The Aggies dropped two of three to #1 in conference, Jax State, on the road. The Aggies won the opener, 6-3, Behind Connor Wylde’s six-inning, 1-run performance on the mound. Julio Ramos (who got the win) and Dylan Weekly shut the door. Aidan Taclas had the winner with a 3-run homer. Boston Vest and Chris Daniels also homered. The two losses were shutouts, however. The first was a 4-0. Jack Turner took a hard luck loss with 7 innings of work and 3 earned runs. The next was a 10-0 staff effort.
The Aggies came back to New Mexico and had a 16-15 win over the Lobos in 10 innings in Albuquerque. They scored 6 runs in the tenth for the win. Bryce Campbell’s 3-run double was the big blow. Weekly closed it out, but the Lobos did score 5 in the bottom. Camden Kaufman had 5 RBI’s, including a home run. Tommy Meluskey was 2 for 3 with 2 RBI’s. The Aggies went through 8 pitchers. Three of them worked 4 scoreless innings, including Ramos, who worked 2 of them. This was the Aggies third win over a good UNM team.
The Aggies began their next home series against #2 in conference, Liberty, on Friday night. Unfortunately, nobody cleared this game with the weatherman. It was tied at 3 when it was suspended for a downpour. The game restarted on Saturday afternoon, but without the Aggies showing up, as they lost, 15-4. Steve Solorzano had a good game, as he went 3 for 5, with an RBI.
Also not showing up at the game was myself. I was tired and depressed. The high humidity was slowing me down, as well. I had invited my new senior citizen neighbor, Monty, to the game, but I cancelled early when it looked like another rainy day, though it turned out to be nice in the afternoon.
I did walk over for lunch at Roni’s trying to make myself feel better. I mis-ordered and put green chili on my mac and cheese, which I didn’t want. (It didn’t really hurt anything.) It was also Free Comic Book Day, but our local store wasn’t participating. (I knew this a couple of days ago. I called. They said their distributor had gone out of business and they couldn’t order the comics.) Undaunted, I went next door to Dollartree, who had put up a display with $1.25 DC comics a couple of weeks ago. The display was now gone. Disappointments abounded. (I should have gotten all of the comics I was interested in a couple of weeks ago, instead of just four.) I’m surprised I didn’t go back to bed.
The Saturday night game was, at least, a closer loss at 9-7 Liberty. The Aggies had a 7-6 lead, but gave up 3 in the ninth. Ramos was working in his third inning in the ninth. The team had 3 errors for 2 unearned runs. Solorzano went 3 for 5 with an RBI. Campbell was 3 for 5. Turner worked 6 innings giving up 3 runs. It was an over 3 hour game with only 300+ in attendance. You know, I’m kind glad I didn’t go to either of these games in the mood I was in.
I was feeling better about life in general on Sunday morning. Monty was eager to go, so off we went. I had some initial shock at the ticket office getting his ticket. I didn’t know that Baseball had raised its prices to $10. That’s a bit steep for what you’re getting. Inside the stadium, it was a sparse crowd of 388 with a small knot of Liberty fans behind us.
Fan Michael was there and a surprise appearance by Ken, who’d sworn off Aggie Sports, at least for this season. He’d wanted to come to see everyone. Ken mentioned seeing a snapped bat in a Softball game, like I had (3-29-26). Trey Reese was also present. Since he was by himself, he gave up his good seats to sit with us. I was extremely pleased that everyone hit it off. Monty is a musician and Trey and Michael are big music fans, so there was something to talk about immediately. There was again a sudden Anthem playing that caught everyone by surprise. There used to be a musical cue before they’d do it.
Considering how much conversation was going during the game, I can’t believe these added up. I got one play wrong on it, but it was in pencil, so no ink corrections were needed. All of the scoring was fairly straight-forward, as well.
JT Price started for the Aggies. He began with allowing a single. The runner made it to third via a stolen base and bad pickoff throw, but was left stranded. Jonatan Clough began the bottom with a double from the leadoff spot for the Aggies. A double play and strikeout stranded him.
It was overcast, but enough sun was coming in-and-out that I was wearing sunblock. A couple of times I felt a sprinkle, which was forecast, but there was never a drop. Michael mentioned that there had been a sudden deluge at Friday’s game with no chance of playing later that night.
Price gave up a single, but picked off the runner. He then got a groundout, but hit the next batter. Kyle Hvidsten came up and crushed a home run to left to give Liberty a 2-0 lead. The Aggies went down in order in the bottom. The Flames only had a single in the top of the third. Liberty starter, Bradley Zayac, got two strikeouts in the bottom of the third, but gave up a massive shot to Clough that went out to left center to make it, 2-1 Liberty.
Trey mentioned that there were several scouts at the game last night. They were here for Jack Turner, who pitched pretty well. The scouts left right after he left the game. Trey said they disapproved of the players’ walkup music. (They are correct.) We were talking about the Texas Rangers’ stadium. A co-worker of mine had gone to a couple of games there and brought back a yearbook and a game program for me. (I may do a post on these in the future.) He said they were selling season tickets there for $299? That would be like $4 a game, which is way less than the single game ticket I bought for this game. That can’t be right.
The Flames again began with a single in the fourth. Cam Kaufman then made a jump catch on a liner at third. Price knuckled down and got a pair of strikeouts to end the inning, though a stolen base and an errant throw by catcher, Brandon Clizbe, advanced the runner on base to third. With two outs in the bottom of fourth, the Aggies started a rally with a hit and a walk. Jordan Jaffe at third made a catch on a sky-high infield popup against an overcast background for the final out.
Somehow we ended up having a conversation about MASH and Catch-22. I displayed my trivia knowledge here. Trey didn’t know that the MASH theme song is called Suicide is Painless and has words to it. (It’s only in the movie.) Also, the Catch-22 movie broke up Simon and Garfunkel. (Art was in the movie, but got called back for a reshoot, and it disrupted their tour schedule.)
Price got into trouble in the fifth with a pair of singles. An attempted double steal half worked. One runner made it to third; the other was thrown out. Two walks loaded the bases, though. Coach Angier had a long talk with JT before pulling him. Jaden Davis was ready to come in the whole time, so JT might have tried to talk the Coach into letting him stay in.
Davis walked the next batter to force in a run. It was on a 3-2 count with all the runners taking huge leads of their bases. A Liberty fan behind us said, “Thank you.” Davis got an easy grounder to second and Bryce Campbell completely whiffed on it. Two runs scored on the error and the Flames went up, 5-1. Davis reared back for a strikeout to end the inning.
We were getting attacked by flying bugs by this point. I can’t remember this happening before. Also, how did they afford the $10 tickets? Tommy Meluskey began the bottom of the fifth with a double. A walk to Clough and a beautiful bunt single by Steve Solorzano brought in a run to make it, 5-2 Liberty. Unfortunately, Steve was then picked off. A lone Aggie fan started an Aggie chant. A Liberty fan added an, “Aggies suck,” to it. A flyout ended the inning, so she might have had a point.
Yet another pickoff ended the top of the sixth. That one was a quick rundown. The Aggies got two on in the bottom with a walk and a single. Jackson Evans, who come in for Liberty in the inning, got three strikeouts to end it. Ken and Trey both got up and left in disgust. Trey did come back about 5 minutes later. He’d been angry that the Aggies didn’t even try to bunt the runners over with no outs.
Monty began a long story about being a kid in Milwaukee when the Boston Braves moved into the town. Everyone was so excited. It was a very safe city. He took a 10-cent trolley ride to the stadium by himself and snuck into games with his friends. He got autographs of great players like Hank Aaron. He was there for Warren Spahn’s 300-th win. Everyone was given a souvenir card after the card. (He still has all of this stuff.) When his Braves beat the Yankees in the World Series, everyone in the city walked around with a smile. The team was later moved to Atlanta later when Coca-Cola bought them. Later, I tapped Trey and said, “Aren’t you glad you came back?” He’d been listening in rapt attention. He sure was.
Bradyn Barnes came in to start the seventh. A walk, a single, a wild pitch moving up the runners, and an RBI single chased him from the game. Dylan Weekly came in. Aidan Lombardi, who come in last inning for Campbell for that error in the fifth, made a great dive play at second for the second out. Weekly struck out the final batter, but now it was 6-2 Liberty. Trey noticed that the Flames were actually choking up on their bats with 2 strikes. How Old School is that? In the bottom, the Aggies hit into a double play with a nifty glove flip by Tanner Marsh at short.
Then there was a lazy glove flip by Weekly in the eighth to let on a runner, but no damage. The crowd literally groaned during the play. Michael said, “We don’t deserve to win.” Cooper Reese came close by collecting a wild pitch during the warm up between innings. We gave him a wave. The bottom of the eighth began with walk. Lombardi came up and hit a high-arcing shot that landed just over the centerfield wall. 6-4 Liberty. This finally put a jolt into the crowd. You almost might have thought we were losing 10-0 the way this game was being played, but it was actually close.
Unfortunately, the Flames added another run in the ninth in a two-out rally. Solo had made a great play on a low-liner at first, but 3 singles in a row made it, 7-4 Liberty. Liberty brought out their closer, Cooper Harrington. The Aggies began the bottom of the ninth with a single. Clough then gave one a ride to center, but Josh Campos made a jump and catch at the wall. A groundout finished it. Liberty wins, 7-4.
Even with some efficient innings, this game took nearly 3 hours. That was another three-game sweep. It’s not that the team isn’t trying, but they’re not playing well, sloppy even. This seems like a discipline problem with the team, which is a coaching issue. If the Aggies miss the conference tournament, come back to that last statement for the inevitable result.
I needed to ask a Trey an important question before he left. I’d noticed Aggie Volleyball players, Maggie Lightheart and Bella Castro, had been showing up to games. He confirmed that they were dating baseball players. The boys did well there. (If any of them are going out with Tess Fuqua as well, one could only wish they were playing as well as they’re dating.)
Gameballs. Nobody had a better game than Nick Barone for the Flames, who went 4 for 4 with 2 RBI’s. Their pitching was good with Bradley Zayac, who pitched 5 innings for the win giving up only 2 runs. Cooper Harrington got the save for a scoreless ninth. For the Aggies, Jonatan Clough went 3 for 4 with an RBI from a solo home run. Aidan Lombardi made the most of his mid-game sub appearance with a 2-run homer.
I had a free Whataburger coupon burning a hole in my pocket from a co-worker. I couldn’t talk Monty into getting anything when we were there, so we returned home to our respective apartments. I ate my meal while watching the Royals at the Mariners on Mexican TV and listening to a Chihuahuas game. I kind of got what I paid for with that burger. That wasn’t their best, but I’m not having good luck with food lately. We’ll hopefully be back to for the regular season finale and ***Senior Day*** in two weeks.
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