Bats come alive as Texas A&M pummels Fordham 19-6 to win opening series
Game #2: Texas A&M 19, Fordham 6
Records: Texas A&M (2-0, 0-0), Fordham (0-2, 0-0)
WP: Asa Lacy (1-0)
LP: Anthony DiMeglio (0-1)
Box Score
Texas A&M clinched their first series win of the season on Saturday evening as Asa Lacy was in mid-season form and the Aggies tallied 15 hits to cruise to a 19-6 victory.
Lacy struck out a career-high 11 batters in five stellar innings, allowing just three hits and one earned run. The southpaw walked the first batter that he saw, but then got into his groove, striking out five of the next six batters.
"I was a little bit nervous on the first hitter but then I got settled in there and got going,” Lacy said. “Overall, I felt good on the mound, I was on the same page with Chief (Rob Childress) and Mikey [Hoehner] behind the plate.”
Lacy and Hoehner were on the same page and that shone through on a momentous sequence in the first inning as Lacy struck out a batter and Hoehner gunned down the baserunner from his knees.
“That was a big momentum play. Fordham really wants to run and put pressure so that was a huge play to get off the field,” A&M head coach Rob Childress said. “Because of that we were able to grab the momentum and get the lead early.”
The Aggies wasted little time getting the bats going as Saturday’s hero, Bryce Blaum, launched the first pitch he saw down the left field line and advanced home after Braden Shewmake reached base on a fielding error. Blaum finished the day with a game-high three hits and four runs. The Ole Miss transfer now has four hits and five runs in his first two games as an Aggie.
“This weekend has been a blessing, probably the most fun experience I have ever had,” Blaum said. “The guys in the locker room make it so much fun to show up to the yard. It makes it easy to go out and compete.”
With a 14-1 lead through five innings, Childress swapped Lacy with Dustin Saenz who retired the side in the fifth. Brandon Birdsell and Jake Nelson pitched the seventh and eight innings, respectively and allowed just a single hit. Chris Weber got roughed up a bit but had a 17-run cushion to work with. Childress was pleased with the control of his pitching staff.
"We all love scoring runs but we did a really good job on the mound and played great defense. All around it was a really solid effort in every facet of the game."
The run support allowed Childress to get some of the less experienced Aggies some at-bats including emerging role players Hunter Watson and Ty Coleman. Childress attributed the offensive success across the board to his hitters being disciplined in the batter’s box.
“We did a great job tonight with two strikes, we had a lot of 50-50 balls with two strikes. We did a good job of taking some free bases,” Childress said. “We had a lot of traffic on the bases and we were able to knock some of those down and put the game away there in the middle innings.”
Fordham put together a pretty poor performance from the mound as eight different pitchers were thumped for a total of 15 earned runs. The Rams position players certainly didn’t do the pitching staff any favors as they committed a whopping seven errors. The visiting team will look to turn their defensive misfortunes around tomorrow afternoon.
Freshman Jonathan Childress will take the ball for the Aggies on Sunday afternoon at 12:00 p.m. as A&M will have a chance to complete the sweep of Fordham.