When I think of Dayne Quist a couple of words come to mind, junk-baller and overworked. I'll get to why overworked was one of the words in a minute but first I wanted to go over that word "junk-baller" and also just how dominant this 5 foot 9 southpaw was through his first 4 starts. While I started with Scott Lyman in regards to in-depth looks at the players, Quist has easily been the Aggies best starter so far this season. He has also spent the entire season as the Friday starter so Rex Peters has clearly trusted Quist from the outset.

Dayne Quist is not an overpowering pitcher, he only throws in the 85-87 mph range generally with his fastball and that might be a little too high of an estimation. Quist relies heavily on his command and his off-speed pitches. The young lefty also has an advantage over other college pitchers in that he has command of 4 pitches. While that is normal for pitchers at the next level, pitchers at the college level generally will only throw 3 pitches. Quist has the fairly standard Fastball, Change-up, and Curveball combination, the pitch that he adds is a split fastball. That extra pitch along with his excellent command has lead to a very good start for the Aggies young Friday Starter.

Before his start in Fresno, Quist had only given up 7 runs in 34 and 1/3 innings, which worked out to an ERA of 1.83. In 4 starts Quist had finished the game 3 times. Quist had only walked 9 hitters and given up 19 hits. For those of you keeping score at home that had his WHIP clocking in at just around .81, which for those of you unfamiliar with WHIP, is an amazing ratio. There is an underlying bad stat to go along with all the dominance of Quist's first 4 starts and that is his pitch count.

Since he had pitched 3 complete games it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that he has topped 100 pitches in 3 of his 4 first starts. This is why the word overworked comes to mind. Quist averaged 109.5 pitches through his first 4 starts, topping out at 126 pitches on March 5th when he faced off against Causeway rivals, the Sac State Hornets. This is a disturbing trend so early into the season and could have had been strong reason behind Quist's rough night in Fresno last weekend against the Bulldogs. There is a very interesting interview in today's California Aggie by Associate Sports Editor Mark Ling with Quist. Anyone who is interested in obtaining a little more insight into the southpaw should go check that out at The Aggie online by clicking here. In that interview Quist was asked if he was worried about his pitch count this this early in the season, he responded that he was not. There are a couple things that make me think he may have a point, not being a flame thrower is the biggest. Generally the pitchers who throw harder also put a lot more stress on their arm. Quist does not throw hard so there is a lot less stress and injury concern. Another reason is that Quist has a simple easy delivery that doesn't seem to put a lot of stress on his shoulder and/or arm even when he does put a little more behind a fastball. So there is a chance that the heavy workload won't be a problem for Quist moving forward into the season but I for one am still skeptical, at least for now.

So Quist took his amazing start to the season into Pete Beiden field but strictly looking at the stat line Dayne Quist's night against Fresno State comes across as very bad, and really it was bad. There is some good news that comes with the clearly bad news. We'll start with the bad and then finish off on some good notes. The worst thing from Friday night was simply how hittable Quist looked, he reached 0 and 2 counts often but then didn't seem to have the ability to finish them off. Something that makes Quist's night seem a little better but bad for the team as a whole is is that if you factor in the poor defense the Aggies had behind their Friday starter his numbers look a lot better. The key defensive miscue came in the big inning for the Bulldogs, with the bases loaded Scott Lyman let a grounder get by him and make it all the way to the wall. That play probably would have still scored 1 run but with Lyman's error all the runners made their way to the plate and the hitter ended up on third base. If you just take that one error away Quist's statline looks a lot better. While that is good for Quist there still were multiple defensive misplays and that is uncharacteristic of an Aggie defense that is normally very solid. The last stat in favor of Quist on that Friday start was he still struck out 7 Bulldogs while only walking 1.

Even after struggling in Fresno Quist still has very impressive stats on the season overall. The young lefty currently holds a 2.90 ERA and a WHIP of rougly .99 in 40 and 1/3 innings of work. His record is 4-1 and has a 31-10 K/BB ratio. Possibly the most impressive stat is that even after being hit around last Friday his batting average against is still only .213.

Factor all of the information together and I'd say the Aggies still have a very good Friday starter going forward. He might not be as dominant as he had been early on in the season but he'll be much closer to that than how he looked in Fresno.

Quist will get a shot at bouncing back tonight when he takes the mound in Fullerton against an extremely impressive Cal State Fullerton team. The Titans record stands at only 12-11 but they were ranked 4th in the pre-season Baseball America rankings. Fullerton is led offensively by Christian Colon and Gary Brown, both of whom have a chance at being selected in the first round of this summer's MLB draft. I will be watching along on Game Tracker tonight and listening in when I get a chance. Even though it might come off as negative,I'm just cautious. So mark me down as optimistic about a solid performance out of Quist tonight and for the rest of the year.