ball5podcast/College Station Regional Preview

Tune in as Scott talks about the upcoming College Station Regional this weekend at Blue Bell Park. Scott also discusses his opinion on a metric he feels was used against A&M in seeding consideration as well as a brief review of the other teams rounding out the regional bracket which are: Lamar, Texas State and University of Southern California. Enjoy

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hey everybody, thanks for joining the Ball Five podcast. I'm your host, Scott Livingstone. And today, in this uh mini episode, if you will, I'm going to go over the college station regional that was rewarded to the Texas AM Maggie baseball team this coming weekend at Bluebell Park. So let's kind of jump into it. When they revealed the uh top 16 uh host sites, that was we were hopeful that we were gonna get a top eight. It's kind of leaning that way. We're on the fence, are we nine? Are we 10? Which one are we? Who are we gonna play? And stuff like that. So I think as they started to reel things more and more, I mentioned on my podcast before, I think people are kind of not really looking at strength of schedule and non-conference strength of schedule. Our non-conference strength of schedule is ranked in the 200s. Actually, George's was as well, but they won the SEC, so what can you do? Um, so we ended up with the 12 seed, and as they were revealing it, I kept thinking that we were going to see us against Texas because it kind of seemed like it was going that way, but we are actually paired up with the number five seed. So basically one will play 16, the winner of each regional. If one wins, they'll play 16, two will play 15, 3, 14, and just keeps going down and down and up like that. So we are actually, since we are 12, we're paired with five, which is North Carolina. But even though we didn't get in the top eight, there's still always a chance because not all 16 come out of their region. A lot of them, not a lot of them, but some of them they don't win. A two-seed might win it or a three-seed might win it. Rarely does a four-seed win it, but they're gonna have um they're gonna have a tough go at it in North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They got Tennessee, who struggled a little bit at the beginning and they've kind of come on as of late. And I think they're, you know, they're playing some pretty good baseball right now. And of course, they're still Tennessee, and they play an SEC schedule. So they're gonna be tough. They also have East Carolina in their bracket. Um, and they've won too, and they've you know, they've they've hosted some regionals themselves. So I think they might have been thinking they were gonna get one, but they didn't have the year that they've had in the past. So anyway, if we get out of our region, we will go play them. If North Carolina wins, we will play at Chapel Hill two out of three for the uh super regional. If North Carolina gets beat, then we get the winner, we'll come to Bluebell as long as we win our regional. So basically, when they revealed everything, uh UCLA was one, Georgia Tech was two, Georgia was seeded three, Auburn four, North Carolina five, Texas six, Alabama seven, Florida eight, uh Southern Miss nine, Florida State 10, Oregon was 11, we are at number 12, Nebraska 13, Mississippi State 14, Kansas 15, and West Virginia 16. So it's a pretty good representation there of the SEC, and it typically usually you know always is. So, but like I said, our overall strength of schedule was 17, and it was pretty high at the beginning, but then as we started playing more SEC teams for our conference, that you know makes that schedule way stronger. But we ended up with a non-conference of 212. So when I listened to the committee, head of the committee that um they talked to on the when they were talking about the road to Omaha and revealing the the seatings, they I mean he had said strength the schedule, and they they looked at that. And even though they look at RPI and this other thing called DSR and you know, just other things that they look at, it's just strength of schedule. Who you play matters. You know, a lot of the teams that we play on those Tuesdays, the Prairie Views, the Houston Christian, you know, some of those, you know, incarnate word. I mean, teams like that, I don't think are gonna really help us in strength the schedule. So maybe we kind of look need to look at that, or you know, otherwise you gotta win like every game, like UCLA practically did. So anyway, coming to our region. So we'll be number one. We'll we're the one seed, obviously. USC, number two, number three will be Texas State, familiar foe, and Lamar, who we've played. I think we play him once every year. So they're uh they're a pretty, you know, gutsy and gritty ball team, too. And I think their coach is actually now going to Houston. So it'll be interesting to see how that all kind of plays out. So uh yeah, so I said North Carolina's, but so our RPI ended up at 14, which I don't look at all this stuff that much. USC was nine, uh Lamar was 90, and Texas State was 43. So uh I don't know. I just feel like I it's strength of schedule. I keep going back to strength of schedule and who we play matters, and those early games during that season. If that's the metric that they're gonna use, then golly, schedule some tough teams. Auburn had the number one uh strength of schedule because they went out and got teams and played teams, and you look at some of these, like you know, Lamar. So we'll we'll start with Lamar, who we play the first game uh Friday. They're you know, they they are in the Southland Conference. They actually have the Southland Conference player of the year, and you know, he's had a good year. He's thrown the ball really well. It's uh Chris Olivier, is how I'm gonna say it. You know, he's he was first team all Southland. Uh Lamar's 34 and 25, 19-11 in conference. They lost to Texas early, 14-4-7, and then they lost to us 25-5 in seven innings. Of course, that was early, and then they got swept by Oregon State. So uh Olivier's record is seven and four, his ERA is 2.66, his whip is 1.05. Uh, he has 103 K's in 88 innings pitched. That's a lot, and a batting average of 180 against him. So, you know, he's got good stuff. I saw a video of him uh earlier today because I was trying to find out how to pronounce his name. And uh, you know, a lot of off-speed stuff. I don't think he throws he might throw low 90s if that. And I just I just, you know, when I look at like uh Lamar and Southland Conference, a lot of the teams that they played are teams we play on Tuesdays. So, you know, the Houston Christians, Incarnate Words, you know, those those types of teams we play on Tuesdays, and you saw how we did on Tuesdays. So that kind of tells you where the level of competition is. And so that's kind of where we're at. But you know, they got some they got some guys, they can, you know, they can hit the ball a little bit. Um, they got another pitcher named Travis Lutz. He's got 2.28 ERA. Uh batting average against him is 206, 59 innings pitched and 67k. So they got Tab Tracy, former Aggie. He's having a good year over there. He's hitting 356, but there's not a lot of bang in that lineup. So I think our offense will eventually take over. I don't our guys are not gonna see anything different that they haven't seen in the SEC. I mean, you see the best of the best in that conference, so nothing's gonna be surprising coming from Lamar. And so I just feel like we're in a really good place to win that game. And, you know, they're the most home runs on one of their team is is seven. That's the the guy that's leading has seven home runs. So you can look at that and think what you want. They may have had a couple against us when we played them, but so I'm not too concerned about Lamar, but you know, like we always say, it's baseball, you never know about it, right? So um Texas State, who's gonna play USC the night game on Friday, they're 36 and 24, 16 and 14 in conference. And we, I mean, we know that we know them, we've seen them. They lost to Texas 15-4, lost to us nine to six at Bluebell, but then beat us nine to eight uh at their place. And of course, you know, those are Tuesday games, so it's not like we're throwing our top pitchers. I think it's where, you know, Coach Early is still looking at guys and getting guys work and stuff like that. And so, and sometimes those teams like that at Texas State, they'll use one of their top guys later in the game if they get a lead to try and shut us down. Where we typically don't do that, but we kind of started doing that when we realized we needed to just win games, right? And every Tuesday started to matter. They also got swept by Southern Miss, who is nine, seeded nine. But they've got, I mean, they've got power. They've got 111 home runs and seven guys are in double digits. That's pretty crazy. So we've seen them. They've hit them against us, so we we know. We definitely know. Uh, they got a guy named Rashawn Galloway, he's hitting 324. Four guys are hitting over 300. That's in conference. And they're pitching, like I said, is you know, to me, a little questionable, but you know, they're they're gonna hit the ball, they're gonna hit some balls out of the ballpark for sure. But I still think we've got an offense to carry us through against those two teams. So if we win, if we beat Lamar on Friday, and then USC wins against Texas State Friday night, then we will meet on Saturday. And for USC, I mean, they're a good team. They won like, oh man, I want to say they won like almost 20 games in a row to start the season. Something crazy. 19-0, 20-0, something like that. They're 43-15, 20-10 in conference. Their first loss was March 14th. It was Northwestern, and then they didn't lose again until Oregon State on the 24th. But they got swept by UCLA in the Big Ten. Uh, they got swept by Nebraska. They lost two of three to Oregon, and uh UCLA ended up knocking them out of the big, the Big Ten tournament. So, you know, they've played some competition. They definitely have, and you know, everybody raves about their pitching staff. They got this guy named Mason Edwards, who they say is the real deal, and for the season, he's 8-0 with a with 160K's, 1.43 ERA, 88 innings pitched, and teams are batting 146 against him. In conference, he's at a 2.09 ERA, 5-0, 113Ks in 60 innings. He's only got 28 walks, and they're hitting 174 against him. So he's he's the real deal. He's uh probably the pitcher of the year in the Big Ten, and he's he's getting it done. And they got another guy named Grant Goval, 353 ERA, 97 whip, 49 K's and 58 innings pitched. He's six and two, and one of their guys has uh six saves, Adam Troy. So they're more of a pitching team over a hitting team. Their pitching is keeping them in the games. But them being our second game, uh, you know, assuming we're gonna win and they're gonna win, who are they gonna pitch? They're gonna have to decide that, but so are we. So we just have to see what's going on. They have 78 home runs overall, only four guys in double digits, but one of them's got 17. So they're not gonna wow you with their hitting, but they will run a little bit. They got some guys that can steal some bases. And I tell you one thing, they're coached by Andy Stankowitz, who's actually a former big leaguer with the Yankees. He was uh kind of utility infielder, played some different positions, but I played against Andy pretty much all the way up. I mean, A-ball, they were with us, double A, they were in our league, triple A, they were in our league. And then, of course, when I went with Detroit, Yankees were, you know, on the American League side too. So I know Andy just from playing, I haven't talked to him obviously in years, but I know what kind of team, if they're anything like him, they're gonna be scrappy, hard-nosed, they're gonna, you know, give them an inch, they're gonna take a mile. I mean, they're gonna try and do everything they can to win a game because that's that's who he was in the minor leagues and the big leagues. I mean, he was a really, really good player, and he just did a great job for you know the Yankees. And I think he went to Houston for a little bit. So some of y'all may remember him. Um, but yeah, Andy Stankowitz, he's he's gonna be he's a gamer, man. He's gonna be tough, so he'll have them ready. So if we get there, it's gonna be interesting to see you know these two guys, you know, everybody go up against each other. But one thing I wanted to mention about that Mason Edwards, the Big Ten pitcher of the year. I looked at their his record against the uh Big Ten teams that he played in conference, UCLA, Oregon, and Nebraska. They lost to UCLA, but he didn't get the loss. He went four and two thirds, seven hits, four runs, and five Ks. Oregon, they won in 11, but he didn't get the win, but he went six innings, four hits, twelve K's, three walks. And Nebraska, he went seven innings, gave up nine hits, two runs, and twelve K's and no walks. So, you know, against teams that are in these regionals, he's done well. So something about him, I hadn't seen any video on him or seen any reports on him, but you know, just looking at numbers and seeing how he did in the conference, it, you know, he's gonna be a good one. But like I said, you don't know when he's gonna pitch, right? And you know, so when we look at our stuff, it's to me, I feel like you know, everybody talks about our pitching, right? It's our pitching, we need help on the mound. If our pitching is good enough, then we can win because we're gonna hit. And depending on where all these guys pitch, I mean, and and like I said, USC's got some arms. Are they gonna be able to bang the ball around? I don't know. But I think it's it's gonna be interesting to see how our bats respond against these guys that, you know, Southland Conference pitcher of the year. So obviously he's pretty good. You know, Big Ten pitcher of the year, obviously he's pretty good. You know, in Texas State, we've seen them, they've beat us. Texas State's not gonna be afraid of us. I mean, yeah, we beat Lamar 25 to 5, but that was way early in the season. So, I mean, who knows how what what their uh level of play is right now, but Texas State's not gonna be concerned about us. USC is not gonna be concerned about coming into Bluebell Park. And I know the 12th man is gonna show up, and we're gonna probably make some pitchers uh a little nervous out there on the mound, but you know, we're gonna have to earn it. We're definitely gonna have to earn it. I think it could be one of the toughest regionals that's out there. Um, but I just feel like we're gonna have a good chance to move on and move to the super regional. And I really think we have a good chance to host it at Bluebell Park. So, but we got to take care of business first. And I know Coach Early and the team, they're gonna be ready. They flushed that last the Auburn loss to, you know, an SEC tournament. I don't really care about that game. That doesn't really mean much to me because you know, now you know we're gonna get back to full strength, which we're we would still be fine. I'd still feel good about the team if Nico wasn't healthy and a copian's not at second. You know, he's gonna hit, but bringing Nico back, whatever percentage he he's healthy, he's gonna help. He's he's definitely gonna help. So having him back and uh hopefully at full speed, and a copian getting some rest and days off, you know, I know it's his, I mean, the guy's a gamer, man. But I think it's gonna help us to be able to, you know, finish the deal with the regional and maybe have it at Bluebell Park. How cool would that be? And might be against Tennessee. And the thing about it is, you know, not having any SEC teams in our bracket, I think that's huge because they haven't played us. It's just about what's on paper, what do they see on film? I don't know how they do scouting reports and stuff now, but not having seen us or playing played against us during the season, that's a big deal. I mean, like when Auburn played us, yeah, we saw that pitcher before, but that guy's got a legit arm, man. That guy was legit. And he had he had really good stuff, and you know, he's not afraid to challenge, and and he did a great job. So that it's I mean, the Auburn game's flushed, not worried about it, not worried about losing the series. It's like, you know, now it's a different season, right? This is the postseason. So here we go. Let's get it ready, let's get it going. And I and I feel good about it. And you know, I get asked all the time, recently, not all the time, but recently, who are we gonna pitch? You know, we don't know about Sims. The coaches, they uh they obviously know more than than we on the outside know about Sims and you know how bad it was or how how you know minor it was, whatever the case may be. But I think you know, if he's healthy, I feel like he needs to go game one. You got to win game one. You want to stay in the winner's bracket. Now, can we beat Lamar with our other pitchers? A Darden, Lions, Sedeo, Moss. I 100% believe we can. 100%. I'm I I think we're gonna get enough runs off of their pitcher to overcome anything that we give up. So, you know, I've heard Bronny say it on TechS, and he's totally right, totally true. And I agree with him. He's like, you know, whoever they run out there, I can't really argue it because that's who they're gonna run out there. And they've, you know, you've thrown Darden, what, three out of the last four starts? So if you're comfortable throwing him out there and then uh backing him up with Sedeo, I I mean, why not? You know, start him against USC, put Sims out there. If he's healthy enough, let's see. Because if we if he if he's kind of not healthy or whatever it is, I don't know if you want to throw him in the second game against USC, if it's if if they're there. And uh or even Texas State, and and something kind of knots up on him again, or he gets some tightness, and now he has to come out. Now we're scrambling with the bullpen. So I don't know. I feel like if if you go with your horses, if he's healthy, he goes. If you are comfortable enough to throw Darden and start him, start him again. I mean, they got to win down the line. These guys have to win games down the line for us, and they're gonna be on the bump. And you know, somebody may step up. We saw Cooper Powell. Man, the guy, I mean, young guy, he threw awesome two innings. I saw his, I think it's his last outing. But I feel good about where we are, obviously, from an offensive standpoint, and we'll just see how the health is. And we got even if some guys kind of have to sit out, we've got guys in the that have played during the season. So I think it's good. I think it's huge. I think we're gonna have a good chance to uh make our mark in the in the regional and you know get it done. I really do. And so, I mean, I'm looking forward to it. I'm gonna try and get down there. And, you know, I look back at the 2024 season when we went to the Cosworld Series, we slugged, and that's what we're doing this year. We can absolutely slug. And you got Grahovac right there, and then you have Sorrell following him and Kopian. I know he's not having the year that he wants to be having, but he's still extremely productive, and he's a threat too when he gets up to the plate. He's a threat. Hit the ball out all over the field. So we got all sorts of slug in the lineup. I mean, you look at, you know, and we lost to Tennessee in Omaha, obviously. Don't want to bring that up, but there it is. I mean, we had Montgomery had 27 home runs, Laviulette had 29, Grahovac 23. I mean, and the list goes on. I don't know, 130, 140 that year. I don't remember how many, but when you have three guys that have that many, you slug and we went to Omaha. And we had good arms too. I believe that was Cortez and Ashenbeck, uh, Prager, Lampkin, Tanner Jones. I mean, you know, we we we had a good team. And but our slug covered up a lot of the pitching stuff, but we weren't really that inadequate at pitching. So I think with the pitching stuff and decisions that they have to make for uh this coming weekend, I think they're just gonna stay the same. If Sims is healthy, I'm throwing him. I'm not waiting until Saturday, but it's not my decision. And like Bronny said, can't argue with it, right? If they if that's what they decide to do, you you go for it. They know they know what's best, they know the health, they know you know who's who's feeling good, how their uh their week of work went. And so they got them. And I I feel really good about us in this regional. Um, it's gonna be interesting to see what USC does. Are they gonna throw that Mason Edwards guy? You know, are they gonna throw him? So we'll know. We'll find out, and uh we'll see how all that works out. And uh, so I feel good about it. Um I just don't I don't think teams can hold us down. I don't think they can hold our offensive production down because you know, yes, Auburn, guys throwing 97, 98 miles an hour with a wipeout slider and a changeup. I mean, that's tough, right? And I mean, it was tough when I was facing 92 miles an hour with a slider. I mean, now they're throwing 97, 98. So, I mean, a lot of things have changed, but still, it's it's it's hard. But I just don't feel like the pitching is there. Maybe this Mason Edwards guy, but from the other teams, I don't think it's there. And who knows if we'll even see that guy because he might just pitch once in the weekend. I don't know how that, I don't know how Andy works his pitching staff, but uh he's a smart, smart manager, but we both got to get to that second round first. So I feel good about it, and uh I'm looking forward to the weekend. All right, everybody, thanks for listening to the Ball Five Podcast. And let's go get us to win this weekend. Let's go get us to regional tournament and move on to the supers. I think that sounds pretty good. What do you think? All right. Okay, folks, thanks again. Until next time.