The Rise of Daniel Mengden: Aggies open with 10-4 win

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BOX SCORE: LINK

We knew of only one way to remember A&M's 5-4 loss to Rice on April 17 — a frustrating what-if. It was a game we were certain we would circle and shake our heads at when the postseason arrived, strewn at the head of a pile of four consecutive defeats during the ugliest week of A&M's season. A winnable game, gone by the wayside in the late innings.

With the benefit of retrospect, here's what it should be remembered for: Helping catalyze the Aggies to the finish line. Rob Childress was forced to reach into the bullpen five times that night, at one point pulling from its ranks a struggling freshman and sending him out to protect a lead that had dwindled to one. Away he went, taking a 6.75 ERA with him.

That was Daniel Mengden.

No runs and two strikeouts in 1.2 innings pitched was his line, largely unnoticed at the time. He did his job and left, and A&M would go on to blow the lead in the eighth. But it was the quiet spark that ignited a run that has produced the Aggies' newest star.

As brightly as that star shone in consecutive starts against TCU, Sam Houston State and Texas State (all Aggie wins) and in Stillwater, Oklahoma in the final game of A&M's sweep of OSU, so did it in Oklahoma City on Wednesday.

Rob Childress handed Mengden the ball and tasked him with starting the Ags off on the right foot in their final Big 12 Tournament — allowing Michael Wacha to rest — and he responded. Mengden (3-3) threw 6.2 innings of one-run, five-hit ball while the offense went to work and A&M rolled over Kansas, 10-4.

The Aggies stole a run against Jayhawk ace Frank Duncan in the bottom of the first, scoring Tyler Naquin from second on a Jacob House single to take a 1-0 lead. That would be the extent of the game's action for four-and-a-half innings while Duncan recovered and mowed through the A&M lineup — and Mengden matched. He faced three batters over the minimum in the first five innings, striking out five guys (four looking).

Krey Bratsen started a two-out rally in A&M's half of the fifth, singling with the bases empty. Scott Arthur followed by smacking a triple off the left field wall to score Bratsen and scored himself on Mikey Reynolds' single one batter later. After Naquin picked up the second of his four hits on the day, Matt Juengel doubled two more runs in to make a 1-0 pitcher's duel a 5-0 breeze. The Jayhawks scored their only run off Mengden a half-inning later, plating an unearned run in the top of the sixth after Reynolds' error on what would have been a double play prolonged the inning.

A&M tacked on two more in the sixth and three in the seventh to reach the final tally of 10; Jason Freeman and Corey Ray combined to pitch into the ninth, with Estevan Uriegas getting the final out after Ray struggled and allowed three runs on a stream of hits.

Mengden, A&M's No. 4 in name, effectively matched KU's No. 1, a guy who earned Second Team All-Big 12 honors on a terrible team. And not once was that in doubt. He did a bit of everything against Kansas — coming in around 93, mixing up his pitches, locating, working fast and helping deliver the Aggies a win in Day 1. Yes, it was against a team A&M was expected to beat, but those wins aren't as easy in life as they are on paper. And, yes, Mengden hasn't faced a lineup on par with Baylor's yet.

But four starts into his renaissance, his numbers look like this: 3-0, 0.68 ERA, 1 BB, 16 K in 26.2 IP. He's been so good on the mound that even his ninth-inning bomb in Stillwater didn't fully remind Aggie fans that he's just as good at (and behind) the plate. As of right now, he'd project as Childress' Friday starter next season.

Where this year is concerned, there can't be a better starting pitching situation in the country than the one the Aggies are now riding. Mengden has been so consistently good over those last 26.2 innings that the question now becomes whether he's earned the role of the team's No. 3 right now — and that's no slight against Rafael Pineda. In this postseason he is, to use the most apt word, simply a weapon. He's equally dangerous as a late-innings reliever, an off-day starter or a pinch-hitter.

It's hard to pick a driving storyline from a game the Aggies won with this much ease, but Mengden simply continues to impress. And, sitting at 1-0 in the tournament with Wacha revving up to face the Missouri-Texas winner, casting an eye toward the regionals with this rotation on hand, this team looks prepared to go to greater heights.