Texas A&M Baseball
* His March Madness brackets are pretty much terrible. He went with his usual Syracuse to win it all pick, but all of his other big players are pretty much done at this point.
* His fiancé, former Aggie swimmer Julia Wilkinson who is aiming for her second Olympic games, is doing well and is at training camp in Jacksonville, Florida at the moment. She’ll fly up to Montreal over the weekend and she will begin swimming at trials on Wednesday.
* The A&M baseball team is resilient. They have a good core group of guys with three of the best weekend starters in the country. This team is good at bouncing back and you only have to look to this past weekend’s Kansas State series to see that. After the team lost to the Wildcats on Friday night, they were able to bounce back on Saturday and Sunday, behind great performances by Ross Stripling and Rafael Pineda, to win the series. If they can keep it up, this team has a good shot to win the Big 12 and to move through the bracket back to Omaha.
* The biggest thing he took away from the Friday loss was that even when the team was down 7-0, they fought back and were able to even take the lead for a while before eventually losing the game. Even though the team loss, they never thought they were out of the game which is something that is great to see. It was hard to lose that game, but having Stripling come out and throw a complete game on Saturday was huge because it stopped Kansas State’s momentum and allowed A&M to regain control of the series. On any given day, Stripling and Pineda can step up and stop an opposing team’s momentum which can be very important during Big 12 play.
* Even after his recent blunders, he believes that Matt Juengel is still good enough to play third base in the Big 12. The line-up put out on the field on Saturday and Sunday was really good defensively. Scott Arthur is a guy who will eventually come around at the plate and if he can hit .230 or .250 from the nine-hole, then the team will be fine from a line-up standpoint.
* Krey Bratsen has great speed and any time he lays down a bunt, it will be somewhat of a drag-bunt because he is so fast. If Mikey Reynolds can get on base, having Bratsen is the two-hole is big because he will bunt 10 times out of 10 in that situation, and more often than not it will be successful.
* Michael Wacha’s biggest problem last weekend was leaving pitches up in the zone a few times. He was lucky to have Kevin Gonzales behind the plate while he was in school and he was really good at framing pitches to get more strikes called. He also did a good job of letting the team know in the dug-out how the pitches were being called and where they needed to be to be successful. Working your pitches down in the zone and making the other team put the ball in play is very important and leads to much more success than leaving pitches up and having them be hit easily. Wacha struggled with that over the weekend, but that’s not something you see from him very often and he will bounce back.
* Blake Allemand is a freshman who was hitting .367 coming into the Kansas State series and you weren’t really sure what you would get out of him once it got to conference play. He was able to go 4-for-8 over the weekend with a triple, four walks and no errors and that is great for senior, much less a freshman playing in his first conference series ever.
* Estevan Uriegas has had 15 appearances this season and has a .900 ERA. The ERA number for a reliever can be deceiving at times because every once in a while, you’ll have a run scored that counts for the pitcher who pitched before you, but with Uriegas, he’s only allowed one out of 15 inherited runners score this year. His ability to come into the game and stop the bleeding has been really impressive. It’s nice to see baseball finally paying him back for the time and dedication he has put into the sport.
Shane Minks talks intro songs, brackets & Aggie baseball
Notes from Shane Minks interview
* His walk-up song, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash was beat out early on by John Byington’s walk-up song, “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean in a playoff of Texas A&M former player walk-up songs.* His March Madness brackets are pretty much terrible. He went with his usual Syracuse to win it all pick, but all of his other big players are pretty much done at this point.
* His fiancé, former Aggie swimmer Julia Wilkinson who is aiming for her second Olympic games, is doing well and is at training camp in Jacksonville, Florida at the moment. She’ll fly up to Montreal over the weekend and she will begin swimming at trials on Wednesday.
* The A&M baseball team is resilient. They have a good core group of guys with three of the best weekend starters in the country. This team is good at bouncing back and you only have to look to this past weekend’s Kansas State series to see that. After the team lost to the Wildcats on Friday night, they were able to bounce back on Saturday and Sunday, behind great performances by Ross Stripling and Rafael Pineda, to win the series. If they can keep it up, this team has a good shot to win the Big 12 and to move through the bracket back to Omaha.
* The biggest thing he took away from the Friday loss was that even when the team was down 7-0, they fought back and were able to even take the lead for a while before eventually losing the game. Even though the team loss, they never thought they were out of the game which is something that is great to see. It was hard to lose that game, but having Stripling come out and throw a complete game on Saturday was huge because it stopped Kansas State’s momentum and allowed A&M to regain control of the series. On any given day, Stripling and Pineda can step up and stop an opposing team’s momentum which can be very important during Big 12 play.
* Even after his recent blunders, he believes that Matt Juengel is still good enough to play third base in the Big 12. The line-up put out on the field on Saturday and Sunday was really good defensively. Scott Arthur is a guy who will eventually come around at the plate and if he can hit .230 or .250 from the nine-hole, then the team will be fine from a line-up standpoint.
* Krey Bratsen has great speed and any time he lays down a bunt, it will be somewhat of a drag-bunt because he is so fast. If Mikey Reynolds can get on base, having Bratsen is the two-hole is big because he will bunt 10 times out of 10 in that situation, and more often than not it will be successful.
* Michael Wacha’s biggest problem last weekend was leaving pitches up in the zone a few times. He was lucky to have Kevin Gonzales behind the plate while he was in school and he was really good at framing pitches to get more strikes called. He also did a good job of letting the team know in the dug-out how the pitches were being called and where they needed to be to be successful. Working your pitches down in the zone and making the other team put the ball in play is very important and leads to much more success than leaving pitches up and having them be hit easily. Wacha struggled with that over the weekend, but that’s not something you see from him very often and he will bounce back.
* Blake Allemand is a freshman who was hitting .367 coming into the Kansas State series and you weren’t really sure what you would get out of him once it got to conference play. He was able to go 4-for-8 over the weekend with a triple, four walks and no errors and that is great for senior, much less a freshman playing in his first conference series ever.
* Estevan Uriegas has had 15 appearances this season and has a .900 ERA. The ERA number for a reliever can be deceiving at times because every once in a while, you’ll have a run scored that counts for the pitcher who pitched before you, but with Uriegas, he’s only allowed one out of 15 inherited runners score this year. His ability to come into the game and stop the bleeding has been really impressive. It’s nice to see baseball finally paying him back for the time and dedication he has put into the sport.
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