Rough weekend.
The Ags could have had that first game against Auburn but certainly could have lost game two. Game three was air-tight throughout, but the pitching — starting or relief — didn’t show up to the party after a very hot start offensively. The bullpen woes continue to be the biggest letdown of the entire season.
We’re learning a lot about this team right now. Namely:
• Dylan Rock is a stud and belongs at the top of the lineup.
• Logan Britt can play in the SEC and does some dynamic things that might allow him to successfully move up the lineup if he keeps swinging a hot bat.
Meredith Tabor, TexAgs
Dylan Rock was 8-for-17 with two homers, eight RBIs and six runs scored vs. Auburn this weekend.
• The lineup has a chance to be pretty darn salty when Trevor Werner comes back and gives you another middle-order weapon to go with Jack Moss, Austin Bost and Brett Minnich.
• The starting pitching is the strength of the pitching staff, but other than Micah Dallas, we still don’t know exactly what A&M will get week-to-week with these guys. That is taxing an already thin and grossly inconsistent bullpen.
• The bullpen is a problem. There are about three or four relatively reliable arms, and the best two guys are true freshmen.
• The strength of the entire team is defense. Even with the loss of your starting shortstop and third baseman and with so much plug-and-play going on around the infield, guys are making plays. A&M is not kicking the ball around, and the Aggies are making plays with the gloves. That is one of the real surprises thus far in 2022.
This team is still not “there” yet, but they’re battling together and playing very hard. You never like a 1-2 showing at home to one of the bottom-half teams in the SEC, but this team is showing a little something right now in year one under Jim Schlossnagle.
There are reasons for disappointment and concern but also reasons for positivity and hope.
Here’s a statistical look, By The Numbers, at A&M’s 2-2 week and series loss to the Tigers...
.182 - A&M’s average with runners on base against Auburn. The Aggies went 10-for-55 with runners on against the Tigers. With runners in scoring position, the number increased to a still mediocre .242 but not nearly efficient enough to be effective in the SEC. For comparison purposes, Auburn hit .273 (18-for-66) with runners on base and .262 (11-for-42) with RISP.
.222 - Batting average last week for Troy Claunch. The A&M catcher went 4-for-18 in four games with just one extra-base hit. At this current rate, look for Claunch — who started the week in the four-hole but found himself hitting sixth in the last two games of the Auburn series — to slide down into the lower third of the order with hitters like Logan Britt swinging a much hotter bat at the moment.
Brooke Homfeld, TexAgs
Logan Britt’s emergence near the bottom of the order helped the Aggies win Saturday’s contest and gives A&M another weapon that could slide up in the order.
.235 - A&M’s batting average in the Auburn series with two outs. The Aggies went 8-for-34 after recording their second out in an inning. Compare that to the Tigers, who hit .388 (19-for-47) with two outs. Along with A&M’s paltry numbers with runners on base, this stat is without a doubt the difference in winning and losing the series, which was otherwise pretty evenly contested.
.471 - Dylan Rock’s batting average in four games last week. The grad transfer from UTSA went 8-for-17 with two homers, eight RBIs and six runs scored. Rock has raised his average 124 points in the last 15 days — now up to .338 — and has hit safely in 10 straight games. He had a streak of seven consecutive games with multiple hits before going 1-for-3 (with a homer, three RBIs and two runs) in Sunday’s loss to Auburn. Rock is hitting .423 in league games, which ranks fourth in the SEC.
1 - Hit for Jack Moss throughout the Auburn series. The Aggie first baseman entered the weekend hitting .397 and having struck out just five times all year. But Moss went 1-for-11 (.091) against Auburn, including just one RBI and six strikeouts. The average dropped to .357 in the process — a dip of 40 points in three games.
1 - Stolen base in five attempts against Auburn. Tigers catcher Nate LaRue did a tremendous job on Friday night, gunning down three would-be base stealers, and A&M basically gave up on the thought of running on him the rest of the weekend. Kole Kaler did swipe a bag on Saturday, but that was one of only two attempts the rest of the series for the Ags after their 0-for-3 showing in game one.
2 - Errors for A&M in the Auburn series. The Aggies continue to play clean baseball despite losing its best two fielders to injury in Kalae Harrison at short and former shortstop Trevor Werner at third. Texas A&M is fielding .980 on the season (.970 is average, .975 is very good, .980 and above is elite). A&M is currently sitting in a tie with Florida for third among SEC teams and just six percentage points behind Arkansas and Mississippi State.
5 - Extra-base hits for Logan Britt in four games last week. Britt hit .353 (6-for-17) with two home runs in the win at Rice and three doubles in the Auburn series. His extra-innings double on Saturday led to him scoring the winning run on a sacrifice fly for A&M’s only win in the series vs. the Tigers. With the way he’s going, it would be no surprise to see Britt climb the lineup incrementally over the next few games and eventually work his way into the middle third of the Aggie lineup.
Brooke Homfeld, TexAgs
Micah Dallas continues to be the only consistent starting pitcher, but early in his Saturday start, he allowed four runs as the Aggies had to fight back from a 4-0 hole.
5th - Micah Dallas’ SEC ranking in strikeouts through two weeks of league play. The Texas Tech transfer has struck out 16 SEC hitters, putting him in a three-way tie for fifth. That’s four Ks behind league leader Chase Burns at Tennessee. Dallas is tied with Burns for seventh on the full-season strikeout list at 45. That’s nine Ks behind Tennessee’s Chase Dollander for the conference lead. Dallas sits third among all SEC pitchers in innings pitched this season with 37 (4.1 IP behind Georgia’s Jonathan Cannon).
7 - Total number of outs — on the season — by A&M’s starting pitchers after the sixth inning. All seven outs have been recorded by Micah Dallas. No other starter on the roster has been able to pitch into the seventh inning once this season, and even Dallas has yet to go beyond seven. This is a major issue because it further taxes an already ineffective and erratic bullpen. Now add in an injury to Tuesday starter Khristian Curtis, and this bullpen continues to get stretched thinner and thinner. The weekend rotation must pick up the slack and find a way to extend their outings beyond three, four and five innings.
9 - Offensive categories in which Dylan Rock ranks among the top 10 hitters in the SEC through two weeks of league play. He’s 1st in the conference in total bases (24), slugging percentage (.923 ... 43 points higher than #2) and OPS (1.423), tied for 1st in homers (4), tied for 2nd in hits (11), tied for 4th in batting average (.423), RBI (9) and runs scored (8) and 9th in on-base percentage (.500). He’s also the team leader for the season in homers (5), slugging percentage (.597), OPS (1.038) and stolen bases (8).
10 - Number of major offensive categories that have the Aggies ranked in the bottom-five in the SEC. If you look at those ten categories through two weeks of SEC play, A&M sits in the bottom-five in none of them. Now, we’re only through six league games, but this offense is starting to hit its stride at just the right time. The Aggies are second in hits (69) and doubles (15) in conference games, tied for second in batting average (.307, one point behind Auburn’s .308 for the league lead) and steals (7), third in on-base percentage (.390), sixth in slugging percentage (.489) and RBIs (39), tied for sixth in home runs (8) and seventh in runs scored.
11 - Appearances this season for Joseph Menefee. That’s tied for the third-most in the SEC and is just three off the league lead. However, in those 11 outings, only four times has he come on without allowing a run. Menefee — whose ERA sits at 10.45 — has an impressive strikeout rate with 18 Ks in 10.1 IP (15.7 Ks per 9 IP), but his strikeout-to-walk ratio is an issue (12 walks and 18 strikeouts for a rate of just 1.5). Menefee is going to continue to get opportunities because he’s experienced. He has a strikeout pitch, and quite frankly, A&M doesn’t have very many relief options outside of Jacob Palisch, Chris Cortez, Robert Hogan and an improving Will Johnston. Still, the outings have to get much, much cleaner if Menefee keeps getting inserted into high leverage situations.
Jamie Maury, TexAgs
After an effective outing vs. Rice on Tuesday, Xavier Lovett regressed in Sunday’s finale, throwing just one strike in a six-pitch outing.
17 - Walks last week by the A&M pitching staff. The Aggies walked six hitters (and hit three more) in the win at Rice on Tuesday night. Then against Auburn, A&M walked four (with two HPB) on Friday, two (with one HBP) on Saturday and seven (with one HBP) on Sunday. It got particularly ugly in the later innings on Sunday. Xavier Lovett came in trailing 9-8 and immediately threw a run-scoring wild pitch before getting an inning-ending foul out on the only strike in his six-pitch outing. He stayed in to start the eighth and walked the leadoff man on four pitches. Joseph Menefee came on to start in relief of Lovett and continued his nightmare fourth season in Aggieland. He faced four hitters and allowed two hits and two walks, which led to Lovett’s run and two more of his own to cross home plate in a three-run “gimme” inning that allowed the Tigers to put the game away.
24.2 - Innings pitched by the A&M bullpen last week. That’s an average of over six innings per game. Now, two of those games went into extra innings, and on Tuesday, starter Khristian Curtis left the game with an arm injury in the first inning. Even factoring all of that in, that rate is astronomically high for any bullpen, but especially for a pen that has been wildly ineffective, not very deep at all and whose best and most consistent arms are true freshmen making their maiden voyage through the treacherous waters of the SEC. Less is more with this group right now, and it’s vital that the starting rotation — which will now include a new Tuesday starter — find a way to get deeper into games than they’ve been able to do through the first six weeks of the season.
Thinking about the lineup when Werner — who played an inning on defense this weekend — is fully back and ready to play every day. Taylor Smith will exit the lineup, and I think it’ll look like this...
1. Kole Kaler - SS
2. Dylan Rock - LF
3. Jack Moss - 1B
4. Trevor Werner - 3B
5. Austin Bost - 2B
6. Trevor Minnich - RF
7. Logan Britt - CF
8. Troy Claunch - C
9. Ryan Targac - DH
There is quite a bit of danger in that lineup. I would consider flip-flopping Rock and Moss to allow Rock’s dynamic bat to drive in more runs with Kaler and Moss hitting in front of him. I like the possibilities with this group moving forward.
Another huge week for the Aggies. Starts with a trip to Austin to face an overrated (shocker?) Texas team at The Disch before heading to Tuscaloosa for three games with Alabama (14-11, 2-4 SEC). A&M has jumped almost 20 spots in the RPI in the last week and currently sits at No. 64. Just by playing a full SEC schedule, the RPI should be (at a minimum) in the 40s, and that would likely climb way up from there with some key series wins moving ahead this season. I have no idea if the Aggies will make the NCAA Tournament, but I feel better about their chances right now than I did this time two weeks ago.
Just BTHO of Texas (RPI No. 3), then take the series from Alabama (RPI No. 86) and keep grinding through the gauntlet from there.
As always, looking forward to catching you around the ballpark soon!
