After sweep of Vandy, Schlossnagle feeling 'good' about his top-ranked Ags

Outscoring Vanderbilt 36-6 this weekend and completing the sweep, your Fightin' Texas Aggies are atop the college baseball world at No. 1. Head skipper Jim Schlossnagle joined TexAgs Radio to discuss A&M's dominating series on the mound and at the plate. 

Key notes from Jim Schlossnagle interview

• I’m doing well, guys. Good morning. I appreciate you guys reminding me of “Ratlin' Bog.” I have been hearing it in my sleep, which I guess that is a good thing.
   
• Obviously, you feel good about our record and where we are halfway through the SEC season. You try to enjoy it for a second. What I am trying to enjoy is these relationships with the players and the overall experience of our games. We also respect the game itself and the league. We respect every opponent, including the Air Force, tomorrow. You know, at the end of the day, in the regular season, we would love to win a championship, but you are trying to keep your team moving forward, keep improving, keep them healthy and have your team at its best where postseason gets here. 
   
• We can't get drunk with rankings. It literally has no value other than the deserved notoriety of the program.
   
• Justin Lamkin had some luck but didn't really have the changeup. He had a couple of flair hits. We threw a ball way into center field. Sometimes, you are a victim of being the third-game guy when the other team is desperate to win.
   
• Chris Cortez was awesome. Really good to see him do that two times in a row. Richard Zane's question after the game was a valid one because that is every general baseball fan's first thought: "Should we look at his role as being different?" What the fans don’t get to be a part of is the mindset of the player and where their comfort level is. Right now, he is a good space, and I don't think we want to mess with that. If it is to be needed, he has the experience of starting a game. Kind of like Evan Aschenbeck right now. You would love for him to be available two times a week. 
   
• Vanderbilt only has one left-handed hitter, and he was hitting .087 going into the weekend against lefties. He has the most extra-base hits on their team. I did not want to give them a chance to get something started with the wind blowing. I didn't want to risk anything on Saturday.
   
• The plan was to have Evan just pitch against Jonathan Vastine. He got him out on one pitch, and I was like, "Okay, let's see how quickly he can do this." They swung at the next first pitch. I'm like, "Gah-lee." He had come back into the dugout and wanted to finish it. We had Brad Rudis ready to go. We wanted to save every pitch. If I had to do it again, once he gave up the home run, I would have taken him out. I was excited for Evan in the moment. 
   
• I wish you could be in the dugout with them. There aren't emotional highs or lows. When we are winning, they don’t take it for granted. They just play. When we are losing, they don’t panic. They just play.
   
• The one thing I challenged them with, especially when we got off to a good start this season is, how mature can you be? Some teams play great on weekends but bad on Tuesdays. That can just be baseball. What I never want it to be is a lack of maturity where you let success or failure on a Sunday affect the next game.
   
• I know it's coach-y, but it truly is an Opening Day mentality. Baseball is such a game of confidence. I want them to have confidence, but I don't want them to assume anything. 
   
• I have been doing this for 35-plus years, and I know how fleeting all of this can be. When I was at TCU, we were hanging around. 500. We went to Texas and swept them when they were No. 1 or No. 2. We went to the College World Series and flipped our season around. The mindset of a coach, it might not be healthy, but it’s "it is what it is." It's just moving on to the next game. 
   
• If you look at a side-angle view of Ali Camarillo's swing now vs. when he showed up here, it's not even the same hitter. Michael Earley has done an unbelievable job of transforming his approach and physical setup. Ali is to be credited for actually doing it and buying in. Josh Kesel has gotten him stronger.
   
• Ali and I had a conversation before the homer, and I said, "Your competitiveness is what makes you great, but you can't let that go over to where you swing at a bad pitch with two strikes." His body language gets upset after he misses a pitch. He has to flush it. He gets so competitive that he goes into fight mode instead of being in control of himself. Ali is so fun to be around.
   
• Earley is really good at giving the guys a plan. Greysen Carter was their Friday night starter last week or the week before. He was throwing 100 mph and started sticking his breaking ball, which he doesn't normally do. We get down 4-0, and it's like, "Oh baby, here we go." Ethan McElvain will pitch in the big leagues for a long time. They kept bringing the lefties. We did a nice job with them. All of that was because of Cortez, how we played defense and how Jackson Appel caught. Catching Cortez is not a lot of fun. I'm sure Appel is pretty sore today.
   
• Vanderbilt is awesome. You will look up next week and they will be doing great. Alabama, our next conference opponent, is a great team, too. They have pitched their rear end off. They had a kid who pitched yesterday, who we tried hard to make him change his mind, Zane Adams. He is from Houston. Every weekend is a Super Regional. We have to be ready for them.
   
• Travis Chestnut, we have seen what he has done on the bases. He has always been a good defender at second. He is so twitchy and so fast. His mind moves at the same speed as his feet. On defense, it's a challenge for him to still be in control. He made an awesome play on the chopper over the mound yesterday. Offensively, we told Chestnut, "If you can get on base twice a game, no matter how, and play good defense, you can bring something to our team that we don't have." He has bought into that.
   
• Chestnut is the kind of player we need there. If Caden Sorrell is on base, normally, you don’t want to have your nine-hole to lead-off, but if Travis gets on base, that opens up our ability to be a little more aggressive on the bases.