'No excuses to be made': Schlossnagle seeking answers after shaky SEC start

After being swept by Tennessee, Texas A&M is still searching for momentum after a 1-5 start to conference play. Jim Schlossnagle joined Monday's edition of TexAgs Radio to discuss the weekend and look ahead to a midweek battle with Texas Longhorns.

Key notes from Jim Schlossnagle interview

• Very disappointing. You go on the road playing a great team, a super established program, and you actually score in the first inning of every game against some really good starting pitching. Not quite Paul Skenes from LSU, but all three guys, in my opinion, are the best pitching staff we've faced. We even had a three-run lead in one of the games with nine outs to get, and just couldn't hold it. Justin Lamkin did a great job yesterday. I thought we competed really well against really good pitching. We put ourselves in a position to score runs and either didn't get a timely hit, or when we did, we didn't hold the lead. We played good defense. The energy of the team was good. I thought the effort was good. We're struggling on the mound, and the bigger picture is we have a ways to go to get our program to the level of the higher-end SEC pitching we're facing.
   
• I think our job is to coach the team we have. You have your telescopic view, which is the big picture, long-term, and you have your microscopic view, which is day-to-day. There are no excuses to be made. We are not going to do that. We have to make the guys on our team the very best version of themselves. Nathan Dettmer walked 25 guys in 92 innings last year. He just got to 11 walks. I think Chris Cortez had 11 walks on the season last year, and he's got 19 walks in 20 innings. Those guys are talented enough at this level for us to win. Troy Wansing, you can throw in that bunch too. Our job is to coach this team. Coach the guys we have and do the very best job we can do with them.
   
• When you take a job these days, you're not just one recruiting class behind; you're two to three years behind. So how do you bridge that gap? The transfer portal can be a part of that. We have seen how that can help using guys like Jacob Palisch and Micah Dallas. 
   
• I think they threw 10 pitchers at us, but all those righties at least touched 96, 97 or 98 MPH. They threw a lot of strikes with multiple pitches.
   
• I'm not in the bullpen with the guys; I leave that up to coach Nate Yeskie. I have sat in on Dettmer's and Wansings' bullpen before. I have seen them throw strike after strike. It's not an attitude thing.
   
• I thought we competed at the plate. If we competed on the mound as well as we did at the plate, we would have won a game. Trevor Werner is coming on. Kasen Wells had a great at-bat. Their right fielder laying out to catch that ball definitely changed the game because it saved two runs. 
   
• Brett Minnich traveled with the team, but I doubt he will play tomorrow night. We will get him some simulated at-bats. 
   
• You just got to stay the course. I haven't looked at the standings this year, but Saturday, I did. I looked at the teams that have only won one game this year, and it was like six or seven teams. I told the team that history has proven that two of those teams will go to the College World Series. It's a long year. You try to balance showing them the big picture and creating the sense of urgency we need to win.
   
• Ryan Targac has a pretty long leash. He had a bad day yesterday. The day before, he hit a couple of balls into the wind. To me, the best example of future success is past performance. 
   
• I haven't told anybody who is going to start tomorrow against Texas. I know it's a secret, but who cares; it will be Shane Sdao. I think he has earned the opportunity to have a chance in that role, but it's going to take everybody. Hopefully, we can find somebody who wants the baseball, wants to fill up the strike zone and compete within the strike zone.