Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Pacific Tigers Series Recap
Unfortunately for the Aggies they're struggling with some of the key parts of their game, mostly pitching, and there's no time outs in conference play. The Aggies struggled last weekend against a tough Cal State Northridge team, except for the exceptional performance from Scott Lyman. This past weekend the Aggies pitching struggled again, and this time they were not bailed out on Sunday by Lyman.


Friday-
Dayne Quist has been a bit of an enigma throughout the season. His first 4 starts of the year were extremely dominant, but since then he has had big swings in performance, with more downs than ups. This past Friday was definitely a down on the scale of the season. Quist made it to the 5th inning against the Tigers but was unable to record an out and was removed after facing 7 batters that inning. CJ Blom came in on relief for Quist, and while he performed better than Quist, he still allowed another 3 runs over the final 5 innings. Overall it's a day the Aggies pitching staff may want to forget, the two southpaws combined to allow 16 hits and 12 runs of which 9 were earned. They also walked 5 batters while only striking out 6. The bigger problem with the game on Friday was that at the same time that the pitching was struggling, the hitting wasn't doing much better.

The Lineup was short one of the more important hitters for the Aggies, Justin Schafer, who is currently injured with an upper leg injury. Justin Andrade took Schafer's spot in the line up but played second base, with Heylman sliding over to play shortstop. The Aggies were able to put together 8 hits and 5 walks but only 1 run on Friday. That run came after Justin Andrade got on base with a walk and stole second base, he would come around to score on a Scott Kalush single. That's about it for good news on the offense. Marcus Pointer for the Tigers was able to, in the truest sense, spread the 8 hits and 4 walks that he surrendered. One last good note, every starting player for the Ags reached base at least once.

Saturday-
The pitching held the Tigers to a little less on Saturday and the offense was able to put more runs across the plate, but in the end it turned out to come just a little short as the Aggies. The Aggies would fall 7-5 on Saturday but there are a lot more good things to take away from the game.

While Sean Watson wasn't extremely impressive on the mound, he has given the Aggies a sense of stability that had been missing since Anthony Kupbens was lost for the rest of the year. David Popkins and Matthew Lewis were very strong in relief of Watson, keeping the game close for a potential come back.

Seth "the secret weapon" Batty, making his second start of the weekend, went 2 for 3 with a walk and drove in 3 runs. Paul Politi, who made a movement into the 3rd spot of the lineup, finished the game 3 for 5 and scored a run. The Aggies line was active from top to bottom, with Scott Kalush the only starter to not collect a hit, although he did reach base on a walk. Overall the Aggies offense put together 16 hits, 2 more than the Tigers. but the Tigers were able to capitalize on scoring opportunities better than the Aggies were. For the Tigers, Nick Longmire continued a very good weekend, going 4 for 5 on Saturday, after going 4 for 5 on Friday.

The Aggies showed once again that they are a very young team that is going to have their ups-and-downs in different facets of the game.

Sunday-
Scott Lyman, who was masterful last week, took a step back against the Tigers. The Aggies Sophomore Righty lasted 5 and 2/3 innings, he struck out 7 Tigers but walked 7 also and allowed 10 hits. Scott Chew went 2 innings of relief, giving up 2 hits and walking 1 while striking out 3. Matthew Lewis struggled finishing up the game, in 1 and 1/3 inning he allowed 3 run on 2 hits and 2 walks.

Lyman, who was reinstalled back into the line up last weekend, went 1 for 4 with 2 RBI in his batting duties Sunday. Paul Politi was back in the 3rd spot of the line up but did not preform at the same level as Saturday, going 0 for 5. Seth "the secret weapon" Batty finished off a strong weekend where he started all 3 games, he went 3 for 5 and scored 2 runs. Davis Popkins went 2 for 3 while driving in a run and scoring 1.


Looking forward-
The Aggies are in Moraga today taking on Saint Mary's. This coming weekend will be the last home series of the year for The Ags, with the Cal Poly Mustangs coming to town with their 6 and 12 Big West Record. The Mustangs are only a couple of games ahead of the Aggies, which means if UCD can win this series there is potential for them to move out of the last place position of the Big West.

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Posted at 4:27 PM by Trevor.