Texas A&M Baseball
* Coach Childress always referred to him pitching with a “heavy ball”. When he thinks of a heavy ball, he thinks of a guy like Steven Martin. When you catch or hit a heavy ball, it feels like your glove or your bat gets pushed back because there is so much rotation on the ball and it comes in so hard. He wished he knew why he pitched with a heavy ball so that he could have done it a little better, but he doesn’t know the exact reason it happens.
* His fiancé, former Aggie swimmer and Canadian Olympian Julia Wilkinson, had a great meet at the Olympic Trials and qualified in three different events, but will only compete in two of those so that she can have more time to focus on each of them. She will be competing in the 100m freestyle and the 100m backstroke after dropping the 200m IM. The 100m backstroke is her best chance at a medal and he believes that dropping the 200m IM was a good idea. She will also be competing in two or three of the relay events with the Canadian national team. If everything goes perfectly, she could technically win five medals. He’s hoping that he can get off work and go to London for the Olympic Games to experience the once-in-a-lifetime event. Julia’s website, juliawilkinson.com, launched a couple of weeks ago and it’s a place to stay updated on what is going on with her career and her life. The company that made the site did a really good job with it and they plan to keep it looking as nice as possible.
* Pretty much every Division I baseball team in the state of Texas is going to have talented players because there are so many talented high school kids in the state, UT-Arlington included. It’s not uncommon to run into a pitcher on one of the smaller teams that can shut you down and only give up five hits. One of the biggest things the baseball team needs to remember is that losses like the one to UTA happen and that they just have to keep playing the game.
* What is going on now is freshman pitcher Daniel Mengden’s first real adversity he has faced with the sport of baseball. He’s been very successful up to this point, so it’s more about learning to deal with the adversity and how to push through it more than anything. A lot of it goes back to the fact that everything he throws is hard. He has a hard slider, a hard fastball and a hard splitter, but what he really needs to develop is a good change-up and the staff has him working on that. If he can work that into his pitching rotation, it will make his fastball look a lot harder and his slider look even better. Right now he probably won’t be throwing during the big innings on the weekends until he comes along a little more, but you will see him on the mound at some point. He’s not going to get pushed to the back of the bullpen where he doesn’t get to throw anymore because he needs those developmental innings to grow and be successful.
* Parker Ray is a winner. He came to A&M as an infielder, then got moved to catcher, turned into a pitcher, had to go to junior college and is now back and having success in a relief role. He knows how to win and was a 5A state champion quarterback. On the mound, he’s a lot like Ross Stripling. He’s over the top with a good fastball and a really good curveball and one thing that has set him apart in the past few weeks is the development of his change-up. He’s going to start seeing a lot more of the big innings here in the next few weeks, and hopefully he can keep his 0.00 ERA going.
* His recruiting story is a little different from the normal story because A&M brought in about 30 kids in his class which is not normal to have. They weren’t a normal recruiting class, but when you start looking at names like NL Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw and Brodie Greene, you’ll see that they were a pretty good group. He was recruited mostly through phone calls. Coach Childress saw him throw in Oklahoma one day and he got a call in the car on the way back home. Going into his senior year of high school, he received an offer from Childress and him being the hotheaded 18-year old he was at the time, thought the offer was too small. He was expecting a little bit more and after not calling him back for a while, Childress called him and told him that they needed an answer or else they were going to move on. At that time, he made one of the biggest mistakes of the recruiting process and told Childress that he thought the offer was low and that he wanted another one. Childress laid into him a little bit and told him exactly who he was and what he was going to be. He also told him that he had a chance to be good, but he wasn’t getting a higher offer. He called his summer coach and was up in arms about the offer, but after a while his summer coach calmed him down and reminded him that ever since the first day Childress called, he wanted to be an Aggie. He thought about it for about five minutes before calling Childress back and informing him of his decision to come to A&M.
* Michael Wacha and Ross Stripling will go down as the best 1-2 punch of pitchers in the Rob Childress era. He has a hard time of putting them at the top of the list individually, however. One thing that they do have that only one other pitcher, John Stilson, has is College World Series experience. He puts them up with program changing guys like Kyle Nicholson and Stilson, but the order is still yet to be seen because they have some time in school. If they go and win a national championship this year, he will have no problem putting them at the 1A and 1B spots on that list. There is really no wrong order to put the top five or six Rob Childress era pitchers in, and for him to even be mentioned in the same conversation is a pretty big honor. He’s not sure if anyone at A&M has ever been to two College World Series, and he knows that no one has done it in back-to-back years, so when you look at Wacha and Stripling being key cogs in both of those runs, if it happens, is pretty impressive stuff.
Shane Minks on all-things Aggie baseball
Notes from Shane Minks interview
* His college walk-up song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” comes up on his iPod every once in a while and depending on his mood, he will either switch through it because he doesn’t feel like thinking about baseball or he will listen to it for a while. There are a lot of good memories associated with that song, but unfortunately there are some bad ones as well.* Coach Childress always referred to him pitching with a “heavy ball”. When he thinks of a heavy ball, he thinks of a guy like Steven Martin. When you catch or hit a heavy ball, it feels like your glove or your bat gets pushed back because there is so much rotation on the ball and it comes in so hard. He wished he knew why he pitched with a heavy ball so that he could have done it a little better, but he doesn’t know the exact reason it happens.
* His fiancé, former Aggie swimmer and Canadian Olympian Julia Wilkinson, had a great meet at the Olympic Trials and qualified in three different events, but will only compete in two of those so that she can have more time to focus on each of them. She will be competing in the 100m freestyle and the 100m backstroke after dropping the 200m IM. The 100m backstroke is her best chance at a medal and he believes that dropping the 200m IM was a good idea. She will also be competing in two or three of the relay events with the Canadian national team. If everything goes perfectly, she could technically win five medals. He’s hoping that he can get off work and go to London for the Olympic Games to experience the once-in-a-lifetime event. Julia’s website, juliawilkinson.com, launched a couple of weeks ago and it’s a place to stay updated on what is going on with her career and her life. The company that made the site did a really good job with it and they plan to keep it looking as nice as possible.
* Pretty much every Division I baseball team in the state of Texas is going to have talented players because there are so many talented high school kids in the state, UT-Arlington included. It’s not uncommon to run into a pitcher on one of the smaller teams that can shut you down and only give up five hits. One of the biggest things the baseball team needs to remember is that losses like the one to UTA happen and that they just have to keep playing the game.
* What is going on now is freshman pitcher Daniel Mengden’s first real adversity he has faced with the sport of baseball. He’s been very successful up to this point, so it’s more about learning to deal with the adversity and how to push through it more than anything. A lot of it goes back to the fact that everything he throws is hard. He has a hard slider, a hard fastball and a hard splitter, but what he really needs to develop is a good change-up and the staff has him working on that. If he can work that into his pitching rotation, it will make his fastball look a lot harder and his slider look even better. Right now he probably won’t be throwing during the big innings on the weekends until he comes along a little more, but you will see him on the mound at some point. He’s not going to get pushed to the back of the bullpen where he doesn’t get to throw anymore because he needs those developmental innings to grow and be successful.
* Parker Ray is a winner. He came to A&M as an infielder, then got moved to catcher, turned into a pitcher, had to go to junior college and is now back and having success in a relief role. He knows how to win and was a 5A state champion quarterback. On the mound, he’s a lot like Ross Stripling. He’s over the top with a good fastball and a really good curveball and one thing that has set him apart in the past few weeks is the development of his change-up. He’s going to start seeing a lot more of the big innings here in the next few weeks, and hopefully he can keep his 0.00 ERA going.
* His recruiting story is a little different from the normal story because A&M brought in about 30 kids in his class which is not normal to have. They weren’t a normal recruiting class, but when you start looking at names like NL Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw and Brodie Greene, you’ll see that they were a pretty good group. He was recruited mostly through phone calls. Coach Childress saw him throw in Oklahoma one day and he got a call in the car on the way back home. Going into his senior year of high school, he received an offer from Childress and him being the hotheaded 18-year old he was at the time, thought the offer was too small. He was expecting a little bit more and after not calling him back for a while, Childress called him and told him that they needed an answer or else they were going to move on. At that time, he made one of the biggest mistakes of the recruiting process and told Childress that he thought the offer was low and that he wanted another one. Childress laid into him a little bit and told him exactly who he was and what he was going to be. He also told him that he had a chance to be good, but he wasn’t getting a higher offer. He called his summer coach and was up in arms about the offer, but after a while his summer coach calmed him down and reminded him that ever since the first day Childress called, he wanted to be an Aggie. He thought about it for about five minutes before calling Childress back and informing him of his decision to come to A&M.
* Michael Wacha and Ross Stripling will go down as the best 1-2 punch of pitchers in the Rob Childress era. He has a hard time of putting them at the top of the list individually, however. One thing that they do have that only one other pitcher, John Stilson, has is College World Series experience. He puts them up with program changing guys like Kyle Nicholson and Stilson, but the order is still yet to be seen because they have some time in school. If they go and win a national championship this year, he will have no problem putting them at the 1A and 1B spots on that list. There is really no wrong order to put the top five or six Rob Childress era pitchers in, and for him to even be mentioned in the same conversation is a pretty big honor. He’s not sure if anyone at A&M has ever been to two College World Series, and he knows that no one has done it in back-to-back years, so when you look at Wacha and Stripling being key cogs in both of those runs, if it happens, is pretty impressive stuff.
Never miss the latest news from TexAgs!
Join our free email list
