Michael Earley joins TexAgs Live after the Aggies were swept at home

In the final 2025 series at Blue Bell Park, Texas A&M's postseason aspirations are on life support after Missouri swept the Aggies. On Monday's edition of TexAgs Live, head coach Michael Earley spoke on the recent performance and what's ahead.

Key notes from Michael Earley interview

• It was definitely tough. The game of baseball is such a game of failure, and it's easy to forget when it's going well. What we put on the field is not representative of the ball club's talent or where we need to be at this time of year, and ultimately, that's my fault. They have heart. They have talent. I believe you'll see that this weekend at Georgia and into the postseason. We're going to regroup, and we have work to do. Nothing that's worth having comes easy, and that's going to be the mindset. We'll keep fighting, and our guys will be fired up to play this weekend.
   
• The series vs. Missouri was tough, for sure. I'm a little perplexed, to be honest with you. We've got to get it cleaned up.
   
• It felt like the home runs on Friday changed the approach. We kept reminding them. There was like a 25-30 minute period where the wind stopped. Missouri hit a home run, and we hit three. I think the guys got out of their plan a little bit. We didn't keep our foot on the gas. We had a great inning of home runs, but there are other ways to win and extend the lead. While we didn't pitch it well in the last inning, we went six innings without scoring a run with a chance to extend the lead. We got outside of our approach and never got back into it.
   
• We swung at pitches outside of the zone and took too many pitches in the zone. That was probably the most frustrating part for me, along with my inability to get them to regroup and get them back into it. Once the ninth inning on Friday happened, it was like we couldn't snap out of it. We tried. We talked, obviously. I wasn't able to get that switch to flip back on.
   
• Missouri did a really nice job offensively. They swung it as well against us as any team was all year. They were on baseball, taking pitches and swinging at strikes. They did what you wanted to do. When you're seeing someone else do it when you're not, it adds to the frustration. Plus, it means they're scoring runs. They did a really nice job.
   
• The message is we have to snap out of this. That's me included. That's after every loss, and they get magnified as you get later in the season. It was a tough, long three days, and we're going to take today off. If they have treatment, they'll come to the field. If they don't, they'll stay away. We're always off on Mondays, but it should let them regroup and take a breath.
   
• Those guys were devastated after every game. Guys will come in on their own and do stuff, but we'll meet tomorrow to regroup. We'll finish this thing, and the message will be the same as it has all year: We're not going to stop playing until they tell us we have to stop. We're not out of this thing. It's tougher, but it seems to me like we don't like easy. It seems like when our backs are up against the wall, that's when we play at our best, so I'll expect that this weekend.
   
• After a loss, we stay in the locker room for an hour, sometimes talking about the game. For me, my first thing is, "What could I have done better?" What could WE have done? I'm not in the business of blaming players. Players have to perform, but it's our job to get them to perform. I'm perplexed on what it is. We've been doing some similar things over the course of the last month. It's tough on the people in the organization and tough on all the people who support you. It's tough to leave the ballpark.
   
• We weren't even able to get on base to even do anything. That was the tough part. There wasn't a big overreaction on Friday, but I was upset over some of the fly balls we hit. It wasn't awful, but I didn't perceive what was to come over the next couple of days. There was no massive change. We wanted to do what we talked about doing and execute it, but we weren't able to do it. On Sunday, I got asked about situational hitting, but we were 0-for-1 because we had one chance. We weren't able to get on base to do anything.
   
• If you look at our lineup, I don't have a lot of base stealers, and my guys who can steal a base weren't on base. There was a situation where Terrence Kiel II was at bat with a man on base, and we were down 2-0 with nobody out. I was thinking about bunting him to get a guy in scoring position with Jace LaViolette coming up, but the guy on the mound had gone an inning or two innings without giving up a hit despite giving up like 28 hits in 11 innings and walking 15 people. I was like, "Am I really going to give this guy an out?" I felt like he was due. The last thing in the back of my mind was Kiel hitting into a double play. He ended up hitting two. Sure enough, on a 2-0 pitch, he got jammed by a guy throwing 95-98 mph and hit into a double play. You instantly regret it in the moment, but there was nothing within the game that tells you that you should bunt right there.
   
• I love those guys. With guys like Ryan Prager and Brad Rudis, we came here basically at the same time, and we've been here ever since. It was tough for them to go out like that, but I reminded them not to let their experience here be defined by that. They've had way bigger moments and better memories than what we were left with this weekend. They've been awesome since the day I met them, and it has been cool to watch them grow up. They're better people than they are baseball players, and they're really good players. I get joy out of being around them. I love those two guys to death. It's going to be LaViolette's last time playing at Blue Bell. It's going to be Kaeden Kent's last time. It was Justin Lamkin's last time. I hate that this is what they get left with, but they have better memories that they can hopefully tap into.
   
• LaViolette's swing was good. We narrowed him up a little bit to get his hands moving back as he's moving forward. He has had success in a wider stance, but at some point, the hands aren't getting back to the right position consistently. We worked on it a ton and put him into some live ABs on Wednesday. He may have got one hit in those at-bats, but he had good at-bats and felt good with it. He put in a lot of work from Monday up to Friday to get ready. It looked right, and I'm excited to see what it does this weekend.