Baseball beats Pacific on the road

AggieFinn2

14-11.

There has been an offensive explosion these past few weeks. I wonder if it has anything to do with the new support staff members who seem to have been added in-season have anything to do with that. They have a new director of baseball operations, analytics specialist, and student manager. On the surface you could assume that these new additions are at least taking a load off the main four coaches so they have more time to spend with each player. The uptick in homeruns however, makes me think that analytics is involved. They're probably having more fun scoring lots of runs, and that's carrying over

The team, however, just might finish with the worst ERA in the country if they don't start to have better team pitching and defense. The strategy right now seems to be just to throw any relievers out there for the first two innings, and let the actual starters finish the game, but being down 8-0 after the top of the first (Sunday) is tough to overcome.

Some interesting stories though on the pitching staff besides the success of Nate Freeman and Bryan Green. On Saturday freshman reserve catcher Carson Seeman threw two 1-2-3 innings in his collegiate pitching debut. He's not listed as a pitcher on the roster but his bio said he was also a pitcher in HS, so not that surprising. What is surprising is Kyler Arenado, a fifth-year senior third baseman, pitching two scoreless innings for the win last night, with two strikeouts. He hadn't pitched in any games for the Aggies the previous four years and I can't really tell if he pitched in HS. Well, he did play quite a bit of shortstop, and shortstops usually have pretty strong and accurate throwing arms, so it does kind of make sense.

movielover

Ags notch their 4th win!

Yahoo: UC Davis beats Hawaii on walk-off hit in the 9th inning

AggieFinn2

↪movielover

I would have to spend significant time researching this, but it seems like this year's team is more competitive in games they lose than last year's team. The higher team ERA tells a different story, but the closer losses seems to indicate that they're beating themselves less on defense, and the other team is legitimately beating them if a greater portion of the runs are earned. This would suggest improved defense, perhaps in a way that would be more difficult for an outsider to notice.

If they could win 4 of their last 16 games that would not only double their season total but it would also mean they would finish having won 20% of their games. Last year's team barely won more than 20% with a full roster and significantly more depth.

movielover

↪AggieFinn2

Interesting observations. Better coaching, game strategy, and use of available skills? Less internal distractions? Or might other teams be off?

AggieFinn2

Well of course it all fell apart in the 6th inning today with-you guessed it-errors.

I think they have better defense coaching, such that if they had marginally better fielders they'd really do a good job consistently getting to more ground balls. Nicholson and Ayers are both former college and pro infielders as well as infield coaches so this a facet of the game they would be able to better coach it than the previous regime.

movielover

Ags beat UCSD. Bats come alive. Young players come through.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2022/5/15/baseball-uc-davis-leads-from-second-inning-on-in-8-5-win-over-ucsd.aspx

AggieFinn2

I have only been to 3 games this year (all of them losses) but I've witnessed a good deal of progress-they are definitely in a much better place than they were at the beginning of the year.

I think the coaching staff change has benefitted them a good deal. They are finding some previously unknown defensive versatility in players, like Nick Iverson in the outfield and Carson Seeman and Kyler Arenado pitching. Also, I thought I saw Omar Plascencia (a catcher) in a box score at shortstop ? I'm sure Arenado was only selected as a pitcher out of necessity, but he doesn't pitch like your typical position player doing mop-up work in a blow-out. He actually owns 1 of the six wins.

I have also seen a big improvement on offense. When I saw them play Saint Mary's they depended on hit by pitch and fielding errors just to muster any offense. Now there's only a couple of players (reserves who don't play much) that look lost at the plate.

72Aggie

↪movielover

Ags actually took the series against the Tritons.

AggieFinn2

This got me curious as to how the former Aggies who left amid the hazing business were doing.

Michael Campagna has gone from a big fish in a small pond to a smaller fish with a much lower batting average in a not significantly bigger pond at USF. He went 0 for 2 against the Aggies today.. He also traded a team where the coach quit because of the players' mischief to one where coaches were fired for their own mischief.

Jake Spillane has pitched a grand total of 5 2/3 innings for UC Irvine out of the bullpen.

Jalen Smith has picked where he left off now at UC San Diego, hitting over .300 as a starter. He went 3 for 11 against the Aggies this year. Smith went from a ream that probably was not going to the playoffs to one that had absolutely no chance because it was in transition to Division I.

The Carrell Brothers have 2/3 of an inning pitched between them at Oklahoma and Zach has yet to make an appearance as far as I can tell.

They have some famous surnames on that Oklahoma roster including Mark McGwire's son and perhaps the grandson of Jack Nicklaus (haven't verified but his name is Jackson Nicklaus).

Baseball beats Pacific on the road

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