NM State Aggies vs Northern Colorado Bears Baseball 3-2-24

Aggie Baseball was back after a disappointing road trip.  They lost all four games to McNeese State.  Three of those games they lost by one run.  Ouch.  They only lost by three in the other game.  

For this first game of the new homestand against Northern Colorado, the Aggies were ready.  They had installed a hot tub and longue in the Student Section.  Well actually, I found out later that the hot tub wasn’t actually ready to be used, but it’s there. 

 

As for Friday’s game, I was listening at work.  Early in the game, the lights flickered in the computer room where I was.  Nothing turned off and everything was okay.  Immediately after this, the lights at the ballpark were reported to have gone out.  (It was a city-wide event.)  This lead to a 20-minute delay.

 

The Aggies put on their hitting shoes in the break and ran up an 11-1 lead by the fourth inning.  The Bears did make a comeback and the final was 11-6.  It was nearly a run-rule game.  Trey Meza pitched 6+ strong innings.   

That brings us to Saturday’s game.  It was sunny and warm with a little cool breeze.  I was wearing my Texas Rangers World Series hat and I finally got to wear my new Captain America t-shirt with the above cover on it.  I’m going to expand the wardrobe this season beyond just Aggie wear.  I left early to go to Jimmie John’s for a sub.  It was great, but the music in the shop was punk and metal, which wasn’t great meal music (except for that one Ramones song that I liked). 

 

There was a good crowd of 684.  Michael was there, as always, and reported that there were scouts in the crowd, though we’re not sure for whom.  There were also quite a few Bears fans there, including the two loudest, who were sitting next to me.  One was an uncle of one of the players, Brandon Sanchez.  (“Let’s go nephew!”)  The team was also in nice bright yellow jerseys. 

 

Adam Young was calling Women’s Basketball today, so we had another sub, Scott Colletti.  He’s a professional announcer and called a pretty good game.  I didn’t catch what his usual job is.  We had a live Anthem performance today and an unexpected flyover by a squadron of birds.  (It was actually impressive.)     

In spite of all of the scoring today, these would have sort of added up on the first try.  I have many excuses as to why they didn’t.  The main thing is that I think the official scorer changed his mind on a hit and made it an error, but did so well after the play.  There was also a big distraction later in the game during a couple of weird plays.  (No, it wasn’t the Hot Pan-Am Girl.  She wasn’t there today, unfortunately.)  I am seriously surprised that no one batted around in this game. 

 

Oh boy, here we go.  (This may take a little while to recap.)  Josh Sharman started for the Aggies.  He started off giving up a pair of hits.  Kai Wagner had a good battle before singling and driving in the first run.  Kai was picked off first, but was hit by the ball going to second and made it a steal.  Another run came in off a sac fly.  The next batter hit a grounder to Steve Solorzano at third.  He had no play, but ended up making a bad throw to first and another run scored.  After the play, Solo was clearly regretful.  3-0 Bears.

 

I saw a couple of guys wearing St. Louis Cardinal jerseys and hats.  One was in white.  The other was in blue.  The Aggies started off the game with a pair of walks.  Caden Wagner (Kai’s brother) at first made a great play on a line drive and doubled off Damone Hale.  Nick Gore struckout to end the inning.  Strikeouts were rare in this game, as there was a very tight strikezone being called.

 

After getting the first out of the second, Sharman gave up a double, got a groundout, but then gave up a run-scoring double.  He was given a quick hook and Matt Romero came in.  He was helped out by an impressive sliding catch in center by Jadon Arakaki.  4-0 Bears.

 

The Aggies struck back in the bottom of the second.  Titus Dumitru led off with a double.  Mitch Namie hustled to second next off of a lazy throw into the infield.  Sheehan O’Connor grounded then Titus in.  Romeo Ballesteros would drive in Namie.  Keith Jones came up next and hit a popup to No Man’s Land in center.  Three fielders converged on it and the ball appeared to clank off one of their gloves.  It was scored a double.  Another run scored and the Bears’ starter was run.  The next pitcher gave up a run-scoring hit to Damone.  Sanchez at second made a great play on a liner to finally end the inning.  (The Uncle was happy.)  Suddenly, we were tied at 4.

 

On the radio, Scott, much like Lou Romano two weeks ago, thought the scoreboard was off.  The Aggies really need a new scoreboard.  The Bears came right back in the top of the third.  After a hit batter and a single, Jackson Romero hit a two-run single to make it 6-4 Bears. 

 

The Aggies were poised to come back in the bottom of the third with a single by Nick Gore.  Titus came up and hit a DP ball.  Kai at short got the first out, but overthrew first.  Titus started to go to second, but realized the ball didn’t go very far and Caden tagged him out when he tried to get back.  Fan Kent, sitting nearby, asked how to score that.  It’s not error, since nobody made it to base or advanced.

 

By this point, I figured out that this game wasn’t going to be ending early.  Romero quickly got the first outs of the fourth, but then gave up a single and then a two-run homer by Garrett Fisher.  The home plate ump then got pegged on a pitch.  I don’t think this was a statement about the strikezone.  With a little more wildness, the next batter was hit.  Next, on a grounder to third, Solo made a great play with Namie making a big stretch to get the out and end the inning.  (The first base ump may or may not have made the right call, but it looked pretty.)  8-4 Bears.

 

I changed stations on the radio.  The Aggie Men’s Basketball team was playing on the road.  They were up when I listened.  I decided I’d check back later.  The bottom of the fourth started off really well for the Aggies with two walks and double loading the bases with nobody out.  KJ came up and, after a close pitch, started to go to first.  The ump called him back.  Keith argued, along with the coach.  The umps conferenced, but the call stood.

 

This was unfortunate for the Bears.  Keith proceed to crank a grand slam home run to right.  The crowd exploded.  Caden Wagner was ejected for shouting at the ump after the homer.  The UNC manager also argued, but was not ejected.  Nobody knows what started the argument though.  As Scott said, “It can’t be that it wasn’t a home run.  They’re still looking for the ball.”          

 

My scorecard took a downfall after this.  With their starting first baseman out, the Bears shuffled their infield.  I was scrambling on subs for the rest of the game.  Murphy Gienger continued pitching.  He finally got the first out of the inning, but the next batter got on from a shortstop error (after shuffling the infield).  Gienger next took a hard liner to the gut from Gore.  (It looked a bit lower than that.)  He ended up on the ground, seated, and still threw Gore out.  He got a round of applause from all of the crowd.  He stayed in and got a ground ball next, but short and third collided going for the ball and it went for a hit.  Finally, a reliever came in and got a flyout to end the inning.  8-8.

 

Conor Wylde came in for the Aggies to start the fifth.  True to his name, he walked the first batter and advanced him two more bases on a bad pickoff throw.  The batter was brought in on a groundout to give the Bears back the lead, 9-8.

 

In the bottom of the fifth, Kai overthrew first on a grounder by Jadon.  The ball bounced right back to first.  Jadon, unlike Titus, stayed at first and didn’t try to advance.  He nearly scored on a wild throw from third on a Romeo grounder.  The ump sent Jadon back to third, ruling that the ball went out of play.  This brought KJ up again and he sliced a double to left.  The left fielder laid flat out for it, but missed it.  Two runs scored and the Aggies finally had a lead.  Gore would single Keith in to make it, 11-9 Aggies.

 

A lady came in that was friends with Michael.  She’d been at the Women’s Basketball game and reported that they’d lost 60-51 to Jax State.  It was also Senior Day.  Ouch.  Meanwhile down in front, a toddler dumped out a whole tub of popcorn.  Mom was not amused, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

 

Unbelievably, we had a 1-2-3 inning in the top the sixth.  Wylde had settled down.  In the bottom, the Aggies added a run.  O’Connor was hit, advanced on a groundout (Sanchez dive a great dive stop on the play and the Uncle was pleased), and made it to third on a passed ball.  Romeo singled him in.  12-9 Aggies.

 

Saul Soto came in to pitch the top of the seventh.  He loaded the bases on two singles and a walk.  Kai then hit a grounder up the middle.  Romeo made a dive stop of the ball and flipped it to O’Connor, but it was dropped and a run scored.  12-10 Aggies.  Soto actually did strike out the side over the course of the inning.

 

Damone led off the bottom of the seventh with a home run.  It was wind-aided and just went inside the right field pole.  After crossing home plate, he shrugged to the dugout.  UNC got another odd double play.  Solo singled, but was thrown out at second on a grounder by Gore.  Nick appeared to beat the throw to first, but was called out as well, as Solo ruled to have interfered.

 

The Uncle asked me if I was a scout.  No, I’m just an idiot with a scorecard.  Though I was cheering for the Aggies, I remembered I wasn’t wearing my Aggie merch.  At least, the Uncle didn’t bother trying to sell me on his nephew as a prospect.  Hayden Lewis came in to pitch the top of the eighth.  He loaded up the bases, but didn’t give up a run.  By this point, there’d been a couple more UNC defensive changes.  Scott’s lineup card was messed up and screwing up his announcing.  I’d put one player in two different spots and another three different spots, but I think I eventually had it right.

 

In the bottom of the eighth, Men’s Basketball was now in the final minutes of their game.  I decided to start listening to it.  This was unfortunate for my scoring, but it was a tight game.  The Aggies had a double-digit lead, but lost it on an 11-point run by Jax State.  It was tied in the final minute and crowd there was going wild.  It was a drawn-out affair in the final seconds, but the Aggies came out on top 66-64.  They finally won a road game this season.

 

Meanwhile on the baseball field, a very high-bouncing grounder ate up Kai at short and Namie hustled it into a double.  A walk added a second baserunner.  Jadon tried to bunt the runners over, but the catcher managed to throw out Namie at third.  The bases were loaded anyway on a hit batter.  KJ singled to drive in a run.

 

Damone then came up and singled in two runs.  Next, Solo hit a fielder’s choice and KJ attempted to come home and didn’t make it.  He also didn’t give up and tried to get back to the third.  The other runners advanced up, too.  It got very confusing.  I think the ball was tossed six times before KJ was finally tagged out.  Everyone enjoyed the show.  I had no chance of accurately scoring that, especially given that I was listening to the basketball game. 

 

The entertainment wasn’t over.  Austin Corbett, a late Aggie defensive replacement, tripled.  When the ball was bobbled before getting to the infield, he tried to score on it.  He was just barely thrown out at the plate.  The crowd gave him a round of applause for the effort.  Putting up a six-spot was good-enough.  19-10 Aggies.

 

Also during the inning, the lady with the Women’s Basketball result also got me involved in a conversation.  She was wondering about the second lawsuit involving the Men’s Basketball team (not to be confused with the first one, 2-16-23).  This new lawsuit names AD Mario Moccia as a defendant.  Her and Michael want him gone, regardless of the consequences to Aggie Sports.

 

Solo moved from third to the mound for the ninth.  He gave up a single, which was doubled in, but given the lead, there wasn’t much cause for concern.  The Aggies (finally) win 19-11!

 

At three-and-a-half hours, this was not a tidy game, but it was never boring.  The Bears are still winless this season at 0-10.  I remember Ron wanted to take a road trip to watch the Aggies play UNC in Colorado when they used to be a WAC opponent.  I’d heard a couple of games from there.  It’s always cold and very windy.  It’s not a great place to watch a game.

 

Let me hand out a few gameballs.  For the Bears, Jake King went 3 for 6 in the leadoff position and Garrett Fisher hit a two-run homer.  For the Aggies, Keith Jones had a heck of a game going 4 for 5 with 8 RBI’s, including a grand slam!  Damone Hale went 3 for 5 with 4 RBI’s and Nick Gore went 3 for 6 with 4 RBI’s.  Romeo Ballesteros went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI’s, but scored 4 times.  Pitching-wise, the Aggie middle and late relievers gave up only 3 runs over 5 innings.  That was a difference-maker.

 

By late in the game, the breeze had picked up and was getting cold.  I hadn’t brought a jacket, so I was cold too.  I’d thought before the game, I’d get groceries afterward, but I wasn’t going to make it before sundown, when it would get colder.  I retreated home.  Let’s hope things go quicker (and well) tomorrow.