It's too bad the weather couldn't behave for you Portland Aggie ! Now that I know of no specific Aggie fans going to the games I can root for a couple more rainouts in this series. The more Diaz rests and the fewer pitchers the Aggies use against the Beavers the better they will be against the Ducks +Nittany Lions, the teams that on paper they're more likely to beat.

I am concerned about them playing Diaz too much. Not only didn't he start a lot of games last year, but also consider the schedules that junior college teams play. I'll have to check on the accuracy of this for Napa Valley College's conference but in the Big 8 (Sacramento, ARC, CRC, etc) the conference games are typically not on consecutive days (Tues, TH, SAT usually). It's truly a bus league, with no opponents more than 2- 3 hours away. The weeks where they play 4 games or games on consecutive days are usually during the non- conference portion schedule where there's more travel involved, and during that time there's more player rotation while roles are being defined. So knowing all of that the coaching staff needs to be as mindful of how often their junior college pitchers and catchers play as their freshman players. Maybe give Diaz Tuesdays off, or if he plays Tuesdays, maybe rest him on Sunday ahead of the next Tuesday game. Roberts is a transfer too, but given his workload for the Aggies so far (an inning or two in 1 game) there's no real cause to worry.

Edit: fact- checked the NVC schedule. Although they do vary from the Tue, Thur., SAT. schedule they do play non- consecutive days in conference play for the most part.

That should be fun. I looked into making that trip myself but w/o a rental car it looked like a huge undertaking for something that might get rained out. From Amtrak's website it looks like you can take an extremely long train ride to either Portland or Corvallis from Sacramento but you can't fly into Portland, then take a train to Corvallis, instead you get a 2hr + bus ride. Looks like you can for Eugene, but I'm not going up for one game

Well, that was an ugly loss to Stanford, but I take some positives:

Heads- up baserunning by Salazar and Aguiar. Swiping those extra bases put them in position meant the Aggie offense didn't have to work as hard to score those runs. That's good because they would have been shutout otherwise.

A very good outing by Blais. It wasn't immaculate, but he got a double play when he needed it. We'll gladly take scoreless innings from the pitching staff any day.

Somebody other than Diaz got some time behind the plate. For a moment there I was worried Diaz was going to get the 2015 Izaak Silva treatment and we'd have a defensive mess at catcher again. Denholm still hasn't played in a game yet. Wonder if he's hurt or redshirting to work on his catching. It would explain why we have 5 catchers. Any time Houston Roberts gets is a big plus, as he has 2 yrs of eligibility left after this one if I'm not mistaken.

Blake Hannah got into the game. It wasn't pretty, but I'd rather he get a tune- up before the OR trip. I'm guessing he'll be the starting pitcher Monday against the Ducks (Brown Wed against Penn State most likely). You've got 5 total games against ranked opponents from yesterday to Sunday). This trip will be tough, and it doesn't get easier when they get home.

And Zach Stone got a day off !

And look who started today vs Stanford.- Chris Brown ! I hope he pitches well, or else that makes me look bad for saying he should. Just kidding ! Aggies will probably use several pitchers in the game given they.have to find 4 starters for fr- mo. I'm thinking Hannah might be the #4. He hasn't pitched yet. Hopefully they can find some work today for Worthan, Barraza + others who haven't pitched yet.

A good character win for the Aggies today, battling back from a 4- run deficit they created with sloppy defense. Briggs was a curious choice to start the 9th inning. Luckily Stone got the double play he needed to end the threat. Connor Loar had a gutsy outing in relief.

The coach needs to be mindful of his usage of Stone, who has already pitched in 3 out of the first 5 games. So has Brown if I'm not mistaken. Better bullpen management is absolutely necessary. The coach can't just "spam" his favorite relievers: he needs to use everyone and find ways to close out games w/o Stone occasionally. I mean, at most he only has 1 more yr at UCD. What do you do after that ? I can understand giving Blais a chance to get right on Saturday after he allowed the winning runs to score vs. The Gaels, but he left him in way too long. It should have been evident by the 3rd hit he allowed that the kid didn't have it. Instead he was left in to allow six straight batters to reach. Then the panic button was pressed and Stone had to be wasted for 2 innings in a non- save situation. After the first 2 hits he should have been pulled, and an opportunity should have been given to someone else (Not Brown ! He loves to pitch those 2 in the same game) One of the new relievers perhaps ? 9- 0 is a great time to give someone a chance to get their feet wet.

Honestly I'm not sure why Blais is summoned so often. I liked his potential as a freshman particularly the solid relief job he did against Sac State@Raley Field, but he seems to have become extremely hittable since then. Maybe they messed w/his delivery last year but batters are just teeing off. If they haven't maybe they need to adjust it. The plus is he throws strikes- not many walks.

Just for the heck of it, here are some stats. As you guys may or may not know I take score and keep stats at the games I attend. I've seen him pitch 9 times now (1 start) and he's surrendered 15 earned runs in 18 1/3 innings (7.36 ERA). Count only the outings this year and last, and that's 14 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings over 7 games. Ouch ! On the plus side only 6 total walks allowed. He's throwing strikes at least.

Now you could say that's a small sample, but look at the overall #'s, is it really that atypical ? I would really like to see him re- discover whatever was working for him before. In the meantime they shouldn't be bringing him in during crucial late- inning situations with men on base. You need someone who not only won't walk a batter but also can get you a strikeout. You put in a reliever who doesn't miss many bats and generates a lot of contact you're putting all your eggs in one basket. praying he gets you a double play. He doesn't and you're in real trounle.

As for Brown he should probably not be used as a late- inning short reliever, unless it's for one or two batters in a lefty/righty match- up. He strikes me as a softer- throwing finesse pitcher, and finesse pitchers usually have very good control but are in big trouble if their precision falters in a relief situation. Look at where he's been most successful- long relief (such as the rubber game against Air Force last year.)- and the occasional sport start (like the 1st one against Stanford the same year). I think we can already tell he wouldn't disappoint anyone as a starter. It's important to know your pitchers strengths so you can find the right situation to bring them in. It all goes back to managing your bullpen. And that concludes my sermon for the day

If they were going to throw one it would probably have to have been within the first couple weeks of the season when pitchers are more ahead of the hitters still. No way they do that in April against even a really bad WAC team like Chicago State.

They look like a pretty deep team, going 4- 1 so far despite the fact they appear to be missing their starting CF from the past 2 years, their best hitting outfielder (who's been drafted twice), their ace pitcher from last year (Max Karnos), and are breaking in a freshman catcher at the moment. The #2 starter (Austin Roberts)right now throws some heat (just eyeballing fastball looks about 92- 93 MPH) and he's only a freshman. Has to learn pitch more efficiently though as he hasn't pitched more than 4 innings in a start yet,.. The #3 starter is another freshman (Parker Brahms) who doesn't throw as hard but looks like he is a pretty advanced pitcher, very efficient w/ good control against WSU. The Aggies will likely face him if Karnos comes back.

Fun trivia about their opponent, N. Kentucky. The school is located in the somewhat redundant- sounding city of Highland Heights, which is apparently closer to Cincinatti, OH than any big city in KY. The baseball team has only 3 in- state players (all of them pitchers) but they have six from Canada. You would think the state where so many baseball bats are made would produce more college baseball players.

Looking to see my first Aggie game of the season this weekend. Looks like we have some interesting developments through 3 games so far. Logan Denholm (or any other catcher for that matter) hasn't made an appearance yet, despite the fact Ignacio Diaz hadn't yet registered a hit. Cameron Olson was coming off the bench until yesterday. Alex Aguiar, who just made the transition from 3B to left field last year, is now in center. And the coach has already resumed using Chris Brown in relief at what was a frightening pace last year. Brown is used with the frequency that suggests he's the team's best reliever, but that wasn't the case last year, and it hasn't been established this year to this point.

They have been decent but being decent in D- II doesn't really translate to D- I success. Look at UCD. :D

Sunday's game should be fine at least. Last year they had some pretty second baseman and corner outfielders. Lots of hitters but not enough places to put them.

BBag1963- welcome ! I haven't seen you on before. All baseball contributors are valued here.

Crocodile: I haven't really noticed the pictures so much. One thing college teams do that I don't particularly care for is that they list players as generic infielders or outfielders but don't say what positions they play in their bios. Obviously they may play different ones in college, but it would be nice to know where their experience lies so you can get an idea of what skill sets they might bring to the team + what positions they might play. There's a big difference between 1B and SS and LF and C.F.

The Davis Enterprise had an article about the team today. Not much meat to it. It seems like the reporter didn't really get much in depth when he was asking Vaughn about the lineup and just sort of filled in a lot of details from assumptions. That's fine for a non- reporter amateur on a blog, but not someone who makes a living writing for a newspaper. They named the probable weekend rotation (Garcia, Razo, Mullins), closer (Stone), catcher (Denholm), first baseman (Novak), shortstop (Thomas), and center fielder (Kelly). So 4 positions were left as a mystery. Even if Vaughn declined to name the starters I'm sure he would have dropped the names of contenders if he'd been asked.

There was also a goof where they basically stated the team lost 3 of its best 4 hitters and named Olson and Cardinalli as 2 of the departed players- oops !

Pushing my first Aggie game of the year probably to next Saturday.

Roster is up ! Only 25 returning players. The quartet of Roppolo, Roeser, Allen, and Langer aren't on the roster. Kind of surprising. Thought at least 2 of that group would, but I guess they were all walk- ons and walk- ons have to really battle for spots every year. We have 5 catchers. Hopefully at least one of them (Denholm ? O'BOY? ) can play somewhere other than 1B or LF.

Good catch ! This of course assumes Stone doesn't get drafted, which I think he will.

Thanks ! Good to be back.