Aggies @ Simmons Field

■ Listen online: KTGR.com or RadioAggieland.com (if the home broadcast has technical problems)

■ Injured Aggies? Rivals.com's Kendall Rogers has the scoop for A&M Coach Rob Childress:

I spoke with Coach Childress very briefly this morning and he wasn't able to go into specifics, but he graciously was able to give me a little information on outfielder Kyle Colligan and infielder Brodie Greene. Details

A post on TexAgs.com has this to add:

Talked with Brodys dad and he has a cracked jaw, chipped front tooth, stitches both inside and outside. Had surgery last night his teeth were at a 90 degree angle where the ball hit him. He goes back to the Dr. on Friday to see if he has any nerve damage.

■ The Aggies come in to Simmons Field on a 3-game losing streak, 3-5 in their last 8 games. From Lobos Finish Sweep of Aggies (kbtx.com), including a video:

Head Coach Rob Childress: “We found ourselves down 4-0 before we knew what hit us, but I felt like our bullpen kept it close and gave us a chance. Kyle Thebeau found his slider tonight, and Nick Fleece and Hank Robertson had really good outings. We were playing a very good team in New Mexico, and their record is very indicative of how good a team they are, and I don’t care who they’ve played and who’s on their schedule.”

“We’re not playing very well right now, but we are competing hard, and that’s good to see. We had a much better approach tonight offensively. We’ve played five games in five days, and we’re 2-3 (on that stretch). I’d much rather be 5-0, but we’re not. That’s the way it is. And we don’t have much time to dwell on it, and that’s the great thing about baseball. We get on a plane tomorrow and play a very talented Missouri team in conference.”

■ Johnny Wholestaff: MU ponders staffing A&M game, says Matt Nestor of the Columbia Tribune:

But will the strategy work in a Big 12 Conference game? Against the No. 3 team
in the country?

“We’re giving it thought. We haven’t pulled the trigger yet on it,” Missouri Coach Tim Jamieson said. “We’re probably closer to doing it than we have been. I’m not sure we’re ready to do it the second series of the year, but we may also do it this weekend. It’s certainly been effective.”

■ Catch up with what the Texas A&M Aggies have done recently at AggieSports.com, the A&M page of The Eagle, the local newspaper in College Station, TX:

"We're still playing pretty much the same guys, just in a different order," Childress said. "Dylan Petrich has done an incredible job leading off innings, I think 9 of 11 [hitting in those situations], and Caleb Shofner has obviously done a great job for us and he's on base all the time and doesn't strike out."

The new lineup didn't exactly pound the ball, but it did get the key hits when needed, something that had been lacking in a few games of late.

■ Scout.com's AggieWebsider has analysis of the Aggies opening weekend against the Baylor Bears:

• Rob Childress and Matt Deggs juggled the line-up to get their best bats into the game, at the potential expense of defense, and were rewarded with a weekend .320 batting average and averaging nearly nine runs per contest.


• In their last four contests, all versus Top 10 teams, A&M has surrendered 13 runs in the ninth inning or later.

■ An interesting report on the Aggies strengths and weaknesses from an Aggie fan at TexAgs.com:

• Weekend pitching is as good as, if not better than advertised. Unless they are
  having an off night, these guys will make us competitive in every weekend series, which bodes well for the Big 12 campaign.


• Relief pitching is not as good as advertised. Unless T Star gets back to his previous form, relief pitching will be a little nervous at best and a liability at worst. No
  additional late inning lock down pitcher has emerged. See effect on above comment on being competitive in weekend series.


• Week day pitching is a larger drop off from weekend pitching than expected. It’s not clear the returners are showing significant improvement from last year, and the new guys are still finding their way with no evidence yet there is a Raley or Loux in the bunch. Good start by Chad Sherman last night though, and we could see this area get a lot better as the season wears on.


• Defense all in all is pretty good. Duran was huge at short last year, but overall the defense seems pretty comparable, with some great plays mixed in with occasional costly errors.


• The offense doesn’t look as good as last year. Each player has shown spurts, and if they all got it together at the same time it could be very good. The hitting last year was very clutch through most of the Big 12 stretch, the capability may be there
  again but we’ll just have to wait and see. The coaches have commented on the approach by the Fullerton and New Mexico hitters – aggressive approach, but with
  two strikes, fouling off pitches for a good pitch and then putting it in play. By and large don’t see that from our hitters. Team speed also appears to be down from last year, but it’s still above average and can put pressure on opposing defenses.


• Overall, pitching for a series is outstanding but we will need the hitting and 2nd tier pitching to come around to make a serious run past where we’ve been the last couple of years.

■ While we're on the topic of upcoming opponents, CollegeBaseballToday had an interview a while back with the head coach of MU's final opponent on the regular season schedule, Bill Kernan of Cal State Bakersfield:

Our schedule is rated at No. 29 (toughest) in the country this year. And if you look at Boyd’s rankings, you see that for non-conference games only, we have the 19th toughest. So we’re fine with that. . .

I like to say this is definitely a “college” team. There’s not any 1st round draftees out here, but that’s how my teams have always been. You know, give me my band of rugrats and let’s go out there and play hard.