I think part of the bullpen's struggles is that the relievers haven't been used in optional situations. I don't know why Vaughn is so fond of going to Lyford in save situations. I went Sunday (got back early from my trip) and I got uneasy when he went to the bullpen in the eighth. Ok, he did very well opening day, but that was a 4 inning appearance against Northern Colorado. When the Aggies have a lead late he's left in too long to create near- impossible situations for Johnson and Ouellette. And Ouellette's first collegiate pitching appearance after 2 years in the infield- a 1- run pressure- cooker outing against Nevada. Ryan Rodriguez' first appearance of the season- Stanford ? And that's to say nothing of the messes Moffitt, Smith, and Lemos were left in when they were struggling. In any case Lyford is a senior. There's no need to leave him in to have these teachable moments where he gets creamed and learns from it. Save those lessons for the guys who'll actually be around next year to build off the experience. He either pitches well or he doesn't. No need to lose games over it. This reminds of what happened with Barraza last year

To be fair the bullpen picture has been pretty nebulous. Even Erwin struggled in his only game there. With this many pitching options there's really no reason to leave anyone to give up 4+ runs, at least not at home where all the walk- ons are available. They play 3- 4 games a week. Using too many relievers is not a concern; over- using the same ones is.

Oh well, I guess I have one more game in me this year. I've got that Zia's gift certificate I need to use before the end of June + darned if I'm coming to Davis when there's no baseball.

I meant optimal not optional

We are struggling again this year as most predicted. But we are a young team so the future does look to be better. Our stadium facility is great, except for lack of lights. Did we ever get covered cages? UCI’s stadium is about the same except for the lights it has. So UCI can host NCAA playoffs and we cannot. I wonder if that is a recruiting problem? I know it was all wired up for the lights decades ago, but never got the $$ for the actual lights. Is there any news on that issue? We seem to pour a lot more money into football and the Olympic sports that into baseball. Orphaned sport it seems.

Lack of a lights is a competitive problem. It limits who you can schedule because of the inability to play night games on Tuesdays and Fridays. Also, it hinders a team when they have to adjust to playing at night after practicing 100% of the time during the day and playing 80%-90% of the games during the day.

Lack of funding is also a competitive problem. Unless the situation has changed, UC Davis doesn't allocate the full 11.7 scholarships for baseball. That obviously limits how much scholarship money can be divided up between the 27 players on scholarship (baseball has eight walk-on spots) on a 35 man roster. The Big West mandates in priority sports that schools must fund up to at least 80% of the scholarship limit and I have heard that UC Davis wasn't doing much more than that, which would leave them around two scholarships short.

Fullerton Fan, I am certain that the Ags are fully funded, 11.7. Not sure if you're guessing.

Is there an on line info source showing what sports are versus sports that are are not fully funded? I doubt that Fullerton just made this up. He seems to be very well informed.

I believe baseball is now fully funded. That was not the case before Kevin Blue showed up.

So, how do we know that?

UC Davis was not fully funded for baseball a few years ago and it was mentioned in articles in the paper up there.

Baseball could be fully funded now and Naive Ned hit on the major reason (new AD). That's why I said unless things had changed, UC Davis was not fully funded, and they could have changed under Blue.

Well, if we are “fully funded” we are out of excuses* for being one of the weakest baseball teams in the BWC. I believe that Matt Vaughn has had one winning season in the past 5 years (2015) and was 46-67 before that (I dont have those individual season stats handy). Compared to the previous head coach, Rex Peters, this is not an admirable record for a head coach. Peters is now an assistant coach at UCLA which is the number 1 seed in its regionals. I have no idea where Vaughn is contract-wise, but it would seem a coaching review is probably definitely in order for this coach.
* i guess we can still blame lack of lighting for this situation, but its getting pretty weak at this point. Strange it is, as UC Davis has a great facility and used to field very good baseball teams.

Vaughn received a 4-year extension in 2018.

Good to know. Based on his record, I bet he got some “encouragement” that things have to get better fast when he was given that extension. Well they didn’t in 2019. We will see what a fairly young team now can do for him next year. That said, we have been through these 4 year rotations with Vaughn before and they have really never paid off. One fact I did not note before is that after Peters got to UCLA the team batting average gained 41 points! Ours fell. We will see. . .