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Saturday May 31st, 2008
4:20pmAgs Thwarp Illinois-Chicago
It was a blowout, 15-1. Their one run came in the first inning and it was unearned.
Brooks Raley went 8 innings and was excellent allowing only 5 hits, and a walk while striking out 5. Shane Minks (donning #55) came in to nail it down in the 9th inning. We did exactly what we needed to do and that was win big and not go into the bullpen.
Luke Anders was 4-for-4 at the plate with 5 runs scored (tied a school record) and missed the cycle by a triple. Our 4-5-6 hitters (Anders, Ruggiano, & Darby Brown) were 9-for-12 with 10 runs and 7 RBIs.
In the early game on Friday, Houston did beat Dallas Baptist, which means we face Houston at 6:30pm this evening in the winners bracket. The DBU/UIC game just finished and I'm pleased to announce that Dallas Baptist has been sent home. Wow.
Tomorrow afternoon UIC will face the loser of our game tonight and the winner of that game will face the winner of our game tonight.
UH threw Wes Muscik against Dallas Baptist, and closer Chase Dempsay went 2.1 innings. We'll be seeing righty John Touchton in our game tonight and he's going to be a lot tougher than what we saw last night. Game 2 is the most important in a Regional....if you're in the losers bracket you either win or go home....if you're in the winners bracket you can go into Sunday needing to win only one of a potential two games.
Sunday's games have been picked up to be televised.
FSN Southwest and FSN Houston will show Sunday's elimination game at 12:30 p.m. (except in the Dallas-Fort Worth market).Sunday's championship game at 6:30 p.m. will be carried on participating FSN Plus affiliates due to prior programming commitments on FSN Southwest and FSN Houston.
If a final championship game is necessary on Monday, it will be televised at 6:30 p.m. on FSN Houston, FSN Southwest (Southern region markets) and participating FSN Plus affiliates (Northern region markets).
All games will be available throughout the region and nationwide live on DirecTV, Dish Network and Fox College Sports Central (see schedule below for channel numbers).
In our pairing regional down in Houston there has been a little shake up. St. Johns knocked off the longhorns last night before Rice snuck out with a victory over Sam Houston. This afternoon, texas is beating the pulp out of Sam (its 13-1 in the 7th). Rice plays St. Johns this evening.
BTHO Houston! WHOOP!
Thursday May 29th, 2008
12:01amCollege Station Regional Preview
My first Aggie baseball season was 2000 so that makes this my fourth Regional experience and my third at Olsen Field.
I'm really, really excited but I know that crazy things happen in the NCAA tournament so I'm trying to keep myself grounded. I think we got one of the better Regionals. I think that the 2-seed and the 3-seed are going to beat each other up for us which is going to be really important for us. That said, the other teams in our Regional are probably thinking the same thing because they're playing a team that has been streaky and cold over the last 2 weeks. Thankfully for us we saw great signs of the team we are capable of being in our last two games.
The team that can get the farthest with their pitching is going to advance so we need to make sure we keep our bullpen fresh and score a ton of runs....but that goes for all the teams.
In Regional play, everyone's weaknesses get exposed because of the number of games you have to play in such a short time. The winner is going to be the team who is able to minimize the impact of their own weakness.
Enough of that, here's what you guys came for.
Again, here is the schedule for the weekend.
FRIDAY, MAY 30 GAME 1: Houston vs Dallas Baptist, 12:30 p.m. GAME 2: Illinois-Chicago vs Texas A&M, 6:30 p.m. SATURDAY, MAY 31 GAME 3: Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2, 12:30 p.m. GAME 4: Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2, 6:30 p.m. SUNDAY, JUNE 1 GAME 5: Winner Game 3 vs Loser Game 4, 12:30 p.m. GAME 6: Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5, 6:30 p.m. MONDAY, JUNE 2 GAME 7: Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5 (if necessary), 6:30 p.m.
Let's get to know our opponents.
Here are previews of each of our opponents and here it all is in a PDF format so you can print it out and bring it with you to the ballpark.
4. Illinois-Chicago; 34-20 (Horizon 17-6); RPI #167
Website
2008 Media GuideThe Horizon League Regular Season AND Tournament Champions will be making their second trip to Texas this season after playing in the QTI Baylor Classic up in Waco at the beginning of the season. They have played a few common opponents with us in Baylor (0-1) & Stephen F. Austin (1-0). They've also played Tulane (0-3), Vanderbilt (1-3), Purdue (1-0).
The Flames three main starters are Mike Kool (#17), Derri Miramontes (#20), and Grant Kohlstaedt (#29) and their three most used arms out of the bullpen are Adam Worthington, Don Phillis, and Chris Kovacevich. Miramontes was the Horizon League Newcomer of the Year while Worthington was named the conference's Reliever of the Year. They were the Flames two All-Conference selections (both 2nd team).
40+ IP G/GS IP H R ER SO/BB HR ERA BAA ========================================================= 17 M.Kool........ 18/13 87.1 101 48 38 33/23 6 3.92 .299 20 D.Miramontes.. 17/13 92.1 97 41 34 45/22 2 3.31 .279 29 C.Kohlstaedt.. 15/12 71.1 92 58 49 41/31 6 6.18 .314 --------------------------------------------------------- 21 A.Worthington. 29/0 42.1 37 17 14 36/14 1 2.98 .233 24 D.Phillis..... 24/2 50.2 63 32 31 39/17 6 5.51 .309 18 C.Kovacevich.. 19/7 44.2 61 36 29 23/8 5 5.84 .330I'd hate to be the guy to sew the names on the backs of their unis.
UIC's Brett SchaeferThey have a strong offensive club with 8 of their top 10 hitters at .300 or better. 4-hole hitter and first baseman Brett Schaefer is their main man and I don't know how he didn't make All-Conference.
AB R H RBI SO/BB HR XBH SB/A BA OBP SLG =============================================================== 22 B.Schaefer.. 198 50 76 58 16/20 10 26 6/6 .384 .453 .626 5 S.McGuiggan. 219 44 82 38 24/18 3 18 14/21 .374 .439 .507 13 J.Carr...... 188 41 62 37 19/7 4 22 7/11 .330 .364 .500 7 T.Altavilla. 137 29 44 18 38/12 1 10 19/27 .321 .396 .416 27 K.Coddington 198 35 61 29 11/25 3 19 2/3 .308 .395 .444 11 T.Rubio..... 175 39 53 22 23/20 0 9 14/20 .303 .427 .354 14 R.Garcia.... 163 32 49 26 28/26 3 10 6/9 .301 .424 .411 9 J.Ganek..... 161 20 45 33 41/8 2 14 4/7 .280 .318 .398 3 A.Leonard... 191 28 50 21 13/17 2 13 14/16 .262 .321 .356Last season Coach Childress set up the Regional with David Newmann, our Saturday starter, opening things up on Friday. However, in the press conference after the regional announcements, he said he couldn't see the rotation changing. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand you want to save your best starters for the tougher teams but on the other hand you don't want to get surprised and sent into the loser’s bracket. Losing your first game does make it VERY difficult as you have to win 4 in a row to advance. If you win your first two you set up for a possible 3 game weekend.
The biggest thing is winning our first game and doing it in a fashion so that we don't need to use Thebeau or Starling. A big help might be a healthy Jordan Chambless. He threw a dominant 1.1 innings (with 3 Ks) against UT-Arlington on May 13th but did not take the mound for any of following six games we've played (although I know he was warming up in the Sunday texas game). He could be a huge booster to the bullpen, especially for a group of teams that have never seen him before and don't have a good book on him.
I hope UIC enjoys their trip to College Station but I also hope it is short lived.
3. Houston; 39-22 (CUSA 14-10); RPI #42
Website
2008 Media Guide
CUSA Tournament ChampsAm I the only one who hopes that UH leaves their incandescent unis at home this year?
Rayner Noble has built a very solid program at his alma-mater. The Cougars have advanced to Regionals six times since 1999 and moved on to Super Regionals three more times ('00, '02, & '03)....both of which have been more frequent for the Cougars than for us. In the 2003 Regionals at Olsen Field they beat us twice on Sunday to advance. As a fan, that was the most painful day of baseball I can recall experiencing.
The Cougars are hot right now and following a sweep at the hands of Rice they have torn through their opponents going 9-1 in their final ten games. While 8 of those were against teams that didn't make the 64 team tournament they did take two games against East Carolina who is a 2-seed out in the Conway Regional (Costal Carolina is the host & 1-seed out there).
This is a team that is young on the mound but is quite experienced at the plate. They only have two arms with ERAs below 4.00 (and one is at 3.98) but their top two starters have the ability to go fairly deep into the game. Here are the stats for all the guys who have thrown 20+ innings on the season:
G/GS IP H R ER SO/BB HR ERA BAA ======================================================== 4 W.Musick...... 16/14 90.1 88 49 41 79/40 10 4.08 .255 34 J.Touchton.... 21/9 63.1 65 31 28 57/20 5 3.98 .262 31 J.Ray......... 17/11 61.2 86 53 46 54/26 6 6.71 .332 9 C.Dempsay..... 30/1 57.2 41 21 16 46/18 3 2.50 .210 21 T.Stuckey..... 19/8 57.2 51 36 35 50/35 8 5.46 .244 44 D.Joseph...... 23/11 53.1 62 36 32 38/29 1 5.40 .287 11 C.Wright...... 27/1 46.0 55 28 21 44/14 5 4.11 .294 30 B.Tully....... 18/2 41.0 45 28 26 29/24 5 5.71 .285 8 J.Raviele..... 18/1 23.2 40 19 17 12/15 4 6.46 .381I bolded their four top arms. Wes Musick (LHP) is their Friday night starter (and second team All-CUSA) so I imagine he'll throw against Dallas Baptist on Friday, hopefully nailing down a win. That would likely give righty John Touchton, who has been their Saturday starter down the stretch, their second game. They've thrown 4 different Sunday pitchers in the last 5 weeks so that is a spot that isn't quite nailed down.
Here is how Noble has used his pitching staff dating back over the last 13 games (2 CUSA series, the CUSA tournament and a non-conference game against UT-A).
IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP ============================================ ============================================ 5/09 W.Musick... 3.2 8 8 4 2/3 20 24 94* L 5/10 J.Touchton. 6.1 5 1 1 5/3 22 27 94* 5/15 W.Musick... 7.1 2 2 2 5/5 23 28 114* W 5/16 J.Touchton. 7.0 7 2 2 4/2 27 29 107* W 5/21 W.Musick... 6.2 7 3 3 5/3 26 29 107* 5/23a J.Touchton. 4.2 9 4 4 2/2 23 26 97* 5/24b W.Musick... 1.1 1 0 0 2/2 5 8 35 IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP ============================================ ============================================ 5/10 C.Dempsay.. 1.0 5 7 6 0/2 7 11 50 L 5/10 C.Wright... 0.2 2 0 0 0/0 3 3 7 5/15 C.Dempsay.. 1.2 1 0 0 1/0 6 6 26 5/11 C.Wright... 0.1 1 0 0 0/0 2 2 4 5/16 C.Dempsay.. 0.1 0 0 0 0/0 1 1 5 S 5/13 C.Wright... 1.0 0 0 0 2/0 3 3 12 5/17 C.Dempsay.. 1.2 0 0 0 1/0 4 4 11 S 5/16 C.Wright... 1.2 3 1 1 0/0 8 8 21 5/23a C.Dempsay.. 1.0 1 1 1 0/0 4 4 14 L 5/21 C.Wright... 1.1 1 0 0 2/0 5 5 18 5/23b C.Dempsay.. 3.2 1 0 0 3/1 10 13 56 S 5/23a C.Wright... 2.1 2 0 0 2/1 8 9 26 5/25 C.Dempsay.. 2.0 0 0 0 1/0 5 6 17 W 5/24b C.Wright... 1.0 2 1 1 0/0 5 5 15 W 5/25 C.Wright... 0.2 3 0 0 0/0 4 4 14 IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP ============================================ ============================================ 5/11 D.Joseph... 2.1 3 2 2 3/0 10 11 34 5/09 J.Raviele.. 2.0 7 4 4 0/1 14 15 50 5/13 D.Joseph... 2.0 1 0 0 0/0 6 6 20* W 5/13 J.Raviele.. 2.0 6 2 2 0/1 12 13 36 5/17 D.Joseph... 3.2 6 3 3 3/0 16 16 48* 5/24a J.Raviele.. 1.0 2 0 0 0/0 4 4 7 5/21 D.Joseph... 2.0 1 1 1 2/1 7 8 31 5/25 J.Raviele.. 2.1 2 1 1 2/4 7 11 48* 5/24a D.Joseph... 3.2 3 2 0 3/1 16 18 61* IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP ============================================ ============================================ 5/11 J.Ray...... 2.0 6 6 6 0/2 12 14 41* L 5/11 B.Tully.... 3.1 5 4 4 1/2 13 17 67 5/17 J.Ray...... 0.2 1 0 0 0/1 3 4 15 5/17 B.Tully.... 3.0 3 2 2 1/2 12 14 57 W 5/24b J.Ray...... 6.2 2 0 0 6/2 21 24 90* W 5/23b B.Tully.... 5.1 3 1 1 3/2 18 21 67* W IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF NP ============================================ ============================================ 5/09 M.Taylor... 2.1 2 1 1 1/1 9 10 43 5/25 B.Bruce.... 1.0 0 0 0 2/1 3 4 21 5/13 M.Taylor... 2.0 3 2 2 1/4 9 13 53 5/24a T.Stuckey.. 4.1 6 3 3 1/2 17 20 72 W 5/25 M.Taylor... 3.0 3 1 1 0/2 9 12 40Musick, Joseph, Raviele, Taylor, and Stuckey are all lefties. As you can see, Wright's season ERA isn't very good but he's been excellent of late. Dempsey, a freshman, is their closer and has also been good coming down the stretch.
FYI, in our game against Houston we saw Jared Ray start with Taylor Hammack, Matt Taylor, and Ricky Hargrove out of the pen.
I wouldn't really mind seeing Scott Migl throw against Houston as he has faced them twice in his career and has been very good against them.
IP H R ER SO/BB HR AB BF G/F PC GSc 04/17/07 S.Migl....... 4.0 4 0 0 5/1 0 16 17 1/6 67 - W 04/08/08 S.Migl....... 7.2 5 5 2 6/2 0 29 33 8/8 108 59 WI don't think that Coach Childress is going to really throw the rotation out of whack just to get that match up but if it just worked out then it would be something to keep in mind.
Recently their batting order has been fairly consistent in the following order:
AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB SB/A BA OBP SLG =============================================== 5 Blake Kelso ss 252 56 73 34 3 21 25/37 19/26 .290 .397 .409 12 Jake Stewart lf 234 69 80 48 14 40 26/40 24/28 .342 .460 .641 14 Bryan Pounds 3b 234 55 89 64 9 28 40/34 7/10 .380 .453 .581 13 Jimmy Cesario 1b 198 45 59 35 7 20 27/28 11/14 .298 .395 .475 2 Ryan Lormand 2b 247 56 79 54 4 23 29/20 29/31 .320 .378 .453 15 Zak Presley cf 186 32 57 29 1 12 40/24 14/21 .306 .396 .398 30 Bryan Tully rf 177 31 50 26 3 15 42/20 15/16 .282 .390 .412 28 Caleb Ramsey dh 70 5 17 10 0 3 17/6 3/4 .243 .299 .300 20 Chris Wallace c 134 21 41 28 0 7 44/16 7/7 .306 .417 .366They've swapped Ramsey and Wallace around a couple of times recently and sometimes Austin Goolsby will give Wallace a break behind the dish. Pounds & Stewart were both named 1st team All-CUSA while Kelso is a freshman playing SS for them, which is pretty impressive. They have 5 upperclassmen in their starting 9 (4 of which are seniors).
You can tell that the Cougars like to run on the bases. I'm talking '07 Aggie style running. They've got 141 swipes with an 81% success rate. When we played them in early April they had three stolen bases in three attempts (two by Kelso and one by Pounds) but that was against Brian Ruggiano not Kevin Gonzalez, who has been much better behind the dish for us defensively.
After 2003, the Cougs still scare me but we are definitely the better team. I'm hoping for a UH victory on Friday afternoon.
2. Dallas Baptist; 37-17; RPI #29
Website
2008 Media GuideBox Score: 5/01/08
Box Score: 5/02/08
Box Score: 5/03/08Dallas Baptist is interesting. They are an independent team, which means that like Notre Dame in football they have no conference affiliation. This is their first Regional bid in school history but that doesn't mean too much because this is a team that has put together a great resume and has really earned their spot as an at-large team.
Even though DBU is virtually unknown nationally as a 2-seed we certainly won't overlook them because we've faced them and understand what they're capable of. One disadvantage of them recently visiting Olsen Field is that they won't be quite as wide-eyed playing in front of our crowd.
They have wins over a lot of very good programs, highlighted by two wins over Rice and a win against us. That said, they've lost a lot of games to good teams....more than I feel a 2-seed should. Here's a run down of the notable teams from their schedule and their record against them.
TCU 0-3 Rice 2-0 Oral Roberts 2-2 OU 0-2 Baylor 1-1 Sam 1-1 A&M 1-2 tt 2-1They also took 5 of 6 from Northern Colorado ;)
There was some initial concern with DBU being in our regional because they have not played any Sunday games this season because they're Dallas Baptist University. If it comes to it they will play on Sunday during the post-season. I got all bent out of shape over nothing.
Victor Black, while not really having great numbers, started in their wins over Baylor, Sam, and both their wins over Rice. He started the second game against us and we lit him up for 7 ERs in 3 innings (a result of 6 walks). I don't know if this just means that their offense is good enough to blow away big time program's regular Tuesday night pitchers. In our loss to them we threw Johnny Fullstaff and didn't have any of our regular weekend arms make an appearance but in our wins we threw our regular weekend guys are got sparkling results.
G/GS IP H R ER SO/BB HR ERA BAA ======================================================== 15 J.Meakers..... 14/14 82.0 85 47 39 58/33 3 4.28 .268 28 V.Black....... 13/13 66.0 62 44 34 52/45 7 4.64 .248 39 T.Bagley...... 27/0 37.0 24 10 9 54/21 2 2.19 .190 23 C.Haney....... 22/0 46.1 43 19 12 45/19 0 2.33 .250 41 W.Dowling..... 18/0 29.0 36 16 11 17/8 3 3.41 .308 33 C.McMullen.... 7/7 38.2 42 20 15 17/10 2 3.49 .276 18 J.Stafford.... 18/3 46.1 57 25 21 27/9 3 4.08 .303 5 R.Goins....... 8/8 33.1 35 30 20 27/19 0 5.40 .267 35 R.Millard..... 12/8 42.2 55 34 31 24/18 4 6.54 .322 37 B.Lester...... 21/1 46.1 60 43 34 44/23 5 6.60 .321Meakers & Black are their big 1-2 punch as starters but it is closer Tyson Bagley that can be classified as a legitimate stud.
Here is what DBU has done with its pitching staff over their last 13 games:
IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF ======================================= ======================================= 5/01 J.Meaker.. 7.1 9 6 5 7/0 32 33* W 5/02 V.Black... 3.0 5 7 7 1/6 12 18* L 5/09 J.Meaker.. 6.0 3 1 1 4/7 21 28* W 5/10a V.Black... 5.1 6 3 3 4/3 20 23* L 5/15 J.Meaker.. 7.0 9 2 0 4/1 29 30* W 5/17 V.Black... 6.0 6 3 3 3/2 22 25* IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF ======================================= ======================================= 5/03 R.Millard. 5.1 6 3 3 1/1 21 23* 4/29 J.Stafford 1.1 3 0 0 0/0 7 7 5/10b R.Millard. 6.1 3 0 0 5/3 21 25* W 5/01 J.Stafford 1.0 2 0 0 1/1 5 6 5/16 R.Millard. 2.1 6 4 4 1/2 12 15* 5/07 J.Stafford 6.0 7 4 4 2/1 24 26* W 5/13a J.Stafford 7.1 8 4 4 2/2 27 32* W 5/17 J.Stafford 3.0 6 3 1 2/1 15 17 W IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF ======================================= ======================================= 4/29 T.Bagley.. 0.1 0 0 0 1/0 1 1 4/29 C.Haney... 1.2 5 3 2 0/0 8 9 L 5/01 T.Bagley.. 0.2 0 0 0 1/0 2 2 5/03 C.Haney... 2.1 4 2 2 2/1 11 12 L 5/03 T.Bagley.. 0.1 0 0 0 1/0 1 1 5/10a C.Haney... 3.2 5 2 1 2/1 13 16 5/09 T.Bagley.. 2.1 0 0 0 4/3 7 10 S 5/13b C.Haney... 3.2 1 0 0 1/2 13 15 5/10b T.Bagley.. 1.0 0 0 0 2/0 3 3 S 5/16 C.Haney... 1.2 1 0 0 3/0 7 7 5/13a T.Bagley.. 1.0 1 0 0 1/0 4 4 5/17 C.Haney... 1.0 1 0 0 0/0 3 5 S 5/15 T.Bagley.. 2.0 0 0 0 2/2 5 7 S 5/16 T.Bagley.. 2.0 1 1 1 5/2 6 11 W IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF ======================================= ======================================= 5/02 B.Lester.. 3.0 3 2 2 4/1 12 13 5/02 W.Dowling. 2.0 4 0 0 1/0 9 9 5/07 B.Lester.. 2.0 3 3 2 4/0 9 10 5/09 W.Dowling. 0.2 1 0 0 0/1 2 4 5/10b B.Lester.. 1.2 0 0 0 2/1 4 5 5/13a W.Dowling. 0.2 1 0 0 0/0 2 3 5/13b B.Lester.. 2.1 3 4 3 1/3 10 14 L 5/07 B.Wade.... 1.0 0 0 0 1/0 3 3 5/16 B.Lester.. 4.0 2 2 2 7/4 13 18 4/29 R.Goins... 4.2 9 7 2 1/1 23 26* 5/13b R.Goins... 2.0 5 5 5 0/2 10 13*You can see that Haney and Lester are their long relief guys getting the ball to Bagley. Their bullpen is good but their starting pitching is suspect.
The Patriot's starting pitching might be suspect but their offense is far from it. This team can rake.
Ryan Goins and Nick SantosThey've shuffled their lineup slightly over the last 5 games, mostly moving Austin Knight around. Their DH rotates quite a bit but Thompson has picked up most of the ABs recently.
LINEUP OVER LAST FIVE GAMES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ========== ===== 5/17 Enos Goins Bigley Santos Head Bantz Knight Thompson Kelly 5/16 Enos Goins Bigley Santos Head Bantz Knight Thompson Kelly 5/15 Enos Goins Bigley Santos Head Bantz Knight Perry Kelly 5/13 Enos Knight Bigley Santos Goins Head Bantz Bloodworth Kelly 5/13 Enos Knight Bigley Santos Goins Head Bantz Thompson Kelly 5/10 Enos Goins Santos Bigley Pirtle Knight Head Krizan Kelly 5/10 Knight Goins Bigley Santos Head Enos Bantz Thompson Kelly 5/09 Enos Goins Bigley Santos Head Pirtle Bantz Knight KellyYou get the idea.
45+ ABs AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB SB/A BA OBP SLG ============================================================== 20 N.Santos... 188 40 74 37 6 20 15/15 1/4 .394 .435 .564 5 R.Goins.... 201 43 71 43 10 26 39/16 6/8 .353 .400 .592 26 R.Enos..... 194 41 68 43 2 15 30/19 15/17 .351 .430 .459 3 E.Bigley... 241 54 82 58 13 35 47/15 13/16 .340 .388 .602 9 T.Head..... 212 50 71 51 15 31 56/19 2/3 .335 .404 .623 8 B.Bantz.... 178 35 58 30 4 20 27/13 2/3 .326 .382 .483 4 C.Kelly.... 138 36 42 18 0 8 28/29 15/19 .304 .455 .377 7 A.Knight... 207 42 59 36 1 14 39/42 4/5 .285 .412 .362 19 A.Pirtle... 128 29 40 31 5 9 28/12 0/0 .313 .423 .477 6 J.Krizan... 124 25 36 19 3 11 22/13 0/0 .290 .353 .427 12 R.Thompson. 64 11 18 14 1 3 12/3 3/3 .281 .309 .359Looking at the numbers Austin Knight is a prototypical "Second lead-off hitter" in the 9-hole. The top of their order is scary with power, speed, and average. They are just stocked full of solid bats. They only have a few guys who really run a lot but when they do run they're quite successful.
I wanted to look at how their guys did against A&M pitching but when I looked at the games it looks like it gets broken down into two groups of numbers.....Against Johnny Fullstaff and Against Big 12 Weekend Starters. I can't totally discount how they did against us in that Thursday game because there is a very real chance that they'll be facing some of those pitchers again in games 3, 4, or 5 of this regional. I'll still break them down for you.
THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY AB R H RBI SO/BB AB R H RBI SO/BB AB R H RBI SO/BB ================ ================ ================ Enos..... 5 1 2 0 0/1 5 0 0 0 3/0 5 0 0 0 1/0 Knight... 5 2 2 0 1/1 2B 5 0 3 2 0/0 2B, 2B 2 0 0 0 0/3 Bigley... 5 4 4 1 1/1 2B,2B 4 0 0 0 2/1 3 0 1 0 1/0 Head..... 4 0 2 1 1/0 3 1 0 0 3/0 4 1 1 0 1/0 Santos... 4 1 2 3 0/0 4 1 2 0 0/0 2B 4 1 3 3 0/0 HR Goins.... 5 2 3 2 1/0 2B 3 0 1 0 2/0 5 1 1 1 2/0 HR Bantz.... 4 2 3 3 0/0 2B, HR 3 1 2 2 1/1 2B 4 0 0 0 0/0 Perry.... 1 0 0 0 0/0 2 0 0 0 1/0 DNP Pirtle... 4 0 0 0 2/0 1 0 0 0 0/0 4 0 0 0 2/0 Kelly.... 3 0 2 2 0/0 3 0 0 0 1/0 DNP Krizan... DNP 1 0 0 0 0/0 4 1 2 0 1/0 Thompson. DNP 1 1 1 0 0/0 DNPClearly that is a very, very small sample size but I think they are logical results. As a team they hit .500 with a .700 SLG on Thursday but on the rest of the weekend they hit .243 with a .388 SLG. That includes Nick Santos who raked in every game. Santos is a guy who I really think could start for just about any team in the Big 12.
EntireTeam Santos RestofTeam ========== ========== ========== BA SLG BA SLG BA SLG Thursday .500 .700 .500 .500 .500 .722 Fri & Sat .243 .386 .625 1.125 .194 .257 Series .336 .500 .583 .917 .306 .449You can see there was a clear line between how they did against our regular weekend starters and our non-weekend starters....and another line between Nick Santos and the rest of his team.
Overview
That's all I've got for now. Like last season, I got a spot out in Aggie Alley where Sean and I will spend the weekend with a couple gallons of Chicken Express sweet tea and an economy-sized bottle of sunscreen.I'm rooting for UH to knock off DBU and then meet up with them again in the Sunday afternoon game. That would be ideal.
Other than winning, our goal is to avoid Creepy Dan, who was this random guy who just showed up at our truck and bummed off of us all weekend.....and he was kinda creepy. Hopefully, he either won't make the trip this year or he'll get his creep on in someone else's truck bed.
Gig'em & B.T.H.O. ICU, DBU, & UH! WHOOP!
Monday May 26th, 2008
12:13pmNCAA Bids Announced
The NCAA Regional Hosts were announced yesterday evening and this morning we all sat clamoring as ESPN had their show announcing the national seeds and the rest of the field.
As expected, we will be hosting a regional in College Station this coming weekend but we're not scheduled to host a Super Regional. That's pretty much what I was expecting but there was a part of me that was thinking we might slide in as a Super Regional host.
What was surprising was that Georgia picked up a national seed while there was no Big 12 national seed. I wouldn't have argued that we deserved it necessarily but I thought someone from the Big 12 would get one....either us, Nebraska, or oSu.
I like our bracket and it brings us a lot of familiarity.
1. Texas A&M 4. Illinois-Chicago 2. Dallas Baptist 3. HoustonWe played a three game set against DBU just a few weeks ago at Olsen and we play UH every year (beating them at Cougar Field in early April).
We are matched up with the Houston Regional at Rice. That is going to be a very interesting regional to keep a watch on as the Owls drew a rough 2-seed in texas along with Mark Johnson's Sam Houston State as the 4-seed. The Owls have struggled against Sam in their recent history and the horns are the hottest team in the country. If the Owls don't make it out we have an opportunity to host the Super Regional against the winner. An A&M/texas Super Regional at Olsen Field would be epic.
Here's the schedule from Aggieathletics.com:
FRIDAY, MAY 30 GAME 1: Houston vs Dallas Baptist, 12:30 p.m. GAME 2: Illinois-Chicago vs Texas A&M, 6:30 p.m. SATURDAY, MAY 31 GAME 3: Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2, 12:30 p.m. GAME 4: Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2, 6:30 p.m. SUNDAY, JUNE 1 GAME 5: Winner Game 3 vs Loser Game 4, 12:30 p.m. GAME 6: Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5, 6:30 p.m. MONDAY, JUNE 2 GAME 7: Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5 (if necessary), 6:30 p.m.I'm interested to see how having Dallas Baptist in our bracket works. They don't play on Sundays which is why we played a Thursday-Saturday series against them during the regular season.
I just can't see the NCAA allowing them to take Sunday off. If they have to play on Monday not only does it screw me because I can't get up there for Monday games but it puts the winner at a disadvantage because there would be a day less rest or practice before Super Regionals start. If DBU were to advance to a Super Regional or even to Omaha I can't see how it would be possible for them to not play on a Sunday. Hopefully this won't be a problem and the schedule will stay as is.
I'll do some research and get a nice Regional Preview up before the end of the week.
My favorite time of the year is the 3 weeks leading up to the College World Series. WHOOP!
Sunday May 25th, 2008
12:13pmBig 12 Tournament Wrapup
We didn't have the great Big 12 Tournament that we were hoping for but there were definitely signs of life.
Wednesday we were stifled by Oklahoma 4-1. It was another case of us beating ourselves as all four of their runs were unearned as a result of 3 errors. Scott Migl had a good start and Kyle Thebeau threw 3 innings of 1 hit ball. Our 1-6 hitters combined for a 2-for-22 afternoon at the plate.
Thursday afternoon was a mixed bag that resulted in a 15-9 loss. Brooks Riley got hammered for the first time all season. It was 10-0 when he exited after 1.2 innings. After that things got better and we actually climbed back into the game. Coach Deggs shook up the lineup quite a bit and we responded very well with our first 9 run outburst since that miserable Sunday Nebraska game. The offense and the defense were much improved so we had two of the three cylinders going.
Saturday we were hitting on all three cylinders and we snapped the losing streak. PSHEW.
Barett Loux was outstanding on the mound shutting out Mizzou for 6.1 innings and the offense clicked again, with another new lineup. Kyle Colligan had a big game with a solo HR to jump start the day, as did Jose Duran who hit a bomb to put the game away in the 5th inning. Luke Anders also added to the long ball fun with his first HR since the Sam Houston game (May 5th).
I think that my biggest concern now is the bullpen. We're essentially a 2 man show out of the bullpen with Kyle Thebeau and Travis Starling, but Starling has been getting roughed up fairly frequently. On the season he has allowed 17 ERs, but 13 of those have come in the last 7 outings. Outside of the gem he threw against Nebraska he's been hit pretty hard.
The Big 12 announced their post season awards and we were very well represented. Coach Childress was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year and Jose Duran was named the Big 12 Player of the Year.
Coach Childress, as Nebraska's recruiting coordinator or A&M's head coach, has recruited SIX OF THE LAST NINE Big 12 POYs. That's incredible.
Luke Anders (1B), Duran (SS), Dane Carter (3B), Kyle Colligan (OF), and Travis Starling (RP) were all first teamers. Darby Brown (DH) and Brian Ruggiano (UTL) were second teamers while Clayton Ehlert, Barret Loux, Brooks Raley, Blake Stouffer, and Kyle Thebeau were all Honorable Mention.
Last season I argued vehimately that Kyle Nicholson was robbed as the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and Blake Stouffer was robbed of the Big 12 POY. This year I'm going to argue that Kyle Thebeau was robbed by his own teammate. T-Star has been very good for us this year but Thebeau has been the best relief pitcher we have.
Regardless, it has been a good year for Aggie baseball thus far. This evening at 6pm the regional sites are going to be announced and then tomorrow at 11:30am on ESPN the national seeds will be announced as well as the tournament field. Let's hope for some good news.
Gig'em!