bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on a really weird weekend of baseball with Hawai'i?
Rocky Ward: We've played some crazy stupid baseball for a long time and that was nuts. It was one of those, you'd have to call it a manic depressive weekend. Two big wins and two big losses. It was crazy. The good thing about it was that we went out and won the first game. I didn't expect a split in the doubleheader and yet we still got it. We got alter ego games, win 15-4 and lose 14-4. The [Matt] Sisto kid for them, he did not pitch well, he's their number one guy. We got rolling and they couldn't stop us and then they had to do what you've always gotta do and that's go downline pitching. Once you've got the lead you can't put the rest of the series in jeopardy. Then in game two, Dan Reid didn't pitch well. Neither one of our number ones pitched up to what their numbers were, they both had pretty average stuff and both offense got after it. Hawaii's offense is pretty good, they've got some people that can hit. Obviously their numbers are always held down by the type of offensive ballpark that they play in and for all intents and purposes because of the style that they play. They got after it and handled us pretty good and ended up in the same type of deal where we had to go downline pitching. In that game [Tim] Torsney gave us the best pitching numbers on the weekend in those 4.2 that he ended up pitching. He only gave up one earned run I believe. The game was so far out of reach that we just couldn't do much with it.

Saturday and Sunday were just crazy. Saturday we have a 13-run inning which was very much like the 15-run inning we put up against San Jose. We were trailing and then all of the sudden the wheels fall off. Then voila they turn around and do the same thing to us the next day. It was a little different because they had a pretty significant lead at the time when they got their 15 runs.

The end result of it was that we survived our conference schedule. Obviously our conference numbers were very good but when you get swept on the road twice they can't be real good. When you look at it, 9-15, had we just won game in each of those series we'd have gone to 11-13 and been right in the mix and that's kind of the way this league is, always has been. I don't think anybody expected that Louisiana Tech would play to the 3-seed. I knew it was possible but it was in the back of my mind, pretty far back there because I really expected San Jose would win three out of four at home, they didn't, certainly didn't expect them to get beat at home three out of four. It's just the crazy WAC, the wacky WAC.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: It was a big of a rough series in Fresno but you played fairly well in the Sunday finale.
Rocky Ward: The Fresno State baseball team is the best team Mike Batesole has every put together. Think about it this way. Danny Muno has been one of their main guys and he's kind of a secondary player on that team. He's a good player. They've got a 6'8" kid named [Aaron] Judge that plays left who's a major league player waiting to be. He's a huge guy. Their center fielder can flat out play, they've got [Jordan] Ribera who started to wake up and his numbers are better. His numbers are not near what they were last year but what he's been doing with the bat the last few weeks has been impressive. They're just really really good.

They played great baseball this weekend, there's no question about it. Maybe they're not as good as what I saw them but I don't think I'm wrong on this one. I think they're by far the very best athletic team in the league. When you consider that they pitched a kid in the first game, he'd only pitched an inning and a third on the season and the first pitch he threw was 93 mph and this is a kid that doesn't get to pitch unless they're leading by 10 and he's a 93 mph arm.

On Sunday what we did was what we'd hoped to be able to get done from the mound. They had annihilated us with the bats. They had just annihilated us. And we played poorly at times but every mistake that we made they more than capitalized on. For Trey Ross to go to the mound with the team reeling after just having it handed to us for three days, he went out and gave me a good solid four plus. He gave up a couple solo home runs to hitters that weren't missing anything no matter who was pitching. Then we were able to get to Coffman and even Scotty gave up a couple. But we left the bases loaded twice, we got the right people to the plate but just couldn't get the breakthrough hit. We hit into the double play all weekend, worse than we have in any series. It just killed us. You can't do that against good clubs. You've got to find a way and a couple of them were bases loaded one out double plays where all you have to do is get the ball to the outfield to score one run. You're probably thinking, why didn't I bunt in that situation and had I known we were going to hit into double plays, I probably would have.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series with Sacramento State?
Rocky Ward: When you look at it, we really played poorly, as bad as I've had a team play a home series in years. Sacramento really played well but every time that they needed us to make a mistake, we did. That was probably the biggest part of the weekend. We played so sloppy in so many different areas, all kind of set up by the fact that in game we go score six and re-establish our offensive dominance and then in the second inning we had one of those wheels fall off innings where we walk the leadoff guy, we don't cover first on an infield ground ball, we throw the ball away, all of the sudden you look up and they'd stabilized the game by scoring five and the end result of that game is you have to win it in the bottom of the ninth with a double off the wall by Parker [Hipp]. We had a game completely in hand and let it get out of control and still won it.

We didn't play a good solid baseball game all weekend and yet we won a couple of them. That's what we're going to have to hang our hat on is that maybe this was the weekend where everything went wrong and you still won two. That's really the only way to look at it. The statistics were ridiculous. When you go into the series, Sacramento had scored 150 runs all year and they scored 50. A quarter of their entire run total on the year came from our series. This is a team that came in hitting .228 and they hit over .400 on the weekend.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend in Seattle, you won the series 3-1 and a nice bounce back from the sweep at Nevada.
Rocky Ward: That was kind of part of coming off a tough weekend. After you lose four or actually after you lose one, the bounce back and the emotion, it's a little more difficult to play. You're a little more gun-shy and not quite as loose but we got it done. It made the rest of the series a little bit better. Even though we weren't able to complete the sweep but to be able to win three out of four against anybody is a pretty tough task. We're pretty pleased with the weekend.

bc.net: You had some very good performances from your guys on the weekend, one in particular was Scott Coffman on Thursday night picking up a five pitch inning for a save.
RW: Scotty's been so good and it's not just about confidence but he's just really got good stuff. The unique thing about Seattle was the dugouts were relatively close. You wouldn't think that 15 or 20 feet would make that much difference but it really does. You're pretty close. It's a city park, more of a high school configuration, the size of the park was college size but the dugouts were pretty close and you get to see the stuff and you get to see how the hitters are reacting to him. They just don't see the ball on him very well. Hitters are always trying to feel for the timing and hitters are always having a hard time getting in time with him and so he just continues to be impressive.

It's great to have him and have him available. It's part of the feel that if you lead late and Scotty's available, you're going to win. That leads sometimes to a more relaxed approach at the plate and you end up scoring a couple more runs and taking a save opportunity away from him but that's what you're trying to do as a team. You're trying to go into the eighth and ninth with a four-plus run lead with nobody on base.

We had a chance on the Saturday game to go with a three inning close with Coffman, he was fresh and he was ready to do it but Riley Bevill pitched really well in the sixth and seventh so I said I'm going to bring him even though it's not a close situation and put him in the pen and he went out and pretty much took care of them without much issue outside of a rare error by Parker Hipp, I think the only guy that got on in those two innings. I'd like to see him have a chance this year to go on and break the career record for saves, I think he's a couple away.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series with Nevada?
Rocky Ward: It was one of those weekends where not much of anything went right. We played poorly, Nevada played lights out and it was just one of those combinations that's part of the series history and I'm always concerned about Nevada, they always play us well. To do what they did, when you look at the numbers on paper, RPI, all the ranking systems, their statistics compared to ours, you're thinking this is a series we should win. It just wasn't. So all you can do with it from a coaching viewpoint is to chalk it up to two things. One, I had a right to be concerned about how good a road team we had been, which we have not been good at all in that area. What does that mean? Does it mean we're always going to be a bad one? No, it just means it's an area we have to focus on. We have to be more prepared when we go on the road and travel, better prepared to compete. It's not about what the general public might think, the kids not getting enough rest or not eating well, that's not the case with this club. From a standpoint of disciplinarily things and being at team breakfasts and stuff like that, this team has been good. It's just a weakness right now that we're showing in our ability to emotionally play well on the road when you're not in your comfort zone.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: What a crazy weekend, kind of an "old bat" weekend where you never really felt like any lead was safe.
Rocky Ward: San Jose's offense was pretty solid. They moved the ball and the scoring conditions were good on the last day, they were not necessarily on the first two. We didn't have any wind at all on Friday and Saturday and our park plays really really big when there's not any wind. We hit some balls pretty hard in both of those games that stayed in the park. They had the one home run and that guy really crushed it. Overall it was pretty good baseball.

bc.net: Let's talk about some of the numbers from this weekend, you win the series against a very good San Jose State team and you trailed 19 1/2 out of the 32 innings that were played.
RW: Yeah. That's what made it good baseball I guess. We've had two odd stat weekends the past two weeks in the fact that you look at LA Tech's series statistics, we should have gotten killed. They had a 2.00 ERA and we had a 6.00. We hit .200 and they hit something like .320 and yet we split. The same thing with this one. We trailed a lot of the game but won three out of four. I guess it means we're finding a way to win.

bc.net: You hadn't been real pleased with your offense last weekend at Louisiana Tech, you come back home and face a really good pitching staff in San Jose State and your ballclub hits .426 and scored 48 runs.
RW: Yeah, we're really good at home. I'm still concerned about how good we're going to be on the road and that's pretty important with three road series left and only two at home. I keep going back to the fact that the three ballparks we played at were really difficult offensive yards. We're starting to come together. We had a little bit of the same that that happened to us a year ago when we lost Mike Sodders and Ben Harty, it kind of brought them together a little bit. With Parker being out this past weekend and probably for the Reno weekend as well, along with losing a couple guys on the mound, guys kind of pulled together a little bit and overall the ballclub has played better together. We want Parker back as soon as possible obviously but the kids, in particular game one, you're facing Padilla who is one of the best pitchers in the league, and you give Tyler Owens his first start and he has the key base hit to get us moving in the game. Ty Forney obviously had a great weekend overall and is the Hitter of the Week and Kurt Snowley had a couple key hits in the game.

Everyone wanted to talk about Ty Forney's play, he made a great play late in the first game on a dive that shut down a rally for them and people kept talking about Ty at second base but I've always liked Ty at second base better it's just that I've got Parker Hipp there and Parker is one of the best second basemen in the country. Ty has a lot of flexibility to play both second and short and so I wasn't uncomfortable at all with him in the move to second. Zach Voight played solid baseball at shortstop. Snow had an okay weekend but the one thing you overlook sometimes not only as fans but as coaches is that when you have a guy that's playing a game or two a week and suddenly you ask him to play all four, it's tough on him physically and mentally and I thought he fought through it pretty well.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series with Louisiana Tech, you split the series 2-2. You've talked with your team about wanting to establish yourselves as a good road team, what's your assessment after the first weekend in WAC play?
Rocky Ward: We're just an average road team. We basically, we're 3-4 in road games and 1-2 in neutral games. To be under .500 on the road is not a terrible thing. It was a disappointing weekend. We play game one and get an outstanding performance out of Beck and kind of scratch out a win, get key basehits. Our offensive numbers weren't pretty so you feel good about it. Then you go get shut out in game two. Basically we were just absolutely pathetic offensively. We didn't challenge at all in that game. Then we follow it up with a good game in game three and another bad outing out of Riley Bevill but a great outing out of Tyler Mack. It kind of takes me back a little bit to last year on the road when Mack and Beck were our saviors. Those kids really pitched well on the road. Those two guys' outings helped us sweep Sacramento on the road. That's where they kind of broke in and said hey, we're trustworthy. So they've kind of established that.

We got a bad outing out of Trey Ross, his second one in a row after being really good and Dan Reid gets hit again. We were really bad offensively and their kid did a good job but we were just bad.

We only hit .211 on the weekend while they hit .330. Our ERA was 6.00 while theirs was 2.00 so you're thinking how did we win two games? We were just horrible. We were a JV team for two games is kind of the way it was. Sunday's game was different. We gave up a run in the first, then Dan got the game stabilized and then he takes a ball off of his glove hand off his wrist. He's gonna be okay. It hurts like heck. It's an impact that catchers have to take a lot when they block. It's why you see catchers with wristbands. He took a pretty good flush hit. It feels a lot better for him already than the injury last week where we didn't know going in.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: With Zac Fisher's Hitter of the Week award this week you've now had five Hitter of the Week and one Pitcher of the Week awards in the first seven weeks of the season.
Rocky Ward: Yeah, it's kind of crazy stuff. We've had some big numbers and nobody's matched them. Our offensive numbers, considering what we already know about the bat and how much it's reduced power numbers, our power numbers are way off, but the way I look at it, people who always looked at us as completely reliant on power, I think that's being proven wrong. To a certain extent, it's not just good for the naysayers but it's also good for our club. I've always felt like because we always played and hit so well in our own ballpark, there were times when we struggled playing away from our ballpark because the home run was less of a factor. I've always felt like that our kids kind of bought into what the media was saying about not being able to take our home run power on the road. Now that's kind of off the board. Our ballpark has played, from the standpoint of home runs, exceptionally fair, except maybe Sunday when the wind was blowing out at 40 mph. I've always felt like the harder the wind blows, the more difficult it is for the hitters to stay balanced in the box. The guys that hit home runs on those days are not usually the guys that are used to hitting home runs. It's the smaller guy that doesn't have home run in his mind, a smaller, more balanced athlete, they do pretty well when the wind is blowing out.

I'm pleased that we've had five hitters of the week. I'm hopeful that we can keep that going into league games of course.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: A good weekend for you ballclub picking up the second four-game sweep of the season and you got some kids moving that you had wanted to get going including Wes Starkes who was the WAC Hitter of the Week.
Rocky Ward: Yeah. I wanted him to get going and he must've listened because he was named the Hitter of the Week. That's not exactly what I was expecting but that worked out pretty nice.

Binghamton went to the mound on Friday with the American East pitcher of the year last year and I knew they were pretty decent in their number one and number two guys and they had a couple pretty good arms down in the pen. I expected them to be a pretty good challenge. We were able to get to their number one and as is typical of the first game of a four game series, when the game gets a little out of hand you can't waste any pitching and so they had to go down staff and we were able to put up a 10 spot late in the game that made it look really ugly. It was a pretty good game up until that point. Reid was fabulous again and it was good because he only had to go five innings and we didn't have to extend him and it's always good to give your ace a little bit of an easy day, particularly when he'd thrown a complete game the game before. That worked out nicely.

Overall on the weekend we really swung the bats extraordinarily well. We went with a different defensive set than what we've had with Forney at shortstop and Aguayo moved over to third. We reduced errors over the previous weekend. Neither kid had great defensive weekends but Ryan is pretty comfortable at first base which was a pleasant surprise and Ty played a little bit tight throughout the weekend. He made a couple of errors that he wouldn't normally make. That defensive set really gives us a whole bunch of range in our infield. Hipp already has outstanding range for a second baseman. Forney has plus range as a shortstop and as we said, sometimes the errors are not as predictive of how poorly you played, sometimes it means these guys get to more balls than the others do. Sometimes a clean basehit, a couple balls may turn into errors because they were able to get to it. I like the setup the way it is and we'll continue to work with that. It's made us better at first even though Ryan had a play with Mack on the mound in game two where Tyler threw the ball a little low to him and he didn't handle it. But he's still trying to work his way around the bag with feet position and footwork is kind of really an understated thing for first baseman.

Most people think the first baseman just stands over there and catches the ball. Well yeah, half the plays are that way but the rest of them require quality footwork and positioning in order to handle the different types of throws and he's working his way through that.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on Dan Reid picking up WAC Pitcher of the Week honors?
Rocky Ward: You know me, I've always thought my pitchers haven't gotten quite enough credit. That being the fact that our style of play is more offensive and our individual ERAs and team ERAs are a little higher than normal just because we don't play the infield in very much. We play different defensive sets to avoid the big inning. We'll give up a run or two, we'll play a soft defense. If you want to put it in football terms, it's a prevent defense all the time. We don't to give up the bomb, we'll give up the short runs.

The end result is it hurts my pitchers' numbers sometimes. Dan was really good. When you look at the numbers, a complete game and a real complete game that we didn't have to have him throw 150 pitches. He threw about 115 or 120. You feel like you didn't use him up too much. He was pretty fresh because he had missed his start against Oregon State from the rainout and so he hadn't pitched in about nine or 10 days.

He's turned himself into a pretty legitimate number one pitcher in this league. He's second in the league in ERA. He goes out and he's throwing strikes, he's developed a better breaking ball than he had a year ago. It's sharper. To a certain extent I think out of all the guys that have benefitted from the new bat, he's benefitted from hit. His problem a year ago was that he threw too many strikes. If you miss by a little bit with those old bats, a guy can get a little bit of the barrel on it and hit it out of the yard. That doesn't work with the new bats anymore. His command of three pitches and his ability to throw all three in any count has really helped. His straight change has gotten better to the point where he used it a lot in this game. He put a lot of balls in play. It was a complete game with three walks and two strikeouts. He didn't strike out a whole bunch of people but he's learning, like most young pitchers when they mature, that it takes less effort to get a hitter to hit a ball into play and get an out, it takes much more effort to strike a guy out.

He's starting to learn how to do that. He pitches to the bat. He gets the ball around the zone and keeps making quality pitches and he just keeps getting better. I'm really pleased with it. We haven't had very many Pitchers of the Week.  Continue Reading This Post >>