Man, how good does it feel to sit here early in the week looking back on yet another huge SEC series victory for the Aggies and to know that we’re watching the genesis of something truly special brewing under Jim Schlossnagle?
There is so much to love about what is happening right now at the corner of George Bush and Olsen, and it starts at the top with Schlossnagle.
Anyone who has read my baseball articles over the last decade and a half-plus right here at TexAgs know how I feel about Rob Childress and the old staff as men.
But you also know full well how on board I was with the Schlossnagle hire.
A&M hit the ceiling under Childress and had a good but not great program, and it was certainly time for a change.
And no better choice than the guy who worked some incredible magic at TCU — a place that was much more difficult to win big — and who had ended A&M’s season in 2012 at Olsen (with four big leaguers on the roster), 2015, 2016 and 2017.
What none of us could have anticipated — even as late as five or six weeks ago — was that the turnaround would happen this quickly.
Over the last three or four weeks, A&M has gone from a team that we all hoped would at least reach the SEC Tournament (top 12) to being a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament to now entering the middle of the discussion to host a Regional.
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But Schlossnagle and this staff got here last summer and duct-taped their way to a full roster of holdovers, a few talented freshman arms, portal guys from all over and somehow has gotten this group to play some extremely tough-minded baseball in the SEC.
It clicked for this team somewhere between Baton Rouge and Austin and has slowly built toward a crescendo this past weekend against Arkansas, taking two games to pick up wins 11 and 12 against RPI Quadrant I (top 50) teams.
Tennessee (15) and Georgia Tech (13) are the only teams in college baseball with more QI victories to this point in the season.
Coming off a huge weekend that also included a midweek win over DBU (ranked fourth in RPI), A&M has cracked the D1Baseball.com Top 25 rankings for the first time all season.
D1Baseball has the Aggies at No. 21, one spot behind TCU and one spot ahead of LSU. A&M is 9-5 vs. currently ranked teams (No. 5 Arkansas, No. 10 Texas, No. 14 Georgia, No. 17 Texas State, No. 19 Auburn and No. 22 LSU).
There’s just so much to love about this team.
From Nathan Dettmer and Jacob Palisch on the mound to Dylan Rock and Jack Moss offensively — and pretty much all parts in-between — this team is clicking in a big way.
Over the last three or four weeks, A&M has gone from a team that we all hoped would at least reach the SEC Tournament to being a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament to now entering the middle of the discussion to host a Regional.
With their RPI sitting at No. 21 and the strength of schedule at No. 7, the Aggies are certainly a team that belongs in that conversation.
The lineup is formidable and getting better with each passing day under the tutelage of hitting coach Michael Earley. The bullpen is improving and led by one of the most tough-minded and mature veteran arms in the country in Jacob Palisch. The rotation has a sensational arm at the front in Nathan Dettmer and is doing just enough behind him to continue to win games.
And the defense is hanging in there and has had moments of brilliance despite lacking the services of shortstop Kalae Harrison, one of the best defenders in the country.
You of course take it one week at a time, and while he's naturally starting to field questions about it, Schlossnagle will not have any talk of bracketology or how A&M stacks up in the hosting conversation because a couple of poor weeks can put you right back near the tournament bubble.
Still, the Aggies have put themselves in an excellent position with four weeks to play in the regular season. It’s about continuing to win games and playing the game the right way.
I think you would echo these sentiments: It’s so exciting to see this team continue to get better and win games while playing the game the right way!
Here’s a statistical look, By The Numbers, at A&M’s 3-1 week that included a huge series win over a top-five Arkansas team and a midweek win over ranked Dallas Baptist...
.500 - Batting average in four games last week for Jack Moss. The sophomore went 8-for-16 with four RBIs and three runs scored. Seven of his eight hits came in games two and three vs. Arkansas. Moss’ 61 hits on the season put him second among SEC hitters this season, four behind Auburn’s Blake Rambusch (65). His .386 average ranks third.
Jamie Maury, TexAgs
Jacob Palisch stole the show in the Arkansas series, leading the Ags to victory with two saves.
1 - Total number of runs allowed for A&M relief ace Jacob Palisch in his last eight outings COMBINED. That dates back to the win over Texas in Austin four weeks ago and spans a total of 17 innings, during which the grad transfer from Stanford has also racked up 27 strikeouts with just two walks and lowered his ERA from 5.60 to 3.12.
Palisch was incredible in two games against Arkansas (both wins for the team and saves for Palisch’s statline), tossing four scoreless innings with seven Ks and just one walk on Friday and then coming back with a brilliant two-inning performance on Sunday with no walks and three strikeouts, pitching the Ags out of a major jam in the eighth en route to his third save of the year.
On the season, Palisch has 46 Ks and just six walks in 34.2 IP. That’s 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 7.7:1. In conference play, those numbers rise to 31 strikeouts and three walks (10.3:1) in 22 frames (12.7 Ks per nine IP).
All three of Palisch’s saves this season have come since April 12. He currently ranks 11th in ERA in league games (2.86), opposing batting average vs. SEC opponents (.212) and is tied for third in walks allowed in league games (3).
#1 - A&M’s conference ranking in batting average in league games, on top in this category for the second straight week. The Aggies are currently hitting .289 through 18 games, leading Auburn by five points.
2 - Errors for the Aggies in four games this week, including just one in the Arkansas series. A&M’s fielding percentage had dipped to around .970 prior to last week and is now sitting at .974 (11th in the SEC), but it was good to see a bounce-back weekend with the gloves.
Much of that had to do with getting Werner to the point where he could play every inning at third base. The guy is an absolute wizard in the hot corner and made many run-saving plays throughout the Arkansas series.
2 - Games out of first place for Texas A&M in the SEC West. A&M is currently sitting at 10-8 in league play — that’s one more win than the Aggies had in the SEC all of last year.
With that, A&M is just two games behind Arkansas in the division while now owning the tiebreaker over the Razorbacks. If the season ended today, the Ags would be the five-seed in the SEC Tournament.
2nd - A tie between three Aggies — Jack Moss, Dylan Rock and Austin Bost — for hits in SEC games. All three A&M sluggers are at 26 hits through the first 18 league games. That trails only Auburn’s Blake Rambusch (32) in that category.
2.57 - Nathan Dettmer’s ERA in six SEC starts. The sophomore rising star is eighth in the SEC in ERA, fifth in innings pitched (35) and tied for seventh in strikeouts (35).
Jamie Maury, TexAgs
Nathan Dettmer punched out seven batters in Friday night’s win.
Dettmer is coming off of yet another impressive performance, allowing just one run on three hits over five innings of work in A&M’s Friday night victory over the Razorbacks. He fanned seven in the outing while walking just one.
Drew Beam of Tennessee is the only pitcher in the league that has pitched as many innings as Dettmer with fewer walks in SEC play (3) than Dettmer’s five free passes against league competition.
3 - A&M hitters who rank among the top-11 RBI producers in SEC action. Dylan Rock is third in the league with 23 RBIs (two behind Trey Lipscomb of Tennessee for the league lead). Ryan Targac ranks tied for fourth with 20 RBIs. Troy Claunch is tied for 11th with 17 RBIs.
3 - Games in a row for Trevor Werner vs. Arkansas. The third-year sophomore played the entirety of all three contests over the weekend coming back from a hand injury. It was the first time since the opening series of the season that Werner was able to play a full series. He went 3-for-9 (.333) and is currently slashing .385/.500/.615 in 11 games (eight starts).
4.2 - Scoreless innings for Joseph Menefee in Saturday’s loss to the Hogs. The fourth-year lefty came on for Micah Dallas and was brilliant in relief, allowing just two hits with three walks and seven Ks in 4.2 innings of work. Menefee has 22 strikeouts and nine walks in his last six outings, spanning 13.2 innings (14.5 Ks per nine IP).
5 - As in the Five Factors ... a stat that we’ve tracked for years in the old “Diamond Notes” feature and are continuing here. The five factors to success offensively and defensively/on the mound ... hitting with two outs, with runners on, with runners in scoring position, getting the leadoff man on base, and two-out RBIs. Here’s how A&M did on both offense and positionally in four games last week...
Offensively:
- Two outs - .333 (15-for-45) ... down 119 points from the UGA series
- Runners on - .304 (21-for-69) ... down 29 points from the UGA series
- Runners in scoring position - .333 (12-for-36) ... down 29 points from the UGA series
- Leadoff OBP - .419 (13-for-31) ... down 62 points from the UGA series
- Two-out RBIs - nine ... down six RBIs from the UGA series
Defensively:
- Two outs - .220 (9-for-41) ... down (A&M improvement) 96 points from the UGA series
- Runners on - .232 (13-for-56) ... down 66 points from the UGA series
- Runners in scoring position - .265 (9-for-34) ... down 43 points from the UGA series
- Leadoff OBP - .382 (13-for-34) ... up (opponent improvement) 36 points from the UGA series
- Two-out RBIs - two ... down two RBIs from the UGA series
7 - Home runs last week for the Aggies. However, only two of those came against Arkansas. A&M belted five long balls in a 14-1 run-rule win over DBU last Tuesday. Logan Britt hit two bombs in a three-for-four game with four RBIs. Troy Claunch, Brett Minnich and Austin Bost also homered in the win.
A&M did not manage a home run — and scored just three runs total — until Sunday’s 11-run outburst in which two balls left the yard ... one from Bost and another from Dylan Rock.
For Rock, that’s his team-leading 11th dinger of the season and ninth in SEC play. Only Ole Miss’ Jacob Gonzalez (10) has more in-conference home runs than Rock this season.
7.12 - Micah Dallas’ ERA in league games. The transfer from Texas Tech has allowed 16 earned runs in his last four outings. He’s coming off of a very mundane performance in a loss to Arkansas on Saturday after allowing three runs on six hits with a walk and two Ks in four innings. Dallas also has the most wild pitches (5) in league play.
8 - Wins for the Aggies in midweek games. A&M is 8-1 during the midweek this season. Three of those wins have come against ranked teams at the time that the Ags faced them (Texas, Texas State, and DBU).
9 - Wins for A&M in the last 12 games. That includes series wins vs. Kentucky, Georgia and Arkansas and midweek wins over then-ranked Texas State and DBU. That’s six ranked wins in this latest stretch of games over the last three weeks.
Cole Eskew, TexAgs
Dylan Rock’s solo bomb would ultimately be just enough to hold the Aggies over in Sunday’s series-clinching victory.
10 - Major offensive categories in which Dylan Rock currently ranks among the SEC’s top-five hitters in league games, and he’s in the top two in seven of those ten categories. The UTSA grad transfer is alone in first in slugging percentage (.843), runs scored (27), total bases (59), second in on-base percentage (.500) and OPS (1.343), tied for second in hits (26), home runs (9), third in RBIs (23) and is fifth in batting average (.371) and walks (16).
12 - Major offensive categories in which Texas A&M as a team ranks in the top-four in SEC play (and top-two in 10 categories). The Aggies are currently first in the league in batting average (.289), on-base percentage (.386), hits (189), doubles (37), walks (92), second in RBIs (121), runs scored (129), OPS (.848), triples (five) and sacrifice flies (11), third in total bases (302) and fourth in slugging percentage (.462).
12 - Number of Quadrant I (RPI Top 50) wins for A&M this season. That’s three more Q1 victories than the Aggies had all of last season and the shortened 2020 season combined.
Five of those 12 wins have come in the last 10 days with two victories at Georgia (No. 5 in RPI), a midweek win at home vs. DBU (No. 4) and two wins this weekend at Olsen Field against Arkansas (No. 27). A&M is 12-9 vs. Quad I teams so far this season.
21 - A&M’s current ranking in the RPI. That’s up 15 spots from No. 36 this time last week. College baseball still utilizes RPI and strength of schedule as major pieces of criteria when evaluating teams for the NCAA Tournament selection and seeding process.
About a month ago, the Aggies were sitting in the 60 range in the RPI, but this latest hot streak — beginning really with the win over Texas (current No. 9 in RPI) in Austin — has helped the Aggies rise more than 40 spots in a span of about 16 games.
A&M’s strength of schedule, meanwhile, has risen dramatically as well and currently sits seventh nationally.
63.8% - Strike percentage for A&M pitching in four games last week. The Aggie arms combined to throw 357 strikes in 560 pitches vs. DBU and Arkansas. They walked 11 hitters and struck out 38 (3.5:1 ratio).
Those are the numbers for this week. Hope you enjoyed them.
The Ags’ home game vs. Sam Houston State during the midweek was canceled as they’ll head to Nashville for a Thursday-Saturday series against Vanderbilt this weekend. Tim Corbin’s Commodores are currently unranked in the latest D1Baseball poll and sits third in the SEC East at 9-9 in league play.
Enjoy watching the Aggies get after it again this week, and we’ll see ya around the ballpark soon!
