I highly encourage everyone to listen to the Schloss interview today, but especially if you interested in the pitching discussions on prior pages in this thread and I'm sure everywhere else too.
These interviews are just so good and I feel overlooked here. It's just so refreshing to hear him talk baseball with very little coachspeak filter. He's direct, he doesn't sugarcoat mistakes and really just tells it like it is (from his perspective obviously...).
After sweep of Vandy, Schlossnagle feeling 'good' about his top-ranked Ags | TexAgsA few of those questions with my paraphrasing below:
How about that #1 ranking?We can't get drunk with rankings. Literally has no value other than notoriety for Texas A&M.
Regarding Justin on Sunday:Justin had some bad luck and a couple of defensive mistakes behind him. But he also wasn't able to throw the changeup for a strike. I don't think he threw one for a strike and most days it's his best secondary pitch. And Vanderbilt was desperate to win after those first two games got away from them in a hurry.
Thoughts about using CC in a different role like Sunday starter?He was running on fumes there at the end. Zane's postgame question was a good one -- should we look at him for other roles. I think one thing fans don't / can't be a part of is the mindset of the player. We feel Chris is in a really good spot right now and we don't want to mess with that. If it were to be needed, he has the experience, but similar to Asch we want to ideally use him 2 times, if not in the weekend then certainly 2 times in a week.
Did you think about giving the 9th to someone else?Yes, there was. Our thought was to let Evan get out that one guy, Vastine. He's their only lefty, and while he was only hitting 0.087 he does have their most extra base hits. So with the wind and everything, the plan was for Evan to get Vastine. Then he got him out on one pitch so we let he have the next guy. And then they swung at the next first pitch, and I'm like "well, gollie, how fast can he finish this?" He had told me in the dugout after the 8th that he wanted to finish this; we did have Rudis ready to go. If I had to do it over again, he would still start the inning but I would definitely take him out after the 2 out homer, maybe even after the 2nd batter. Especially considering the short rest week with a game on Thursday.