Schlossnagle's Aggies face Auburn for another competitive SEC series

There is no rest for the weary in the Southeastern Conference, and that much is true with a highly competitive Auburn team coming to Blue Bell Park this weekend. On Thursday, Jim Schlossnagle spoke to TexAgs Radio about how his Aggies match up with the Tigers and more.

Key notes from Jim Schlossnagle interview

• Luke Jackson did a nice job of getting us off to a nice start. We wanted to get Chris Cortez an opportunity to come in during the middle of an inning, and he did that. We got Isaac Morton a couple of innings. He was OK, but the more he gets on the mound, the better he’ll be. It went as scripted pitching-wise until the ninth. Brock Peery has been nothing but a strike-thrower. The ninth was an out-of-character from our pitching.
   
• Offensively, the wind was tough. It kept Braden Montgomery and Gavin Grahovac from having another homer, but we still need to string together more hits. The wind won’t be a problem this weekend.
   
• Jackson certainly didn’t hurt himself. He threw a lot of fastballs and a lot of strikes. The midweek games are about to crank up in a big week when you have to go to Texas State and host UTSA. Until last weekend, Houston had been pitching as well as anybody in the Big 12. Jackson pitched well, but if you put him on the weekend roster, who comes off? It’s a tough ship to get on. The innings he gave us allow us to be fresher on the weekend, especially when we have a short turnaround from Tuesday to Thursday.
   
• Max Weiner felt good about Cortez’s outing. We wanted him fresh. If we had Thursday off, we might have let him go a little longer. Hopefully our starters can continue to get deeper in games, but we think Cortez might have had a career-changing moment down in Florida as far as his ability to impact games.
   
• Shane Sdao did great. He has to get his fastball down a little bit. He threw some really good breaking balls. I’ve watched Samuel Benjamin play since he was in high school, and he can do some damage. Sdao threw him some good breaking balls, and he’ll need those vs. Auburn with guys like Ike Irish and Cooper McMurray. We’ll need Sdao.
   
• Auburn can really pitch. They have two good lefties in the bullpen and have an experienced closer. Butch Thompson has always been one of the best in our profession at managing a pitching staff. Offensively, they’re very dynamic. They have a leadoff hitter with 21 stolen bases. The bunt game is an offensive weapon for them to get hits, and they’re good at it. Irish and McMurray are left-handed hitters that can leave the ballpark at any time. One of my favorite players in the entire conference is Bobby Peirce, and they still have him in the three-hole, which means he’s swinging it well with bad luck, or they still have confidence in him, which you should.
   
• In this conference, if you don’t play well, you’re going to lose. In this league, the games are so hard to win, but they’re so easy to lose. You have to play well. If you don’t, you’re going to lose. Period.
   
• There are a few outlier players like Montgomery or Tommy White, but other than that, you don’t have better players than the other team. It doesn’t happen in this league, so you have to play the game better. If you don’t, you’ll lose.
   
• Auburn is athletic. They can move. They can run. They can hit the ball out of the ballpark. Peirce has an arm that is a weapon in the outfield. It’s more of the same. There is no soft touch in the league this year that we play.
   
• Caden Sorrell’s play on Sunday settled me down. If that ball goes into the gap, the mindset of a player can be so fragile, especially inexperienced players. It was an awesome play, and then he had some good at-bats and another great player later in the game. One game can decide the game. One pitch can decide the game. You just don’t know which one it will be, and that’s why you have to play every single one of them.
   
• With the way the wind is blowing this weekend, you will never be in or out of a game. Ever. There will be no excuses this weekend. Free bases always matter, and they will matter even more this weekend because you could make a good pitch and have the ball blow out of the ballpark. It should be a good matchup.
   
• You have to give credit to Brad Rudis, and we were very honest with him in the fall. We love him as a human, a teammate and an Aggie, but something had to change for him to make the team and have the role. Weiner came up with dropping his arm even further down than we had in the past. He’s throwing the breaking ball to get left-handed hitters out. He was awesome on Tuesday. He’s very reliable. He fields his position. He stays in the strike zone. Now he has legitimate weapons to get good hitters out. He’s gone from the outhouse to not necessarily the penthouse, but he’s on one of the upper floors, for sure.
   
• We pulled off the in-your-face bunt. If the bunt game is in your toolbox, and Ali Camarillo is really good at it, it’s there. It’s a hit. I gave it to him vs. Mississippi State, but he bunted it too hard. When Houston Christian made the pitching change, I told Michael Earley to tell him to score that run any way you can do it. Camarillo knew what I meant by that. It was an easy run. It might have only been a one-run play, but it’s something that will be on the scouting report throughout the year. The other opponents have to honor it. There are two or three guys on Auburn’s team that will bunt with two outs, so we’ll have to respect that. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that good teams play.
   
• Make sure you tell Troy Claunch hi for me, and tell him I’m proud of him. Hopefully, we can see him in the big leagues soon.