Around the Horn with Aggie baseball coach Rob Childress

Notes from "Around the Horn" with Rob Childress

* It’s tough to go 5-0 in a given week when you’re talking about doing it in six days. Your pitching gets spread a little bit thin but the team had a really good week. The guys played hard and for them to come back Tuesday night from being down 10-1 helped them get on a little bit of a roll. From Sunday of last week on, the team has been really good offensively.

* Truly believes that there isn’t a deficit this team can’t come back from and win. Hopes they are never down 10-1 again, but they will always be able to draw from Tuesday’s comeback and will always feel like they have a chance to win. He didn’t sense any panic in the dugout on Sunday when the team was down 4-0 against Michigan State. Rafael Pineda ended up getting it back together, Estevan Uriegas threw two innings of solid baseball and the team was able to chip away before breaking the game open late and ultimately holding on to get the victory 9-8.

* On Wednesday, the team got a great start from Corey Ray which was good to see and he’ll get the start Tuesday night against Prairie View A&M. Michigan State had an older group that is picked to win the Big 10 this year and had good pitching along with a big physical line-up coming into Olsen this past weekend. They were able to get after Michael Wacha on Friday night, and he had to fight and battle to get A&M in the game. They were able to make it interesting at the end on Friday and they left the park feeling pretty good about themselves from an offensive standpoint. On Saturday, Ross Stripling gave his best performance of the year to date and the team won 4-0. The team wasn’t ready to play on Sunday but was able to chip away from an early 4-0 deficit and ultimately won the game 9-8.

* The new park has been amazing from a coaches and players standpoint, but it has also been great from a fans perspective as well. Keep the old structure of the bowl and the students above the first base dugout has helped keep the Olsen tradition alive. Seeing the walls of people out on the berms all weekend long is amazing. The weather was good and it’s only going to get better as the season goes along. Olsen has always given A&M a good home field advantage, but it’s even more suffocating to the opponents now because the fans go from foul pole to foul pole.

* Watching Rafael Pineda nearly throw a perfect game opening weekend and watching him overcome some adversity this past weekend were both really impressive. The way he dealt with the nerves of making your first career start on opening weekend was great to see but seeing him get through adversity was equally as impressive. The team made an error just about every way possible in the first inning and gave away four runs, but for him to come back and throw three shut-out innings gave the team a chance to chip away at the lead and eventually come back to win the game. In the fifth inning it was time to switch to Uriegas because four of the next five hitters were lefties.

* Uriegas has put in the work and has played summer ball every summer. He continues to get better and he was a guy who was at A&M’s high school camps in the summers before his college career. He is finally pitching up to his potential which is good to see because he hasn’t quite had the consistency needed in years past. He’s been very important to the quick start of the team thus far.

* Daniel Mengden did really well for having to throw three times in three days. Obviously he wasn’t at 100% but he went out and gave everything he had. Having him deal with runners on base and pitching out of the stretch in a close game only helps him and makes him more experienced which leads to him being a better baseball player long-term. The more spots like that that he can be put in, the better he will be down the stretch.

* The last few outings, Kyle Martin has been having mechanical problems. He has been raising up and flying open for someone who is more of an over-the-top pitcher. His attack was better on Sunday, but he still was having location problems with his fastball. His stuff is good, but his command is being affected by some mechanical issues that need to be ironed out this week.

* Brandon Wood is feeling as good as could be expected. He was released from the hospital this morning and is going home to rest. He has a slight break in his nose that will be fixed later this week. From a concussion standpoint, that will have to be evaluated later in the week. Obviously he won’t be available against Prairie View A&M tomorrow and this coming weekend is still in doubt. The trainers want to see how he improves from the concussion and the staff won’t rush to get him back on the field before he is physically ready.

* The most important game of the season so far will be tomorrow night against Prairie View. That program continues to improve and beat McNeese State on a Tuesday night earlier this season. They have been an annual visitor to Olsen Field, so they have some kids that know the environment they will be in and they should come ready to play. The matchup this weekend against Cal-State Fullerton will be a great one as well. They play extremely hard and fast which is very similar to how A&M plays. With the intensity surrounding the series, it should be a great checkup and benchmark for where A&M is and where they need to improve as the year goes along.