3-1-19
I feel a bit dumb actually writing this thing out after
writing out and posting about the later three games of this series. It’s been a long week of catching up after
last weekend. In any case, Aggie Baseball took on the Delaware Blue Hens on this Friday
night. Our visitors were so far winless this
season with a sub .200 batting average.
Apparently, when this series was scheduled the Hens were a better
team. (Seriously, I don’t think Coach Green meant to schedule a bad
team to come here.)
For whatever their terrible record is and their funky
name, the Blue Hens had one of the most awesome visiting uniforms I’ve seen
here. Their Friday tops were basically
the Astros’ 70’s throwback jerseys,
but with a blue, black, and gray bands.
They were just incredible. Their
hats featured the Olde English “D” that the Tigers wear, which I, as someone who likes the Tigers, just
loved. Their Saturday and Sunday uniforms were also simply superb.
Meanwhile, the Aggies were leading country in several
offensive stats. They’d had a hard game
at Texas Tech (2-26-19), but
they’re still a good team. Coach Green
had had his surgery on his Achilles right after. He was sitting in a golf cart for this
game. Caleb Henderson was out for the game for a funeral. Bruno
Teramoto was in at DH.
Brock Whittlesey started for the Aggies. I was watching the game via Aggievision over the Internet. Commentator Coach
Jerry Lujan was critical of Whitt (2-22-19) last Friday
because he looked cold out on the mound.
That was until the coach walked out to his car in the cold, then he
understood perfectly how bad it was.
Tonight at least, the weather was reasonably pleasant.
As usual, I was busy with work and only watched in bits
and pieces. In the second, the Aggies
got on the ump’s bad side with a cross up.
Whitt accidently drilled him as catcher Braden Williams missed the ball.
The ump patted Braden on the rear and gave him a friendly warning. Whitt and Braden did combine on a strikeout-throwout
at second in the inning.
In the third, Nick
Gonzales hit a solo home run. It bounced
off a tree behind the fence and came back on the field. Tristen
Carranza homered back-to-back with him.
He had showed up ump on a presumed walk and was called back. In the sixth, an Aggie run came in on a balk. In the seventh, Tristan Peterson cranked a three-run homer.
It was a good night for pitching too. Whitt went eight innings. He gave up 6 hits, and 2 runs in the fourth
off a home run. He had 12 strikeouts and
no walks. Nick added an RBI single in
the eighth. Carranza also hit his third
homer of the night in the eighth. I saw
that last one. It was a monster to
left. The Blue hens tacked on a run in
the ninth, but were never really in the game.
11-3 Aggies in a tidy three-hour
game.
3-5-19
Maybe if I’d thought through the WAC Softball Tournament being held out-of-town, I might have
thought to go to tonight’s Aggie
Softball double header versus the AZ
Wildcats. This would have been a
good event to go and watch. I’d checked
on the live stats for Game 1 before
work. Stupidly, I didn’t realize that
there was actually a TV broadcast of the game.
I somehow missed the link until I caught up with the game at work.
The video showed a big crowd. There was a bunch of little girl softball
players there. I came in with game
basically over. Samaria Diaz had a rough day pitching. It was 1-10 AZ in the fifth. I did see Kelsey Horton getting her second home run of game which avoided the
run rule in the bottom of the fifth. Kayla Green came in in the sixth and
gave up a homer, which did lead to the run rule after that inning. I think she’s been relegated to a relief role
for this season. 3-11 AZ in six was the final.
Brian
Cox
joined Adam Young as a commentator for
the game. He addressed something I’d
always wondered about. He said that the
underhand throwing motion is actually a lot less stressful on the arm, even
though the throwing motion looks really violent. This is how the girls can pitch so much with
less rest than the baseball pitchers.
For Game 2,
there was video from a single camera, but no commentary. You did get the crowd sounds and could hear a
strong wind blowing. Maybe it was a good
thing I didn’t go. Analise de la Roca started.
She gave up a three-run homer in the first. The crowd went nuts for a t-shirt toss. They went even crazier for some country
concert tickets given out next inning. I
was amused by the intermission music as the PA played the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
In the third, the Aggies nearly loaded bases, but Brandy Hernandez got picked off at second
from overrunning the base. Kelsey filed
out to end the inning. Victoria Castro did solo homer to
center to leadoff the fourth. In the fifth,
AZ loaded the bases with one out. There
was a bad throw home by Analise that brought in a run. Kennedi
Sorenson at catcher was immediately taken out for Nikki Butler. Was Kennedi
injured trying to reach for that throw or did Coach Rodolph think she should have caught that ball? It was then 1-6 AZ when they loaded the bases again
with 2 outs, which were then cleared with a double. I think Arizona didn’t want to keep playing
in the wind. It was 1-11 AZ when dust cleared (except it didn’t because of the wind) and
that was the run ruled final.
Coach Rodolph, on the Aggie Coaches Show the next day, was actually pretty upbeat. She’d told the girls that this stretch was
going to be hardest of the season for them.
Now they have a stick to measure themselves and future opponents
by. I hope she was being encouraging to
the girls after a couple of tough losses.
The coach also thanked Arizona for coming. Certainly they are doing the Aggies a favor
by continuing to come here. Their coach
really likes the crowds that show up for these games.
3-8-19
It was not a good night for baseball. There was weather clearly on the way, and it
was very windy and overcast with dust and cold regardless. I’d planned on finally going to at least one
Friday night Aggie Baseball game
this season. Thank goodness I picked the
right one (2-15-19) and not these last two Friday night games. I watched via the Internet from the comfort
of work. Ron was there and reported 40
fans at the start of the game. He
counted. He upped the crowd 100 at its
peak.
Tonight’s game was against the La Salle Explorers. They
were surprisingly good this year compared to their last season, so Adam Young was expecting a good game in
terrible conditions tonight. Brock Whittlesey started a bit wild for
the Aggies. He gave up a walk, hit a batter,
gave up a single, and a run. In the
bottom, the La Salle pitcher gave up his first walk of the season after two
starts. With two on, Nick Gonzales got it into jetstream to
left. 3-1 Aggies after one.
I had some spotty watching after that because of work. In the fourth, Tristan Peterson hit a two-run homer. However, Whitt was chased in the fifth after
two runs and a 7-5 La Salle lead. In the
bottom, Caleb Henderson put the
Aggies back up with a three-run homer, 8-7, and he chased off their starter.
The turning point of the game was the bottom of the
sixth when the Aggies left the bases loaded.
They’d need those runs later. In
the seventh, Logan Bottrell in centerfield
just missed a diving catch and two runs scored to make it 9-8 La Salle. The rain started here, but then let up to a
drizzle. The Aggies had a shutdown
inning in the eighth with a double play and Aldo Fernandez getting a strikeout.
The rain started again in the bottom and finally got
hard enough to cause a delay after one out.
As I gathered from Ron, it was actually hailing. He’d finally left at that point. The delay was only 12 minutes. It was a short shower and the artificial turf
dried out quick. Unfortunately, the
Aggies couldn’t mount a comeback and lost 9-8.
It was a good game, except for the hail and the
four-hour 20-minute running time. There
were six lead changes in game. La Salle
bullpen was good. They didn’t allow a
run. The Aggie defense committed four
errors, which was what did them in. Nick Gonzales went 4 for 4. He was the national hitter of the month,
hitting over .600.
This was a big win for La Salle. Thus it was a bad loss for the Aggies. This was going to drop their RPI. (I don’t know what RPI is, but they think
it’s important.) Once again, I’ve
written up this recap after writing up the other three games of the series. I do truly question the way I’m doing this.
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