There comes a time in every season on this feature that Diamond Notes naturally begins to move away from a “players of the week” format and morphs into more big picture thoughts and notes and analysis on the Aggie baseball team. It usually happens in the latter part of the season after a bad weekend on the diamond. I feel that we’ve hit that point after what we saw from this team in Oxford over the weekend. So here goes...
In the SEC, success can be fleeting. Typically each year, and certainly this year, there is such a log-jam at the top of the league pecking order that one incredibly successful weekend never seems to jolt a team way ahead of the pack but only keeps it neck and neck with the rest of the competition. But one rough weekend - such as the 0-3 showing that we saw from the Texas Aggies last weekend at Ole Miss - can bury you deep behind seemingly half the conference.
Case in point, let’s take a look at what one lousy series sweep did to the Aggies’ outlook in the SEC and to their pecking order when it comes to prospects for hosting a Regional. Coming off of a 2-1 weekend at South Carolina and inside last Monday’s Diamond Notes, I pointed out that Texas A&M had climbed to No. 6 in the D1Baseball.com poll, had an RPI of No. 13 and sat alone in second place in the SEC West and just a half-game behind Arkansas for the division lead.
Flash forward seven days and the Aggies have dropped to No. 14 in the D1B poll and are No. 19 in the RPI. But the more dramatic fall from grace has been in their own division. With the Aggies getting swept and Arkansas sweeping Tennessee over the weekend, A&M’s half-game deficit in the SEC West is suddenly three-and-a-half games. The Aggies have fallen from second place in the West to fifth and A&M is now a game-and-a-half out of sixth place in the overall league standings. And while the RPI ranking is excellent at No. 19, it ranks eighth among SEC teams.
D1B placed A&M ninth in last week’s Regional projections, essentially implying that the Aggies were on the cusp of being a legitimate contender for a national top 8 seed ... something that has happened only twice since the NCAA Tournament went to a Super Regional format in 1999 (’99 and ’16).
Just one week later, you have to believe the Aggies will fall right along the cut line of the Top 16 in this week’s Regional Projections and may very well be on the outside looking in.
- Author
And just one week later, you have to believe the Aggies will fall right along the cut line of the top 16 in this week’s Regional Projections and may very well be on the outside looking in.
SEC teams ahead of the Aggies right now in the quest to host a Regional: Vanderbilt (#2 in RPI), Arkansas (#3), Georgia (#4), Mississippi State (#5) and LSU (#17). Tennessee (#8) and Auburn (#14) have better RPIs but the Aggies beat the Tigers in a series a few weeks ago and A&M has a better league record and more top 50 wins than War Eagle and the Vols. I would place A&M ahead of both Tennessee and Auburn for now. So let’s put five SEC teams ahead of A&M right now.
Now a list of teams around the country with resumes that warrant being placed above A&M in the battle for a Regional host bid: UCLA (#1), East Carolina (#6), Louisville (#7), Georgia Tech (#9), Oregon State (#10), Miami (#11), Texas Tech (#12), UC Santa Barbara (#13) and Stanford (#15). West Virginia (#16) and North Carolina (#18), along with the aforementioned Volunteers and Tigers out of the SEC, are right there with A&M battling for the final two Regional host slots as it stands today, in my opinion. The Aggies have a better resume than the Mountaineers but the Tar Heels look slightly better on paper than A&M at the moment.
The point is, one bad weekend can ruin a resume and set you behind the eight ball in the loaded and tumultuous SEC, and that’s what happened over the weekend in Oxford. Of course, not all hope is lost with this team. The Aggies have 10 games left in the regular season: the game at Sam Houston State (#68) tomorrow night, a home series with Mississippi State and Arkansas sandwiched around a trip to Alabama (#51). And while the stretch run of the regular season will be a bear, the series with the Bulldogs and Razorbacks are at Olsen Field and that makes them much more manageable. Also, at 11-9-1, my magic number for SEC wins over the final nine conference games is five. If the Aggies can go 5-4 over the final three weeks in league play and get to 16-13-1, I believe that will be enough to host a Regional. However, a 4-5 showing would put A&M at 15-14-1 and I do not believe that is good enough. Not this year with the amount of quality teams in this conference.
Elisa Schmitt, TexAgs
Though they have shown offensive production in spurts, the A&M bats have been inconsistent in 2019.
However, it won’t matter where A&M plays its games on opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament if the team doesn’t start hitting the baseball consistently and getting at least solid production up and down the lineup.
There are moments of offensive success in this league, such as the Kentucky series, half the Vanderbilt series and most of the South Carolina series. But by and large, the offense has been anemic at best. A&M is near the bottom of essentially every major offensive category in the SEC and is coming off of the worst offensive output of the season to date. The Aggies scored just nine runs in three games at Ole Miss, while facing a freshman in two of the three games in the series. A&M managed just 17 hits against Rebels pitching and just four of those went for extra bases, including home runs from Braden Shewmake and Zach DeLoach. Will Bolt’s A&M lineup walked just three times and struck out 29 times on the weekend. That is two fewer walks in 29 innings against Ole Miss than A&M lefty John Doxakis - one of the elite pitchability guys in the nation who came in with just nine walks allowed on the season - gave up in his start on Thursday night. I’m not sure what is more surprising ... that Dox allowed five walks in one outing or that A&M walked just three times in three games.
One week ago, the offense actually looked like it was starting to take shape. DeLoach was powering his way up the lineup to take over the two-hole in-between Bryce Blaum and Shewmake. Logan Foster was getting back to elevating the baseball and driving it to all fields. Mikey Hoehner was doing Mikey Hoehner things and battling at the plate. Cam Blake hit his first home run in game three at South Carolina and Hunter Watson hit .400 in the series in Columbia. But you look up now and it’s hard to pick out much that you can hang your hat on. Here are the numbers from the primary starters in the lineup at Ole Miss, which closer resembles HTML code with all of the 0’s and 1’s in the key categories than it does baseball production.
1. Blaum - 3-for-12; 3 runs; 1 BB; 2 K
2. DeLoach - 2-for-10; 1 HR; 2 RBI; 1 run; 1 BB; 0 K
3. Shewmake - 2-for-12; 1 HR; 2 RBI; 1 run; 0 BB; 3 K
4. Foster - 1-for-12; 1 2B; 0 RBI; 2 runs; 0 BB; 5 K
5. Blake - 2-for-7; 2 RBI; 1 run; 0 BB; 1 K
6. Hoehner - 3-for-11; 1 RBI; 1 run; 1 BB; 3 K
7. Frizzell - 3-for-10; 1 RBI; 0 runs; 0 BB; 3 K
8. Coleman - 0-for-9; 0 RBI; 0 runs; 0 BB; 2 K
9. Watson/Brown/Walters - 0-for-10; 0 RBI; 0 runs; 0 BB; 6 K
Every week, I suggest a lineup but I’ve got almost nothing this week. Not after a week like that and production like we saw from the Aggie bats at Ole Miss. Best bet is to move Frizzell to the five-hole and Hoehner to the six-hole. Put Blake in the seven-hole and start Jonathan Ducoff at DH, slot him in the eight-hole and let Allonte Wingate play third base and hit ninth for a week and see if he can produce some much-needed energy for this offense at the bottom of the lineup. Something like this:
1. Blaum - 2B
2. DeLoach - CF
3. Shewmake - SS
4. Foster - RF
5. Frizzell - 1B
6. Hoehner - C
7. Blake - LF
8. Ducoff - DH
9. Wingate - 3B
Moving forward, what the Aggies have going for itself is elite starting pitching. And despite a suddenly-shaky back end of the bullpen, it’s still about as good as any relief staff in the conference. I don’t expect Doxakis to go out there and walk even five batters the rest of the regular season moving forward, so we’ll chalk that up as an anomaly. Asa Lacy was really good through five innings before being pulled in the sixth after walking a man and hitting another, in a 2-1 game that quickly turned into a lopsided 13-3 defeat after he was removed from the game.
Bradley Countie, TexAgs
Elite starting pitching was the highlight of an otherwise poor series from the Aggies.
And Christian Roa was the best starter of the weekend for the Aggies. But the hottest arm on the A&M staff right now is Chris Weber. The freshman lefty was lights out in his relief stint Saturday in Oxford, striking out four with no walks allowed in two scoreless frames. Here are Weber’s numbers in his last nine outings over the past month: 20.1 innings; 15 hits; 2 runs (1 earned); 3 walks; 28 strikeouts ... studly, and very much deserving of more late-relief opportunities in high-leverage situations with games on the line.
If you’re going to be a pitching-dominant program with extremely inconsistent offense and an inability to regularly produce crooked numbers on the scoreboard, you had better play elite level defense. And while we’re seeing outstanding moments with the gloves - such as the Saturday showing all over the field - this team has been erratic over the past six-to-eight weeks of just playing catch. A&M committed seven errors in the first two games of the series in Oxford and it was the Aggies’ late-game blunders that directly led to the game one loss on Thursday night. Third base has been a huge issue and A&M is getting no production from that spot offensively. So why not roll with Wingate? He’s a senior and an energy giver who hit .300 last year. He plays good defense. This is an obvious move that needs to happen, in my opinion. I think that would solve some - not all - of the issues defensively.
That’s about all of the rambling stream of consciousness that I’ve got for you on a Monday afternoon. Big game against Matt Deggs and the Bearkats Tuesday night in Huntsville, and then it’s another Thursday-Saturday series this weekend, with MSU coming to Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. Of course, it wouldn’t be an SEC weekend without rain slated to impact things, so hold on tight on that front.
Big week. And like I wrote at the top, this thing can have big swings week-to-week. Go win a series over the Dawgs and things begin to look much better for the Aggies moving forward. Should be interesting, as always. We’ll see what happens.
Key notes from Will Bolt interview
- The thing about weekend series is a lot of it is dictated on how Friday goes. John Doxakis was awesome, and we felt we’d finish that first game off. We were right there to finish it and it just didn’t happen. We ended up going to the bullpen. We used Joseph Menefee and Kasey Kalich early and it set up for what happened the next day. Two games we get walked off, we felt like we had a chance to win. We just need to take better care of the ball defensively.
- Ole Miss has a veteran lineup, but I wouldn’t attribute it to Doxakis’ walks. He had command and threw very well. We need to find a way to punch more runs across and play better defense.
- Tuesday we had a great approach and guys had confidence going into the weekend. With this team, when things are going bad it snowballs and when it’s good everyone builds on it. We came out aggressive Saturday, it was just one of those weekends where Ole Miss made plays and had the bounces. We didn’t play good enough. Saturday was better but they had all the momentum.
- When that breaking ball starts landing you need to get more aggressive. When you’re more aggressive, you’d think you’d walk less, but you don’t because you’re dictating to the pitcher what happens. The trademark of our team is when we do that, we have a much better chance at getting extra base hits.
- Zach DeLoach has been good and as consistent as anybody these past few weeks. We’re still trying to find the right places for guys in the lineup. We need better production in the bottom of the order. DeLoach has been really good offensively. Bryce Blaum is starting to get better.
- Will Frizzell was really diving the ball. He is giving us everything he has physically and fighting through some lower body injures. He put some good swings on Thursday and was always competitive at the plate.
- Hunter Coleman is four weeks removed from surgery, and it’ll probably be a couple more weeks. He’ll pick up a bat this week to see how he feels.
- This week means the same as all other weeks. We need to play well to give ourselves a chance to win. It is a tough stretch with finals going on. It’ll be a light practice today. We’re hoping for some good crowds this week against a very good Mississippi State.
