Damon, Rollins, Gavin Floyd, Shawn Green, Colt Griffin, Rocco Baldelli, Carl Crawford, & Adam Dunn.
I got this idea from listening to the wonderful "Dan Patrick Radio Show". For those of you unfortunate souls who don't get Dan & Co., former Red's pitcher (and member of the "Nasty Boys"), Rob Dibble is Dan's co-host. You gotta love Dibs. Anyways, Dibs (a heterosexual) has these "man crushes" on some athletes that he thinks are good looking guys. It's a pretty funny running joke on the show and this is sort of a spin off of Dib's "man crushes".
Really what the "baseball crush" is in my mind is the thought that this player is going to be gold this year. I get kind of excited at the thought of his stats or the potential of his stats. These are the guys that I look for each morning when I wake up and check out the box scores from the previous night's games.
Here's the list of guys on my "baseball crush" list for the 2004 season. Players can be added or dropped as the season progresses. Like I said, some are big names and some are not....
Looking over that list, it's interesting to see that Giles and Manny are the only two guys +30 years old on the list. In fact, 6 of the 14 players listed are 24 or younger.
- Mark Prior (23)
- Albert Pujols (24))
- Tim Hudson (28)
- Derek Lee (28)
- Mark Teixeira (24)
- Hank Blalock (23)
- Brian Giles (33)
- Khalil Greene (24)
- Xavier Nady (25)
- Mark Kotsay (28)
- Bobby Kielty (27)
- Bobby Crosby (24)
- Manny Ramirez (32)
- Jeff Weaver (27)
My minor league list looks like this:
The minor leaguers aren't so much players that I think will break out, but players that I'm interested in following because I watched them play college ball, or played with them in high school, or because they are big prospects. I suppose they're not crushes....yet.
- Steve Stanley (OAK)
- Brad Sullivan (OAK)
- Rickie Weeks (MIL)
- Prince Fielder (MIL)
- Tony Gwynn Jr. (MIL)
- Josh Barfield (SD)
- David Murphy (BOS)
- Brad Halsey (NYY)
- John Hudgins (TEX)
- Vincent Sinisi (TEX)
- Matt Farnum (TEX)
- Scott Beerer (COL)
- Eric Reed (FLA)
- Carlos Quentin (ARI)
I have a collegiate list also, but it isn't as comprehensive simply because I am not as familiar with the division as a whole. It looks a bit like this:
Mainly, the college and big league lists make me giddy because the players on that list have the potential to accumulate stats that dreams are made of.
- Cory Patton-Texas A&M
- Jeff Niemann-Rice
- Phillip Humber-Rice
- Wade Townsend-Rice
- Sam Fuld-Stanford
- Danny Putnam-Stanford
- Jered Weaver-Long Beach State
Prior and Pujols are simply just the most incredible specimen of athletes that have come along in a long time and for them to be so successful after the short amount of time they've been in the big leagues just amazes me. If I had to take 2 players to start a franchise with, those two would be it.
I'll try to keep you posted on my "baseball crush" list as the season progresses and maybe later this week I'll throw some spring training stats at you.
"Opening Day"
Today was opening day for Major League Baseball. Is anyone else excited? I'm not. This was the most anticlimactic way to start it off for everyone outside the city of New York. Games in Japan, then back to U.S. for more spring training, then the second series of the year for the Yanks and D-Rays. Way to go Bud.
Monday March 29th, 2004
2:08amThe Quest Comes to an End
My 36 game journey came to an end yesterday afternoon at 1pm. After hours and hours of Aggie athletics I, Ryan, finally earned my free authentic Texas A&M baseball jersey thanks to the 12th Man Rewards Card program.
Many of you will remember when I started this quest waaaay back in December and you probably forgot all about it....but I didn't.
I saw wins, losses, embarrassments, personal records, HRs, 3 pointers, dunks, doubles, softballs, baseballs, basketballs. I yelled loud, I sat quietly, I said some things I probably shouldn’t; I thought some things I should have said. I celebrated, and I moped. Most importantly though....I had fun.
This started off as a quest, a personal achievement that I was only doing to get my free jersey. Instead, I found that I really enjoy basketball games and that lady basketball can be just as exciting as men's.
Here is the list of Aggie sporting events that I attended from Day 1-the end....
- LBB: 12/17 v. Louisiana-Monroe
- LBB: 12/21 v. Marshall
- MBB: 12/21 v. Grambling State
- LBB: 12/30 v. Houston
- LBB: 01/03 v. Texas State
- LBB: 01/14 v. Oklahoma
- MBB: 01/17 v. Kansas
- MBB: 01/24 v. texas tech
- LBB: 01/25 v. texas
- MBB: 01/31 v. texas
- LBB: 01/31 v. Iowa State
- MBB: 02/11 v. Nebraska
- MBB: 02/14 v. Oklahoma
- BASE: 02/15 v. A&M Corpus Christi G1
- BASE: 02/15 v. A&M Corpus Christi G2
- SB: 02/18 v. Houston G1
- SB: 02/18 v. Houston G2
- LBB: 02/18 v. K-State
- BASE: 02/21 v. South Alabama
- SB: 02/22 v. A&M Corpus Christi
- BASE: 02/22 v. South Alabama
- MBB: 02/25 v. Baylor
- MBB: 02/28 v. Colorado
- BASE: 02/28 v. New Mexico
- BASE: 02/28 v. Arkansas
- BASE: 02/29 v. Arkansas
- BASE: 02/29 v. New Mexico
- FB: 03/10 Night Of Champions
- BASE: 03/12 v. Santa Clara
- BASE: 03/13 v. Santa Clara
- BASE: 03/14 v. Santa Clara
- BASE: 03/17 v. Sam Houston
- BASE: 03/19 v. Baylor
- BASE: 03/23 v. Rice
- BASE: 03/26 v. texas tech
- BASE: 03/28 v. texas tech
Ags Win Series v. tech 2-1
3/27/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E texas tech 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1 3 0 TAMU 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 x - 4 7 0 Zach Jackson stepped it up BIG for the Ags.
IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP GSc 9.0 3 1 1 2 14 30 36 144 89That was the best pitched game for the Ags all season (GSc wise).At the plate, Cory Patton kept his bat going strong with another double while Austin Boggs stayed white hot hitting his 4th HR and going 2-for-4 again.
I wasn't able to get out to the game on Saturday so I don't really have any other insight for ya....sorry.
3/28/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E texas tech 2 4 3 0 0 2 2 0 1 - 14 16 2 TAMU 0 1 2 0 0 0 1 1 0 - 5 4 0 J-Mo got knocked around the yard for the 3rd consecutive time causing me to wonder what is wrong. I'm going to take a closer look at our pitching staff later in the week, so I'll get to more on him then.
Honestly, I didn't think that tech's pitchers looked very good at all. The first guy they threw was a big 'ole boy with really baggy clothes (circa 1920s) and he looked like meat. On paper he was their ace. We picked up 3 against him before they brought in this tiny guy (when I first saw him I said, "Did that last guy birth him?"....it was funny, I promise) who threw from between 4 and 5 o'clock. We shoulda pounded him too but we didn't. They guy went 4.1 IP with only 1 hit and 1 run against him.
Offensively we didn't have much going. Shindewolf was 1-for-4 with a 2-R HR and Brian Bowe was 2-for-4 with 2 runs scored. That was about it.
I said going into the series that 2 out of 3 would be ok and that's what we got.
Big XII Standings Big 12 Overall texas 4-2 (.667) 28-4 (.875) Okla 4-2 (.667) 15-10 (.600) Nebraska 2-1 (.667) 16-5 (.762) K-State 2-1 (.667) 19-7 (.731) TAMU 3-3 (.500) 23-6 (.793) Baylor 2-4 (.333) 9-17 (.346) Mizzou 1-2 (.333) 20-6 (.769) Kansas 1-2 (.333) 22-11 (.667) Ok.State 1-2 (.333) 17-9 (.654) tech 1-2 (.333) 17-9 (.654)We've got 5 games between today and next Sunday (thanks to the UT-SA makeup game for this Wednesday night) so let's hope that our pitching can look more like Friday & Saturday night and less like Sunday afternoon.
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