bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend series against Fresno State?
Rocky Ward: Well it didn't go as planned. We came in to the weekend with a losing streak that was weighing on us a little bit and the history of the Fresno State games in Las Cruces has not been good. We haven't played well at home against them for some reason, one of the only clubs that we haven't. They had won the last two games against Sacramento State and had scored pretty well and that had been their problem. They swung the bats pretty well in the first and last games, of course neither team swung the bats very well in the second game. Same thing, we've struggled recently scoring and getting key hits and we had some opportunities early in the game that we didn't capitalize on and that's been the theme. We haven't pitched terribly well in the middle of games and it's been a problem for us. That kind of bit us again

Game two Adam Mott and Scott Coffman were awesome. We struggled throughout the game offensively but the game two starter for them was really good and we did a really good job against him. We hit a lot of balls hard. It was probably one of the best baseball games that's been played in quite a while. Lots of great defensive plays, a lot of balls hit hard and a lot of pretty good pitching as well. To give up the run in the seventh and then to turn around and get one on top of it was pretty important to us and then we got the longest outing of Scott Coffman's career, four and two-thirds of baseball where he was just awesome again. We get the walk off home run out of Zach Voight which ended up being a bit of a two-sided coin because in the celebration afterwards he sprained his ankle and we lost him for an undetermined amount of time.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Hawai'i series? You had kind of a weird game on Thursday in the opener that included a five-out inning on defense, a tough game on Friday and then a pitcher's duel on Saturday.
Rocky Ward: Thursday's game, the opening game, Beck pitched well. We get a terrible break on a strikeout/wild pitch where the hitter's bat hit the ball and knocked it away from Fisher. It was inadvertent and as a result the play stood and then they scored in that inning on a wild pitch/strikeout. So a five out inning with no errors and they score a run and that set the tone for the whole weekend to be honest.

We couldn't get anything going offensively. We actually hit the ball pretty hard a lot. The tale of the game was we had a 20 mile per hour win, typical trade winds blowing in from left. I think they hit one fly ball out in the game and we made a bunch. There were a bunch of balls hit really hard and just right at people. They weren't necessarily just fly balls, there were some hard line drives. The unseen thing about playing in Hawai'i is that the itself is small but with the wind blowing in and at sea level, it's really, really hard to get the ball out of the yard and it's hard to get it to land anywhere because there's so little space for outfielder's to cover. The park's never fit our style of play. It just doesn't fit us. I really worked hard in BP talking to guys about trying to keep the ball on line, I don't think it's a good plan to ask hitters to hit a bunch of ground balls. If you go out and hit a bunch of ground balls then you just deal with the randomness of baseball and you play into their game. It doesn't make sense to try to play their game in their ballpark. You have to play to your game to their park and we have very little success doing it.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Baylor weekend?
Rocky Ward: We played well in the game, they got the break and then they got on the board first and their guy no-hit us through eight. Their guy was really good and so was our guy but we were up under a little more pressure. It was one of those games where it's harder to win on the road because you're under more pressure than the home team all the time. I was disappointed in the fact that we were just scrambling to break up a no-hitter. We couldn't get anything going, we couldn't get him out of the game, about six of my hitters gave up a six-pitch and eight-pitch inning in the fifth and sixth which was a killer because it guaranteed that the guy was going to make it into the eighth. He stayed until they broke up the no-hitter. We gave them a chance for him to get deep into the game because we gave up a couple cheap, bad innings. The kid was tough to deal with because he threw strikes. He just didn't walk anybody. We had some people on base even though he had a no-hitter, he hit a couple guys, walked a couple guys but they weren't together. You've gotta have a hit in the middle of that. But it was a good game.

The Saturday game, we led that game 4-2 through four. Once the dadgum Feed The Beaver stuff started we couldn't stop it. That stuff was insane. They've got a home field advantage going better than anybody I've played in a while. They're not a bunch of people out there ragging you, they're just a bunch of people out there having fun. Every time they get a hit, they play the song and everybody's yelling, "Feed The Beaver." It gets to you after a little bit. The point I'm making is they've got it right. It's a real positive, motivating thing for their team. It's not negative towards the other team but you get irritated with the Feed The Beaver stuff and once they got moving, we weren't terrible. That's happened to us a couple times this year. It's a weakness with this club. Our middle relief guys have been inconsistent. There have been times that they've been lights out and torn it up but we've had four or five middle of the game blowups, we had two in a row at Sacramento, same type of feel. That's the one thing we're really working hard at getting fixed, when we get into a little bit of trouble in the middle of games, we've get to stop it and we haven't stopped it a couple times and it's led to losses including that one.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend sweep of Louisiana Tech? You felt like going into the weekend you didn't necessarily need to sweep the series but you were able to get that result.
Rocky Ward: You don't have to [sweep] but it does give you a little bit of breathing room. This is baseball and this weekend was an example. We win in the bottom of the ninth twice and then follow it up with a run-rule victory. We could have very well have lost two out of three at home. That can happen at any time. We didn't play poorly and they played pretty good baseball in particular the first couple games and they weren't real bad in game three. I thought that [Michael] Ormseth was good and our pitching staff was good, all weekend for that matter.

bc.net: You talked in the postgame of the Thursday night game about not being real thrilled with the opportunities that your team missed in that game. What was your feeling after the Friday night game and then obviously your team capitalized early in the Saturday finale.
RW: Well it's hard for people on the outside to see, in game one it wasn't just opportunities, it was the fact that we gave away some at-bats. We went out and we hit into two double plays in game one that really hurt us and we had two or three real early at-bat impacts, ground balls to the first baseman on the first pitch. Everybody thinks that in baseball that the biggest thing is the strikeout, no, the biggest thing is the first-pitch ground ball, first pitch pop up. The easy, easy out where he didn't have to work. The pitcher has to work to strike you out and I just thought we lost focus a couple times and let them stay in the game. You hear coaches complain about hitting with runners in scoring position and good stuff like that, it wasn't that, this was us not working hard to get the opportunity to get runners in scoring position. I didn't think we did a real good job, even though I did go back since it was an AggieVision game and watch the replay, their kid was good and overall it wasn't as bad as the way that I had viewed it but it doesn't change the fact that there were about four or five at-bats in that game that I thought were just useless.

Game two the guys battled better. The results were about the same but we battled better. We forced a pretty good pitcher out of the game in enough time to force some pressure on their bullpen. They had to bring their people sooner than they wanted to and I thought we did a good job in that regard. In game three, they were finished. All we needed to do was score first. They led for most of the first two games and didn't win and so psychologically you're trailing in a game, it's kind of hard to stay positive that you're going to be the come-from-behind team this time. We put up a pretty good lead and did a good job from the mound.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series against Sacramento State? It was kind of that deal we've talked about all season long about four game series where you can win the first two games and be really feeling good about yourself and then lose the last two and it kind of changes the way you feel about the series.
Rocky Ward: We played really, really, really good in the doubleheader. It was a fabulous offensive game against a pretty good pitcher. They have one guy but the other guys are pretty solid. There aren't any blowup guys. They all had good arms and they all had three pitches and they all challenged you and they play perfect defense. I don't think they made an error the whole weekend and if they did make one, I don't think it made much of a difference. We played great in game one, a 16-4 win. Beck pitched well. He had one inning where he struggled a bit but that happens in blowout-type games, it's hard to keep focus. Then game two, Adam Mott was fabulous and that kind of led to games three and four. I was on their tails because the kid they brought in was a guy who only had a few innings pitched and not a very good ERA and we got no-hit or six innings in a game that we won 6-1 because we scored six in the first and then didn't score again, we didn't get a hit in the fourth through the ninth. We had an opportunity in the seventh to score, they walked a couple guys and then we bunt the ball right into the coverage. First and second you bunt the ball to third base and we bunted the ball right at the first baseman who threw us out at third and the inning just disappeared. I had the feeling that whole game that we were going to need to score again but Mott was good and relief was good.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series victory over Nevada and the big come from behind victory in the Saturday game.
Rocky Ward: It was a big win. When you only have 18 conference games you can't afford to lose a home series and feel like you have a chance to win the league. It ended up being very important and it was another come-from-behind late inning victory. Once you've done it you always kind of have that bounce in your step that you're never really out of a game as long as you can get the tying run to the plate because you've done it already. I think it'll go a long ways as the season goes on. That win was made to happen because of the win at Arizona late and the win at Texas Tech where we came from behind late and the win at home against UT-Pan Am where we came from behind in the bottom of the ninth. Tech was the top of the ninth, two runs. We've done it a lot of late. What we're talking to the ball club about is yeah it's great that we've done it but we haven't played up to our potential up to those points. At Texas Tech yes but we didn't pitch well against Pan Am and didn't play very well against Pan Am and we didn't play very well in that game against Nevada.

To be honest, the kid did a really good job on the mound for them, their starter [Tom Jameson] and he was pretty tough. You get the win and go to 2-1 and 25-9 and on Monday after the Easter off day which all of us kind of needed you feel pretty good about where the ball club is. We're starting to get a few more votes in some of the other polls. It's the first time we've ever been in the Top 25 of the Baseball America poll. That's a tough poll to get into as a mid-major.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: You had a very good week last week with the team winning a pair of games over No. 5 Arizona, probably two of the best wins the Aggies have had in the non-conference in quite a while.
Rocky Ward: As far as ranked opponents go, we haven't done that in non-conference in a while. There's history, my first season Texas Tech was ranked number one and we beat them twice. We've beaten ranked opponents in the past. That's kind of been the claim to fame at New Mexico State. Even in the years we haven't been that good, we've beaten somebody pretty good. I've been spending 15 years trying to get rid of that and trying to establish a program that can win the games they're supposed to win and we've done a pretty good job of that the last few years. The Arizona games, in particular under the circumstances where I wasn't able to be there and dad wasn't able to be there, the kids responded very well, played a very good game. It was wasn't one of those games where the underdog walked in and hit the opponent in the mouth with a big spot and held onto a lead. We played toe-to-toe with them in a regular baseball game. We'd tie it, they'd take the lead, we'd tie it, they'd take the lead and eventually we got a zero and then got to the top of the game. It was just a very well played baseball game on our part. Arizona didn't play particularly well, they made a couple errors in that game that influenced the outcome of the game.

I was really more impressed with Wednesday's game because Coach Evans had to go to the hospital 20 minutes before the game and all of the sudden the top three coaches aren't there and [assistant] Nate Shaver is a real quality kid, much more mature for his age and the kids handled it fine, this is a very mature ball club. I thought that they'd do fine with it and they did. They went out and took the game to them and had them on their heels the whole game, got up 8-1 at one point. We made our own share of mistakes to kind of let them get back into the game and 8-6 but then we turn around and score again and just didn't let them get back in it and to me that was the more impressive of the two just because you can say the first game you could say that Arizona handed to us because they didn't play very good defense, you could argue that point. Game two we took it to them and beat them straight up. We were the ones that made the mistakes. They played errorless baseball I believe and we made three and still managed to play well enough in other aspects to win.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on sweeping the WAC Player of the Week awards?
Rocky Ward: It's cool. Beck's was well deserving and Phillips, he was hurt for three out of the four games against Kent State and came off of that with a really good performance against New Mexico, he had probably the key base hit in that game that helped seal the deal and then had a really good weekend against Southeast Missouri. It's one of those things that reminds you as coaches that you need to work pretty hard at keeping your kids rested. He didn't rest on purpose, he was hurt, but he came off of a couple days off and was energetic, played very, very well in the outfield. He had an outstanding defensive weekend all the way around playing in some tough conditions, it was pretty windy in the doubleheader on Saturday, it wreaks havoc on the outfielders, you really have to be on point and he played well.

It's significant in a league like this to get both guys. You're always proud when you get one guy in.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend series with Kent State. You were able to salvage a series split winning both games of the doubleheader on Sunday.
Rocky Ward: Yeah it was a big deal because we'd been struggling as of late, in particular defensively early in the game as well as what we were getting from our bullpen. We were swinging the bats okay, our numbers were okay but we weren't hitting with runners in scoring position and we did all of it on Sunday in the double header. We pitched well, just a couple defensive miscues but they were acceptable ones. There are acceptable defensive errors and there are bad errors. Some people don't quite understand that.

There are time where you know the level of difficulty of the play or the circumstances of the play are different between two types of errors. We made a bad error in game two that led to a six run inning. We make an error on a double play ball where Parker just dropped the ball, he just dropped it. One of those type of focus errors that the standard baseball fans looks out there and says, "my 12 year old son could have got that ball," that type of deal. We've had some issues with those silly errors that can only be attributed to a guy not staying focused enough.

Overall on Sunday we hit with runners in scoring position. Fisher had a nice day, Lecount had a nice day, Waite had a nice day. Waite and Fisher had not been putting up the type of numbers we had been expecting of them so it was good to see those guy kind of step forward and get after it and once we got past their starter they didn't have much left in the bullpen. They really had a good ball club, no question about it. They played solid defense. Their outfield covered what you would expect plus a little bit more. A guy for them that really had a bad weekend for them was their third baseman and his errors didn't impact them that much. Overall it was a real good day. It was one of those days that you needed. Coming off a couple of losses at home, one of which, the Friday game their left-hander is as good as we'll face all year and the Saturday guy was good but we got to him early and got him out but we just didn't play well defensively, the 10-9 game.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend at Minnesota?
Rocky Ward: Overall on the weekend we really pitched well and were pathetic with the bats. The Metrodome, I'd never been in there and when you see it on t.v. all you see is the big baggie in right and they used to call it the homer dome but it's a really big field. Left center is about 425, 430. The field is a rectangular field, it's short to right, 343 down the line to left and straight away is 408 but that's not the deepest part of the park, it kind of keeps going, it's squared off. It's a big yard and we did not swing the bat with runners in scoring position very well.

We got an outstanding outing out of Michael Ormseth to beat Minnesota 4-1. Minnesota played really well in game two, we didn't play terrible by any stretch but they played well and won and we didn't play well enough to win it. The Nebraska game was tough because we had a great outing out of Beck and we had a lot of opportunities to score and just couldn't drive any runs in. In fact, the last two games were that way. We just could not get the final hit to put them away. We knocked starting pitcher out against Nebraska and he was one of their best guys. They had to go to the bullpen, I think they used five more pitchers, six total I think. We got every one of them on the ropes pretty much but just couldn't get that extra run. All you need in a 4-2 game is one more run, that kind of puts it out of reach, we just couldn't get it done.   Continue Reading This Post >>