{"id":789,"date":"2011-04-08T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/optimistic-davis-trying-to-derail-dirtbag-drive-to-postseason\/"},"modified":"2011-04-08T09:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T09:01:00","slug":"optimistic-davis-trying-to-derail-dirtbag-drive-to-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/optimistic-davis-trying-to-derail-dirtbag-drive-to-postseason","title":{"rendered":"Optimistic Davis Trying to Derail Dirtbag Drive to Postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

8:01am|<\/strong> UC Davis Press Release, February 16, 2011<\/em><\/span><\/font>:  \u201cWith virtually every starter from the 2010 squad returning, the UC Davis baseball team enters 2011 looking to capitalize on the experienced leadership of the Aggie upperclassmen. Head coach Rex Peters<\/a>, who begins his ninth season with the Aggies, is hopeful that a roster that lists 18 juniors and seniors will be what the team needs to reach its ultimate goal of returning to postseason play. \u201c <\/span><\/font> <\/p>\n

UC Davis Press Release, April 4, 2011<\/span><\/font><\/em>: \u201c<\/span><\/span>The UC Davis baseball team scored twice in the ninth inning to rally late, but Nevada held off the Aggie surge to take a 7-4 win Monday in Reno.  Davis dropped to 5-18 overall, while Nevada improved to 8-16.\u201d
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Long Beach<\/span><\/em> State Press Release, April 6, 2011<\/span><\/em>:  \u201cLong Beach State’s beginning to conference play was almost perfect, taking a road series and fixing many of the problems that had plagued the team in the early season. Hitting .385 against Pacific over the series, the Dirtbags improved their team batting average from .246 to .265, moving from last to fifth in the league in batting average. Additionally, the team picked up its first shutout of the season from Andrew Gagnon and Jake Stassi, and scored the most runs the team had put up since 2001 in a 20-0 win over Pacific, the fifth-largest margin of victory in program history. \u201c That concludes the word play and now it is time for ball play and on a Friday that means junior pitcher Andrew Gagnon.  Although his season record is modest\u20144-3\u2014his ERA is among the best in the nation for a starting pitcher, 1.97, including work against six Top 25 opponents.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

CLOSING DUST–<\/span><\/span><\/strong>Last weekend, Gagnon and freshman Jake Stassi (0 earned runs in 12 innings) combined for the UOP shutout\u2026 the 2011 team (now 15-12, 2-1) \u201chas the newest look of any squad since the original Dirtbag team under Dave Snow in 1989\u201d the SID says\u2026 rookie Royce Murai leads LB at .394, Mike Marjama (#B or C) has 30 hits. Freshman Ino Patron (.305), Michael Hill (.282) and Jeff Yamaguchi (.267) add to the hit parade but the grizzled vet  Brennan Metzger is perfect in CF (1.000) and is warming up offensively with a .355 slugging%, .258 BA, 12 BBs and 7 HBPs\u2026 Jeff McNeil, Jonathan Kim and Brent Tani are working their way into the stat sheet\u2026<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Last weekend the Tigers pitched backward, saving their ace for Sunday and <\/span><\/font>Aggie pitcher Dayne Quist threw seven and a third innings on Sunday, striking out six and walking just one Titan so expect UCD to try and steal a W on Sunday\u2026 the secret may be for LB to score first\u2026 of the 13 games in which an opponent has been first to put a run on the board, UC Davis has only managed to win one – against USF\u2026 last year’s three-game series in Aggie-land UCD  took two of three in spite of getting out-hit 34 to 20, collectively\u2026<\/span><\/font>
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Talking to the Daily Aggie newspaper\u2026 <\/span><\/font>According to Peters, if the Aggies get work done with the bats, they will have everything they’ll need to knock off the Dirtbags\u2026 \u201dWe have enough ability to go down there and win a game or two,” Peters said. “We need to get big hits in key situations.”\u2026 in their Monday game at UNR, f<\/span><\/font>reshman righty Harry Stanwyck held Nevada hitless until the third\u2026 In the ‘Bags’ Tuesday work, everything in Troy Buckley\u2019s plan worked fine\u2026 he wanted to throw five guys, Stassi and Strufing held the Aztecs hitless in the first six innings and the last guy got the bad taste out of his mouth when closer Eddie Magallon entered the game, retired four straight batters, picked up his league leading seventh save\u2026 a Jeff Yamaguchi walk, a base hit by Juan Avila, a Kirk Singer walk set up Brennan Metzger\u2019s sacrifice fly, his fourth of the season, a team-high… Avila later scored on an RBI single by Jeff McNeil then red hot Juan nailed a triple and was an easy RBI for Metzger, who hit his ninth double of the season to make the final 3-1\u2026<\/span><\/font>
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News on past and future foes\u2026<\/span><\/font> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Reports have Oregon State catcher Andrew Susac out with a broken hamate bone\u2026 could miss rest of season\u2026 Tuffy Titan is now <\/span><\/font><\/span>20-8, 3-0 in Big West and swept their road series at Davis\u2026 the F Hat secret weapon is Nick Ramirez,  nice hitter who picked up his sixth save Sunday\u2026This weekend the \u201cWho is the OC sheriff\u201d dance goes on in the series with UC Irvine…
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The Ex-Dirtbag report\u2014Danny Espinosa is hitting .357, tomorrow\u2019s Bobble Head Boy Troy Tulowitzki is .278 with 3 bombs, Jered Weaver, 2-0 .069 ERA and Evan Longoria is on the DL\u2026 a<\/span><\/font>nd if you thought that carrying around the nickname of Dirtbag might be a burden (beyond wine tasting at Dansk\u2019s Place), then how about being a part of a team called the Iron Pigs? Welcome to Worley\u2019s World, as in V<\/span><\/font>ance Worley who got the opening day start for the Iron Pigs 2011 against the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre Yankees\u2026 the 23-year-old Worley was a 2008 3rd  rounder (9-4, 3.20 ERA, Eastern League All-Star and the Phillies Minor League Pitcher of the Month for July)\u2026 oh yeah, he threw a scoreless 9th<\/sup> in his major league debut against Colorado on July 24, but was immediately optioned back to Triple-A Lehigh Valley… “Last year was a bit of a roller coaster for me,” Worley said this week. “I was going up and down but I probably had the most fun playing baseball in my life last year.\u201d<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking back on recent Dirtbag news, while Dr. Dan keeps an eye toward this weekend’s series against visiting UC Davis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}