Aggies' own missteps land them in elimination game

COLLEGE STATION — In postseason play, win or lose, all one can do is pick up and carry on to the next day. After Saturday, with the day Texas A&M had at the plate, in the field and where the officiating was concerned, resulting in a 6-3 loss to Ole Miss, that's the Aggies' only option.

As for why they're in this position, the list of reasons is awful saddening.

To start, if Rob Childress' club doesn't make it out of the College Station Regional, the fourth inning of Saturday's game, above much else, will long linger in the minds of the Aggie faithful. The game stood tied at two when Andrew Mistone lead off the inning, reaching on an error credited to Matt Juengel. One out later, Tanner Mathis slapped a ball off the ground in front of the plate and it bounced over the first base bag, landing just in foul territory and rolling into the corner.

First base umpire Steve Corvi ruled that the ball had crossed the bag while fair, making it a double that sent Mistone to third. With Mathis standing on second, the Aggies elected to intentionally walk All-American second baseman Alex Yarbrough. Matt Snyder then smoked a 1-1 pitch to center field, bouncing it off the wall to score two. Yarbrough was thrown out at home and a strikeout followed, ending the inning, but the damage was done. The Rebels took a 4-2 lead into the fifth.

But while the controversial fair-or-foul call certainly didn't help, it doesn't excuse the Aggies going 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and leaving nine on base, nor does it excuse Mikey Reynolds' two errors, one of which — in the sixth inning — put the runner on base that eventually scored Ole Miss' fifth run of the night. Later in the same frame, a Snyder line drive went to the middle of the outfield, where Krey Bratsen sprinted and dove for the low-flying ball but missed, allowing the ball to roll deeper to center and plate one more to put the Rebels up 6-2.

The Aggies scored another in the seventh, but it was all they would push across. And while many of those circumstances were beyond A&M starter Ross Stripling's control, ESPN's announcers — along with Childress, in his mid-game TV spot — spoke early and often of the Aggie starter's over-reliance on the breaking ball and the need to establish and gain the advantage with the fastball.

It wasn't something Stripling was ever able to do. Though he battled, the Ole Miss hitters saw his pitches and waited back, knocking him around to the tune of 11 hits. Snyder's two-run double in the fourth was a golf shot, nailed into deep right-center off a curve that dropped to about four inches off the dirt.

"Five of six runs were earned ... I had a rough stretch there in the third or fourth, couldn't get a big pitch when I needed it," Stripling said after the game. "You can't go out and give up six runs in a game like this. You've got to do better than this, give your team a chance to win."

The Ags didn't get a hit from the third inning to the seventh, letting Ole Miss' Mike Mayers scoot calmly into the seventh. In that frame, Tyler Naquin struck out with two on and Juengel followed with a solidly-hit fly ball to center that never carried, stranding another pair of runners. The first two Aggies reached in the top of the eighth, leading to this sequence:

Mitchell Nau ... Took two strikes, then swung at a high, hanging curve for strike three;
Jace Statum ... Pinch-hitting for Brandon Wood, drove one to right-center for a long out;
Reynolds ... Worked a 3-0 count, then took two strikes and swung almost a second late at a fastball to end the inning.

Thus was A&M's final true chance to rally silenced.

Stripling, one of the best pitchers in A&M history, answered in a fashion exactly up to the standard he's set — he struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh after the Ags had gotten one back but failed to plate any more, then returned in the eighth after the offense sputtered again to get two outs before ceding way to Estevan Uriegas. Strip wasn't his best, but he threw 132 pitches and put his heart on the mound for the Aggies, as he's often done.

Scott Arthur took four straight balls to walk with one out in the ninth and Naquin followed with a hit-by-pitch, bringing Ole Miss Head Coach Mike Bianco out of the dugout to speak with Rebel closer Brett Huber after Huber had pitched from the seventh into the final inning. Bianco swapped in R.J. Hively, who closed out the final two innings of Friday's win against TCU, and Juengel popped up in the infield on two pitches. Jacob House came to the plate representing both the tying run and the final out ... and grounded out to end the game.

In summary, A&M missed key chances in the third, fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings. No, it didn't get the expected outing from Stripling, but three runs is simply a sad total when juxtaposed with the chances the Aggies had.

So here we sit, with No. 3 seed Ole Miss resting on a 2-0 record and the Ags facing the daunting task of three wins in two days — first against TCU, then twice against the Rebels if they make it to Monday. Possible? Absolutely. Especially with Rafael Pineda and Daniel Mengden, in whichever order Childress throws them, representing final lines of defense for the Aggies.

"It's going to take a heroic effort from all these guys tomorrow, playing 18 innings on a long, hot day," Childress intoned. "On the mound, defensively, and when we do line them up on the bases, we've got to get some key hits. And that's something we didn't do (tonight)."

It's certainly not over yet. But, were the roles reversed, A&M could almost cruise to the end of this regional.

Instead, it'll just pick up and carry on to the next day. And we'll wait and see. In 2011 the Aggies took the first two games of the regional, setting up a comfortable situation against Arizona. They lost the first but handled the second, moving on to Tallahassee.

This time around, it won't be that easy. Above all else, the lineup absolutely needs to find a way to deliver in clutch situations. If not, we'll all be left waiting empty-handed for A&M's entrance to the SEC much sooner than we thought.