Albee Weiss was kind of a feast-or-famine guy his first two seasons at CSUN. He had five home runs and drove in 22 as a freshman, but batted just .199. He had six home runs and 25 RBIs as a sophomore, but hit .219.
Not only are his power numbers better – the junior catcher/DH leads the Big West Conference with nine home runs and 38 RBIs – Weiss was batting .288 ahead of Tuesday’s nonconference game against Loyola Marymount.
Weiss on Monday first discussed his ever-improving power numbers.
“I think it’s just having an understanding of what it is to kind of narrow down an approach at the plate and have an idea of what you want to do up there every day,” he said. “The home runs, they kind of happen on their own, and really all I’m trying to do is capitalize with those runners in scoring position and understand that the pitchers probably aren’t going to give me a lot of good pitches to hit.”
Weiss said learning to take the curveball the opposite way, and not trying to do too much with good pitches to hit, also figure large.
“I think the simplicity in the approach has really helped me a lot this year,” he said.
He said his maturity as a hitter has allowed him to properly execute that approach, which he said has also elevated his average.
“So now instead of kind of being a one-dimensional hitter where I had to hit the fastball to the left side of the field, I’ve been able to open it up a bit and been able to go the other way with a breaking ball or even pull a breaking ball and hit those things,” Weiss said.
Weiss batted .412 as a junior at Agoura High and .330 as a senior.
“But you get to D1 baseball on the West Coast here and it’s definitely a learning curve,” he said. “You’ve gotta be able to adjust to really good pitching and this conference is pretty heavy on that.”
Perhaps the most dramatic rise in Weiss’ numbers is his slugging percentage – from .338 as a freshman and .323 as a sophomore to .562 this season.
Weiss isn’t the only home-run hitter on a rising Matadors team. Teammate Kevin Riley has seven. CSUN sits in fourth place alone with a 7-5 record (20-21 overall) after a weekend sweep of UC Riverside.
THIS AND THAT
Long Beach State is now the highest-ranked team in the Big West by Baseball America. The Dirtbags (25-13, 10-2) moved from No. 12 to No. 9 after sweeping three games at UC Irvine over the weekend. Cal State Fullerton, which went 1-2 at Cal Poly, dropped from No. 8 to No. 14. … It was a tough weekend for junior Keston Hiura of UC Irvine. He entered a three-game series against Long Beach State batting .423 with seven home runs, 31 RBIs and on-base and slugging percentage averages of .535 and .748, respectively. Hiura went 0-for-7 with four walks. … Junior right-hander Connor Seabold of Cal State Fullerton leads the Big West in strikeouts with 69 in 71 innings.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
The Dirtbags’ Darren McCaughan on Monday was tabbed Pitcher of the Week by the Big West for his performance Friday in a 4-0 victory at UC Irvine. McCaughan threw a three-hit shutout, striking out five and walking none.
It was McCaughan’s second consecutive complete game – his third of the season – and the second shutout of his career.
McCaughan wore a big grin afterward when asked if this is an exciting time for his team, which is in first place with a 10-2 conference record.
“Oh, yeah, we love it,” he said. “I like this year’s team and every weekend we’re fired up, every game we’re fired up.”
The Big West Field Player of the Week award went to sophomore Alex McKenna of Cal Poly, which took two of three from Cal State Fullerton over the weekend. McKenna went 7-for-11 in the final two games – 13-6 and 8-4 victories – with a two-run triple and a home run.