Diamond Notes: Freshmen impress in big opening weekend

Click on the play button above for my interview with A&M assistant baseball coach Will Bolt from the Monday edition of TexAgs Radio. Notes from the interview are included at the bottom of this story.

What’s one word you would use to describe how you feel about the Aggie Baseball after what they accomplished on opening weekend of the 2017 season? My one word: Encouraged.

I’m fully aware that A&M was facing a lowly MAC opponent that hadn’t been outside at all during preseason workouts, so I know that opening weekend wasn’t a great litmus test as to what Aggie Baseball will be this season. But when you schedule a bad team, you need to go out there and handle them like you’re supposed to handle them. And looking back on a three-game sweep and victories of 15-1, 19-2 and 16-5 … the Aggies surpassed my week one expectation, and their performance leaves me very encouraged moving forward.

Here are some Monday thoughts looking back on the weekend that was…

• I could not be more impressed with the freshman bats. Six hitters took the field for the very first time in college - in front of packed crowds at Olsen Field - and that group did much more than simply hold their own. They dominated their opposition … especially with the bats. Here are the combined numbers offensively by the six freshman hitters: 22-for-40 (.550); 2 HR; 4 2B; 2 3B; 18 RBI; 20 Runs … yep, a .550 combined batting average, 18 runs driven in and 20 runs scored. What’s just as impressive is the fact that in 50 plate appearances, this group struck out just twice and walked nine times. They put the ball in play and squared up nearly everything that they put in play. We heard so much about how advanced this group is, and they delivered on that advanced billing and then some.

• Let’s dive into the individual performances of the freshmen. At the very top of the list of super stars in week one was Jorge Gutierrez. The freshman utility knife enjoyed a storybook weekend that he’ll be talking about for the rest of his life. On Saturday in game one of a double header - after walking in his only plate appearance on Friday night - Gutierrez parked a fastball over the wall beyond the visiting bullpen in right field. On his next at bat, the freshman blasted another home run over the right-center field wall. That’s right … two homers in his first two official at bats in an A&M uniform. In the night cap, he tripled to ignite a four-run fourth inning after A&M got behind early, 3-1. All told, Gutierrez hit .800 on opening weekend (4-for-5) with a triple, a pair of dingers, three RBI, three walks and five runs scored. It was a Caleb Shofner-type of weekend to kick start a season. As long as he keeps hitting, A&M will be forced to find a place for Gutierrez to play. So let’s hear it, Aggies … Hip, Hip, Jorge! Hip, Hip, Jorge! Hip, Hip, Jorge!

• As great as Gutierrez was against Bowling Green, the other five freshmen weren’t far behind in terms of their production and the approach shown at the plate. Here are the individual week one numbers for rest of the freshmen…

• Hunter Coleman: 4-for-6 (.667); 1 2B; 1 3B; 2 RBI; 4 Runs … did a great job receiving the ball in his first ever action in college. The son of former A&M hitting coach David Coleman … this has to be quite an experience for Hunter and the entire Coleman family to watch him having immediate success while living out his dream in Aggieland.

• Braden Shewmake: 6-for-13 (.462); 2 2B; 8 RBI; 2 Runs … drove the ball very well and didn’t strike out one time in 14 plate appearances, earning SEC Freshman of the Week honors. Handled second base with ease and showed tremendous range on the infield and exceptional speed on the bases. He’s a leadoff man hitting in the three-hole but can handle that as a freshman because he squares up a lot of balls and is dangerous with men on base because of his ability to drive the ball to all fields from the left side of the plate.

• Logan Foster: 5-for-11 (.455); 1 2B; 4 RBI; 5 Runs … hit several rockets while batting from the right side. He’s got the quickest bat on the team and has a lot of power in his swing as a right-handed hitter. He was hitting last week off a tee near home plate at Olsen - along with former players Boomer White and Ryne Birk. Boomer told me that he and Birk could only get the ball to the warning track a time or two hitting off of the tee. Foster, however, sent several moon shots over the fence and parked one off of the Rec Center Party Deck. That’s right … from near home plate … OFF A TEE. That’s ridiculous. We saw that power potential this weekend and he earned a start at DH and in the two-hole in the third game. He delivered with a pair of hits and two runs scored. The sky is the limit when it comes to the future of Logan Foster with the stick.

• Cam Blake: 1-for-2 (.500); 1 RBI; 2 Runs … walked four times and didn’t strike out in three games. He showed rapid improvement from fall ball until preseason workouts and earned a starting spot at DH to open the season. The Aggie legacy whose dad played basketball at A&M will have to battle every day to fend off the likes of Gutierrez and Foster at DH, but he continues to improve and is showing great patience at the plate in the early going.

• Tommy Gillman: 2-for-3 (.667); 2 RBI; 1 Run … certainly more on the outside looking in right now among the six talented freshman hitters, but the last couple of week has turned it on with the bat and is trying hard to force A&M to continue giving him a look. Gillman has a bright future and if he keeps smoking balls to all fields, A&M will find opportunities for him as the season rolls along.

• As great as the freshman bats were against the Falcons, the best player wearing white on opening weekend was probably Nick Choruby. The senior has gained some really good weight and it paid off to the tune of an 8-for-12 (.667) weekend and the first home run of his career … a shot off the middle of the right field foul pole in game two of the series. Choruby, the son offormer A&M player Shawn Choruby, also doubled, drove in five runs and scored a whopping 10 runs in the series. He did strike out a team-leading three times (tied with George Janca) but worked deep into the count on most of his at bats and also walked four times. If Nick can continue to be the spark plug at the top of the lineup that this team needs, it’ll set up a dangerous lineup to produce to its full potential this season. He’s one of the keys to the entire situation offensively under Will Bolt and Co.

• Speaking of Will Bolt … I think we’re seeing just how valuable Bolt truly is to this program. He was masterful in 2016 and ’17 with some experienced bats and a bevy of guys that can put the ball out of the yard. But this team is constructed differently, and the departure of seven starters in the lineup has made for a ton of questions entering this season. And all his group did was waltz onto the diamond and score 50 runs, pound out 46 hits and induce 26 walks and 12 errors while striking out just 19 times. I think we can all remember what life was like offensively before Bolt arrived. With the name “Will Bolt” and with his reputation upon arriving in Aggieland before the ’15 season, the feeling among A&M faithful is that Bolt would do just that after about a year or two … likely leaving for a head coaching job. To keep one of the top hitting coaches in college baseball in this program for three years, paired with an elite recruiter and bench guy in Justin Seely, is a great bonus and gives Rob Childress an amazing 1-2 punch on his coaching staff.

• When Walker Pennington hits .400 in a series and has the ninth best average on the team in that series, you know it had to be a great weekend offensively. There were a few regulars who did not hit the ball, however. Austin Homan was 3-for-11. Joel Davis was 3-for-15. George Janca was also 3-for-15 but two of his three hits were triples. Blake Kopetsky was 0-for-6 in his return from arm surgery. It’ll be very interesting to see how Bolt, Seely and Co. juggle the lineup the next few games. All six of the freshmen played well enough to deserve additional playing time, but Homan is a mainstay and Davis, Janca and Kopetsky will continue to get ample opportunities to get rolling at the plate as veteran members of the A&M program. Sometimes it’s hard to fill out a lineup because you don’t have nine guys that you like enough to complete your nine-player order. In this case, it’s a matter of having 13 or 14 guys that deserve to be in the lineup. The latter is a very good problem to have.

• How about the defense? A&M got to a bunch of balls on the dirt and had very few misplays on defense. That’s hard to do when you score 50 runs watch your opponent kick the ball all over the park for 27 innings, to the tune of 12 errors and even more mental miscues. It’s easy to lose your focus with the glove, but I saw a team that, outside of one inning in game three, was totally locked in on every pitch defensively. A&M had one official error and another mishap in the outfield by Walker Pennington, which was not ruled an error but led to two runs and an early lead for the Falcons. Outside of that, and maybe a poor throw or two behind the plate and a wild pitch or two, it was an almost perfect weekend on D.

• The other impressive element was the overall production and efficiency on the mound, considering the fact that these games really weren’t close for much of the action against Bowling Green. Eleven arms got into the game - including five freshmen - and other than one inning that got away from Mitchell Kilkenny due to his defense letting him down and one ineffective inning from the uber-talented but often erratic Corbin Martin, the arms faired quite well out of the chute. Brigham Hill wasn’t crisp with his fastball command but battled through six scoreless innings, striking out 10 (all on his nasty changeup) with two walks. Stephen Kolek looked very sharp on Saturday in his start in the early game. And freshmen Landon Miner, Jason Ruffcorn, Mason Cole, John Doxakis and Kyle Richardson showed why they were recruited at this level and left many believing that they’ll be a big part of the pitching mix right away as the season rolls along.

• It was neat seeing the local ties this weekend:

• Hunter Coleman’s dad was the hitting coach at A&M under Mark Johnson through 2005, and Hunter was born in College Station.

• Cam Blake’s father played basketball at A&M.

• Nick Choruby’s father played baseball under Johnson at A&M in the mid-to-late ‘80s.
• Austin Homan’s mother was an Aggie, and his grandfather was a member of the famed Junction Boys under Coach Paul Bryant. His mother passed away due to kidney failure this past October, and Austin wears his mother’s Aggie Ring around his neck at all times, including during games.
• Joel Davis grew up in Hawaii and Oklahoma and played quarterback at Midwest City HS in Oklahoma. His head coach? Current College Station High School head coach Steve Huff.
• Blake Kopetsky and Landon Miner are from Bryan, and Kyle Richardson is from College Station.
  

• Up next, the Aggies host Stephen F. Austin on Tuesday night at 6:30 before welcoming Pepperdine to Olsen Field this weekend for a three-game series. I like this schedule because the level of competition increases incrementally through the first two weeks before A&M heads to Houston for the Minute Maid Classic in a couple of weeks. In that event, the Aggies will play top 15 former Big 12 rival Texas Tech on Friday, consensus No. 1 TCU on Saturday and longtime foe Baylor on Sunday. We’ll know a heck of a lot more about the 2017 Aggies two weeks from today than we do right now.

I don’t know … I’ll tell you then, but it’s looking good so far.

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Will Bolt interview:

I think we played good, clean baseball, which is what we wanted to see. Pitchers attacking the zone, throwing strikes. We are happy with the way we played defense and took care of the ball, especially with the circumstances. You’re playing a team and it’s getting a little sloppy on their end and the score is getting lopsided, you tend to maybe take a step back mentally. From a defensive standpoint, we didn’t see that out of our team for one inning. It was a good weekend.

It starts on the mound. Those guys establishing a strike zone early. Pitching with good tempo. Brigham on Friday had the punch out going. I don’t think he was super sharp by his standards. You look at his line and he goes two walks, ten punch outs in six innings. They had to lay down a couple nice bunt hits. Stephen Kolek had great tempo on the mound, he attacked the strike zone. We saw some really great things from him. He only got to go about five innings because we had a 45 minute inning on offense right as he was nearing his pitch limit and we wanted to be conservative. Kilkenny was outstanding too. He was pounding the zone. We had one inning defensively where we didn’t take care of the ball real well. One guy advanced on a wild pitch, the come-backer where he tries to turn two with a runner on second. That was something you don’t see everyday. I think Mitchell was very good. His line doesn’t look great in terms of ERA but there are some errors that don’t show up in the score book that defensively cost him a couple runs there. We were really good on the mound which helps keep your defense engaged when they are throwing strikes.

Brigham can throw some two seam fastballs and get guys looking. The one that starts at the left handed hitter and comes back over the plate. The one that starts off the plate for a right handed hitter and comes back on the corner. His fastball command wasn’t as good. He had a lot of life on the fastball, normally he’s got some good arm side run at the top of the zone than we normally see. Hunter Coleman probably blocked 35 balls with all of those coming off change ups. Hunter was fabulous back there.

It was exciting even for our veterans to see these young guys. They’ve seen the talent they’ve possessed since August. They’re coming up to the coaches saying these young guys are a lot further along than we were at that age. A lot of them took their lumps in the fall, trying to get acclimated to school and baseball and facing our pitchers who are coming to throw multiple pitches for strikes. Coming back this spring you can tell they put in work over break. They’ve been very calm throughout this whole process. They performed well with 2,000 people in the stands. They weren’t nervous or over excited. They just looked like a confident group of guys who were going to have fun and play.

Jorge is a great story. He took his lumps in the fall. Being a multiple position guy is great, but it is very demanding. He’s trying to balance being a catcher and an infielder, being a switch hitter and going to school. He was definitely struggling a little bit. He’s lost twenty pounds. He’s playing around 200 to 205. The bat speed is better. He’s always had a great swing. Now he feels confident and strong. He’s obviously played very well. It was an impressive performance by a bunch of newcomers.

It is a tough act to follow when you hit a home run your first two at bats. He tripled later and got us going. It was the game we were down 3-1 and the tripled kind of sparked us. You look at the walk to strikeout again. The guy who started DH two of the games only had two official at bats. Cam Blake is sitting at four walks and no punch outs the first weekend facing Division 1 pitching and Jorge is three to zero walk to strikeouts. Shewmake, I think, is one or two with no punch outs. That’s pretty impressive. It doesn’t matter who you are facing when you can command the strike zone the way those young guys did and still be ready to hit. When you get your pitch in the zone you are going to hit, and that’s what those guys showed.

We’ve seen that DH battle the last two weeks leading up to the season where there were several guys who were hitting the ball hard and driving in runs and getting extra base hits making it a difficult decision. We ended up going with Cam Blake. In terms of some of the scoring system to validate what our eyes were telling us and help us take away the straight statistic of things, Cam was at the top of the leader board. You’re looking at a guy who can bring other things to the table as well whether it be power or speed or plate discipline. Cam is probably not going to be a guy who can drive a ton of home runs this year but he can hit a double, he’s fast on the bases and on base percentage for the weekend was .833. There were some other guys who showed well too. I thought Tim Lichy had a couple good swings. Baine Schoenvogel was two for two with two balls hit right on the screen. There’s definitely some guys that are hungry and want in the lineup.

Nick Choruby is going to go deep in some counts. He probably had at least one at bat in there that he’d like to get back. Certainly he needs to put the ball in play with his speed. It’s amazing what he did. You don’t ever expect a guy to go out and go 8 for 12 or 13. He’s a guy who know who he is. He is a lot stronger this year. He is 190 ponds and he hasn’t lost a split second of his speed. He’s a good baseball player and he played well this weekend.

I want to see a lot of the same from this team. Go and play, have fun, compete, throw strikes, stay hooked up on defense and having good at bats. I think our guys understand now we don’t talk about statistics. We don’t set aside team statistical goals. The mantra of this group is win the day. This team did that this weekend. As long as we continue to go out and compete and have fun and guys go out there and trust our preparation, we are going to see a lot of the same.