Series Preview: #6 Texas A&M vs. Georgia

Who: Georgia Bulldogs (17-13, 4-5 SEC)

Where: Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park – College Station, Texas

When:  Friday 6:30 pm CT (SEC+)
             Saturday 1:00 pm CT (SEC+)
             Sunday 1:00 pm CT (SEC+)

Pitching matchups

• Friday: Brigham Hill (RHP, 3-0, 1.66) vs. Robert Tyler (RHP, 3-1, 2.40)
• Saturday: Jace Vines (RHP, 4-0, 4.37) vs. Connor Jones (LHP, 4-1, 5.08)
• Sunday: TBA vs. TBA
  

Georgia players to watch

The Bulldogs are your classic middle-of-the-pack SEC baseball team. They can be wildly inconsistent from game-to-game. Georgia has one very good weekend starter, but the rest of the staff is very average by SEC standards. Overall, the offense is not very intimidating with a team batting average of just .257 with one starter hitting over .300 — but this average offense happened to score 26 runs last weekend against a pretty good Alabama squad. 

So, the Aggies must not take this team lightly, although on paper this will be one of the weaker SEC opponents on the difficult 2016 schedule.  

The pitching staff is led by newly crowned Friday night starter Robert Tyler, who is taking over the ace role from Kevin Smith (who has struggled mightily in SEC play and may have found himself demoted all the way to the bullpen). But Tyler has earned the Friday start and he'll be a tough challenge for the Texas A&M hitters.

The 6-4 junior made headlines last weekend when his no-hit bid against Alabama was snapped with two outs in the ninth inning by a solo home run. His impressive run goes back to the start of SEC. Tyler has allowed only three hits and three runs in 20 innings pitched against the likes of Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Alabama. For the season, he sports a 3-1 record and an ERA of 2.40. In 41 innings of work, he has allowed just 18 hits and opposing batters are hitting just .138 against him.

Ironically though, he's surrendered a team-high four home runs.

Georgia will then throw lefty Connor Jones, who has been in the weekend rotation most of the season. He's registered a 4-1 record on Sunday starts with an erratic ERA of 5.08. Opposing batters are hitting just .207 against the junior, but he delivered 20 free passes and three hit-by-pitches in 33 innings of action, so forcing Jones to throw strikes may be the strategy at the plate for Texas A&M.

With Smith struggling in recent weeks, Georgia has not announced a starter for Sunday. The Aggies are in the same boat, so get-away day could see plenty of offensive fireworks.

Compared to other SEC pitching staffs, Georgia's bullpen is thin and inconsistent. The team's most consistent and best reliever is sophomore lefty Bo Tucker, who has thrown 25 innings in 11 appearances with a 2052 ERA and two saves. But the bullpen tails off quickly after Tucker. The Bulldogs' overall team ERA sits at a hefty 4.24.    
  

Texas A&M players to watch

Usually we focus on the most productive players in the "players to watch" section. But in Texas A&M's case at the moment, it's more relevant to look at the key people who aren't performing up to expectations as the Aggies try to shake this four game losing streak.

The top of the batting order has been productive and very consistent with Boomer White and J.B. Moss and leading the team in slugging percentage, and Hunter Melton (.354) leading the squad with five home runs and 31 RBI. Six of the Aggies' starters are still hitting above .300 after a weekend series against the best pitching staff in the nation in Gainesville.

Aggie fans have come to expect good production from that veteran group. But even with all of the impressive hitting statistics at the top of the order, the runs haven't been crossing the plate at the same rate because spots 5-9 aren't producing with runners on base and in scoring position.

The lower half of the batting order left 21 runners on base last weekend against Florida. Senior Michael Barash in the six-hole accounted eight runners left on-base. Five-hole hitter and preseason All-American Nick Banks managed only two hits in 12 at-bats with one ground ball RBI the entire three game series. That simply won't get the job done from a Team USA veteran who was expected to carry the middle of the order in 2016.

Banks must find his way out of this funk or the Aggies' will have a hard time advancing to Omaha in the postseason. It's that simple. And it starts this weekend against a dangerous Georgia team that took it to Alabama last week.

It will also be interesting to see if Rob Childress goes back to freshman George Janca at shortstop or he sticks with junior Austin Homan, who started the last two games. Janca has hit a wall offensively and struggled in recent weeks, but his glove also abandoned him in Gainesville on a pair of critical miscues, which prompted the move.   

But with the issues at the plate and in the field, the biggest head-scratcher in this mini-slump has been the complete collapse of the weekend rotation. All three starting pitchers struggled to find the strike zone, and when they did the ball was crushed by eager Gator hitters.

How bad was it? Tyler Ivey, Kyle Simonds, and Jace Vines combined to pitch only 6.1 innings ... when a coach is looking for 18 innings of effective work in a three-game series. The trio allowed a whopping 14 hits and 11 runs along with six walks and two hit-by-pitches. It's amazing that Texas A&M was actually in position to win game three, because those numbers spell disaster going against any opponent, much less the Gators. 

As a result, Rob Childress is shaking up the lineup and starting Brigham Hill on Friday. Hill was used early as a mid-week starter and then moved into a primary role in the bullpen. With a 3-0 record and 1.66 ERA, Childess feels its time to give the East Texas product a shot as a starter on the weekend, and he's giving him the crucial Friday night slot going up against a hot Robert Tyler on the opposing side.  

Childress is sticking with Vines on Saturday, but he has not named a starter for Sunday. Will he make the move to Ryan Hendrix and take him out of the bullpen, or will he give sophomore power thrower Turner Larkins a shot? Does he give the ball to the trusted veteran Andrew Vinson? These are interesting questions, and very critical questions as we hit the middle of the SEC schedule.

The decisions this weekend could have significant ramifications for the postseason even though there are 21 regular season SEC games to play.
   
With the sweep in Gainesville and the subsequent loss at Rice on Tuesday, this weekend has suddenly become critical to Texas A&M's season on several levels. First, the team simply needs to play better and win to get some confidence back in the dugout. You never want to see a losing streak extend because the pressure mounts with each loss in a short 56-game schedule.

Also, the season loss total sits at seven and it's hard to imagine Texas A&M landing a national seed with more than 15.

Second, Childress needs to figure out his three best starting weekend pitchers in a hurry.

The Aggies will play game 30 of the season on Friday, which is past the halfway point of the regular season slate, and Childress is starting a new Friday night pitcher and putting a TBA by the Sunday slot. This is not where you want to be in early April with SEC series against ranked teams like Mississippi Sate, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina looming over the next month.

Simply put, Texas A&M needs to find some answers this weekend, and while the Bulldogs can be dangerous at times at the plate, their lineup shouldn't scare the Aggie pitchers.

Finally, after last weekend's sweep, the Aggies have fallen to 4-5 and in the middle of the SEC standings. With very difficult series on the horizon, Texas A&M must take advantage of an average Georgia team in the friendly confines of Olsen Field. A sweep would get the team back on track. A 2-1 series win would be satisfactory but would still leave the squad at 6-6. Losing this series would be a serious blow to the Aggies' chances of grabbing a national seed and puts into question whether the team can host the opening round of the NCAA Regionals.

The Aggies have put themselves into a situation where this is a must-win series if they hope to keep their season goals alive and realistic.

It's that simple.