Great game tonight with the Ags looking good both on the field and in the stands. I felt the crowd was a little lite on both sides but there were as many Ags as there were UH fans. We were louder.
The umpiring especially behind the plate was a little one sided but what else is new. In my humble opinion the pitcher balked when Pennington was picked off and Clif thought so too. The umps also called three balks tonight two of which were against us and it actually helped us because the play was then ruled dead.
The home plate umpire took one one away from us by calling interference on our runner sliding at home. Mj protested in his mild manner that the slide was proper but this ump had an agenda.
The Ags hit young pitching well tonight and the line up show promise especially Pennington in the 3 hole. It was also good to see Bartek and Baldwin back in the line up and producing.
The pitching was super as usual with Austin C as good as I have ever seen him.
Good time had by all Ags in Houston.

Full Speed Ahead - Fire At Will - Gig'em

agreed

i was at the game and agree with pretty much everything you said

I bet he didn't have an agenda. I'm betting he was just not a good ump.

You can always count on the anti-Aggie agenda when a ref has a tough night. I guess every official in the country hates us.

guys, we arent just making this up about the agenda, it was OBVIOUS. every close call that the home plate ump could call, he called in the cougars favor. even calls that he should have appealed, he called against us instead of asking for help.

for example, when baldwin checked his swing on a strike three, the home plate ump said he went and it looked to me to be an obvious check swing, why couldnt he just appeal to the 1st base umpire? the next inning, another check swing by an aggie batter, he emphatically points to the field umpire before the catcher even has time to request an appeal obviously wanting a strike call and the field umpire says no swing. however, the only time i remember a UH check swing that wasnt an obvious call he took his sweet time appealing to the field umpire.

when the catcher threw the ball into right field he cost us at least a run with his phantom call. so whats the rule on sliding into homeplate? in high school you have to slide, yet in college you can get called for interference when you slide? that play was hardly interference either way, the catcher just let the ball sail on him. the home plate ump was terrible, and as an umpire, i rarely critique umpires as i know the calling of balls and strikes isnt as easy as most fans think it should be. however, this guy did have an agenda, but luckily our team was ready to play last night and prevailed anyway

Was his agenda to keep it to single digits?

If he wanted UH to win they would've won. Aggie batters would have had no chance and the Aggie pitchers would've had about 15 walks.

That check swing strikeout on Baldwin was one of the worst calls I have ever seen. 99 out of 100 umps wouldn't have even viewed that as worthy of appealing, yet this guy wasted no time ringing up Baldwin. I can't emphasize enough how horrible that call was.

I am still laughing about Noble's brilliant coaching move that basically allowed us to crack open the game. Hancock was mowing us down, but Noble wants to turn Penny around to bat righty, so he brings in the lefty. Penny hits 2 run bomb to left-center. However, I am concerned that Hancock was mowing us down like he was. All he was throwing was curve balls. He couldn't get his fast ball over, so he was relying strictly on curve balls. We weren't touching them. We really need to learn to hit a good hook.

Creps looked very good last night, and Ray threw a good inning too. Infante also had some very nice hits, and looks to be breaking out. Good night for the Ags.

Unless you were at the game, its hard to appreciate how one sided the calls were. I'm not saying he had an agenda, but its hard to watch the game and say the guy's calls were unbiased.

I will say at times he had a very wide strike zone that, while inconsistent, worked both ways.

PermianBasinAg,

I thought the same thing. I turned to my friend and I was like why is he pulling this guy? We agreed that bringing in a lefty to face penny/hill/baldwin (s/r/r) was the dumbest thing ever when you have a righty in the game who is cruising. Had MJ done such a thing I would have been a very unhappy fan.

The inability to hit a curveball continues to haunt MJ's teams though, and it was exposed again last night. I doubt we see much improvement on that over the course of the season but we shall see.

Permianbasin and Byron -

Agreed here too. My brother and I were clapping when they took that UH pitcher out!

My favorite was the UH pitcher with the leg kick! Man..that guy was cracking me up. For those of you not there, the pitcher would walk around the mound doing a little spastic leg kick thing...I thought he was trying to mimick the Elaine dance from Seinfeld.

Great game for the Ags..Austin was in a groove and Pennington was awesome...I could tell that was a homer the second it left his bat, he crushed it.

There is no anti-A&M conspiracy. There is just bad officiating.

I concur on all accounts....I just about spat my coke out my nose on the Baldwin strike out.

There was also a play at 3b (I don't remember who was the baserunner) where our guy was safe. I was sitting on row 2 above the 3rd base dugout lined up with the base....even the Cougar fans behind me thanked the umpire (who was standing out closer to where the SS plays than 3B)

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I think you're talking about the Chris Jones sac bunt attempt with nobody out and runners on 1st and 2nd. Infante was the guy they called out at 3rd. I thought it was a bad call, too.