Schlossnagle highlights challenges the Ducks will present this weekend

The Bryan-College Station Regional opens on Saturday afternoon as the Fightin' Texas Aggies host the Oregon Ducks with a ticket to Omaha up for grabs. On Thursday, Jim Schlossnagle spoke to TexAgs Radio as he prepares for another important weekend at the ballpark.

Key notes from Jim Schlossnagle interview

• We gave the guys off on Monday and then two-thirds of the day on Tuesday. We had a light workout like we last week. Yesterday was our heaviest day where we were on the field, but rain pushed us back to the middle of the day. We were hoping to go in the morning to get ready for the 1 p.m. CT game. We got everything in, along with some sim games. Today, we will practice today, and we’ll just be in the cages light and do some groundballs. We’ll have some sim games to make sure guys on our bench get some at-bats. We get guys on our active roster 4-8 at-bats every week, even when they don’t play. We have to keep them locked in. Tomorrow, we have our official practice time with the NCAA. We’re trying to keep them sharp and take advantage of the rest as we get ready for the weekend.
   
• It’s great to be at home. You don’t have to travel that one day. It feels like a long week when you have the Saturday game. Any time you can get a little extra rest this time of year, it’s really good. The anticipation is building. You enjoy resting for two or three days, and then you’re itching to get back out there. We’re excited to be at home. We talk about the 12th Man, and they couldn’t be more amazing, especially this past Saturday. Sunday had a lot of people, but I thought the crowd was a little spent. We can’t have that this weekend. It’s going to be a warm one on Saturday. Everybody needs to be hydrating – with water – to be ready for this week.
   
• I think I do like starting on Saturday. In 2022, we started on Friday. We played a night game and a mid-day game to be the first team to qualify for Omaha. That was a good feeling because you got to spend all day Sunday and Monday watching everybody else sweat it out. You got to relish the fact you were going to the Men’s College World Series. We’ll enjoy the rest and be ready to go. Hopefully, we can avoid any issues with that soccer game.
   
• Oregon is a really, really good baseball team. They’re a fundamentally sound team that throws strikes. They move the baseball with the bunt game and things like that. They can run the bases some. They have power and left-handed power. It’s going to be an awesome series. There are a couple of factors I use to judge teams to tell what they care about vs. what they don’t care about. They do an awesome job of holding runners, so there won’t be a lot of stolen bases on our end this weekend. They do a great job with their leg times. They pick a lot. We’re going to have to play well. We’re going to have to play our absolute best. Two-out hitting normally decides most of these things unless a pitcher has a bad day. They have one good left-handed starter and one really good left-handed reliever. Everybody else throws a bunch of strikes.
   
• Coach Mark Wasikowski has had Oregon in the NCAA Tournament every year since he has been there. He has been all over the place. He won a national championship as a player at Pepperdine. He coached in Omaha as an assistant at Florida. He has been a successful head coach at Purdue and Oregon.
   
• First of all, Oregon didn’t have a program for 30 years, so it would have been awfully tough to play them. They were out of baseball for a while. We didn’t play Kentucky this year, and I don’t know that Oregon runs that must. Still, it’s that level of a well-rounded team. Watching Kentucky in person at the SEC Tournament or on television... You have your power-hitting teams like Georgia, but they don’t do anything else in terms of run or bunt. Then you have the team in Vanderbilt – that started hitting home runs at the end – that is going to bunt and move the baseball in different ways and play really good defense. Oregon has more power than Vanderbilt and more true baseball than Georgia. Maybe they’re like Mississippi State, but they bunt more. We haven’t played this type of team to be honest with you.
   
• We’ll do what we have to do. If we have the opportunity to win a game, we’ll do what we have to in order to win the game. Right now, the rotation is Ryan Prager and Shane Sdao, and outside of those two guys, anybody is available to pitch in the first or second game. We’ll figure the third game out when we get there.
   
• For the most part in his career, Justin Lamkin has been awesome in that role, and I threw him in that inning because I wanted the absolute best strike thrower. Chris Cortez has been throwing a ton of strikes. I wanted Lamkin out there. The first hitter was left-handed. Lamkin was actually throwing the hardest he has thrown the whole season. He just couldn’t command the ball. His arm was moving too fast, and it was something he wasn’t used to. Thankfully we got out of it. We had that awesome relay play for the first out, and it was a big play in the game to take some pressure off that inning. Lamkin got back on the mound on Tuesday to get that taste out of his mouth. He threw awesome. We could see him pitching this week, and Kaiden Wilson pitched really well on Tuesday. With all of Oregon’s lefties, those guys are going to play a role along with Evan Aschenbeck.
   
• Oregon can really pitch. There are some velocity guys, but not as many and certainly not like Hagen Smith or Khal Stephens. Their guys can really pitch. The guy on Friday has a couple of different breaking balls and really commands his fastball. He’s very sound. We’re going to have to be at our best and be on time for the fastball. Nobody hits good breaking balls, so we’ll have to be ready to hit the bad ones. He has a big challenge, too, because our lineup, when we’re going right, is tough to pitch to. They are more than capable. Their third guy threw a complete game in the third game. We have our hands full. This is real.
   
• I think Oregon is really similar to Louisville that we played in 2022. They have power. They have guys that can run. Louisville bunted with the bases loaded and two outs. One inning ended with Troy Claunch walking out in front of home plate, picking up a ball and stepping on home plate. Oregon isn’t afraid to take that kind of action.
   
• Ted Burton is fine. He was bunting and running yesterday and moving around really well. We’re good, as far as I know. I haven’t been down in the training room today, but we’re good. As of now, we’re fine.
   
• Gavin Grahovac had been going before that home run. He lined out to right field in that game, and he started that game by smoking a ball up the middle. If you don’t know anything about baseball, you associate “being hot” with getting hits. It’s awesome when you get a hit, but you can take three horrible swings and get three balls to fall in. You could not be swinging the bat great and get lucky. We’ll take that, and it builds confidence. We won a regional without Jace LaViolette getting an extra-base hit, but how many times did he walk in the regional? I think it was like eight on the weekend. If you know baseball, you don’t associate “getting hot” with getting hits, unless those balls are hit hard. It might be frustrating to see him make outs, but in the dugout, you know that he’s in a good space and will get one at some point because he’s locked in. Grahovac is on. I felt good about him all along.
   
• Braden Montgomery is incredibly important. He had a huge at-bat with a runner at third base and two outs after LaViolette had popped up. Montgomery hit that back-side single. He has been smoking balls for two or three weeks, but they’ve been on the ground most of the time. He had four two-out RBIs, and that decides every baseball game. We’d like to think we’ll score a ton of runs and blow somebody out, but that doesn’t happen in these games. Everybody is locked in, and you have to make plays and hope some balls fall in with two outs.
   
• Brad Rudis will have the same role. He’s the guy that can throw strikes when we need strikes. You trust him to field his position and throw strikes. He might have been out of gas on Sunday night, but he did a great job. We’ve been around him enough, and you know what you’re going to get out of him. You know who he is, and he knows who he is. More often than not, it works out in a positive way.