Texas A&M Shows Grit With Win In SEC Opener

Image credit: Texas A&M outfielder Dylan Rock (Photo courtesy of Texas A&M)

BATON ROUGE, La.—Friday was start of SEC play for both No. 16 Louisiana State and Texas A&M and Alex Box Stadium had all the trimmings rolled out for the occasion. A parachute team brought the flag onto the field during the national anthem and 10,538 fans packed into the stands.

The start of SEC play is a big deal annually, as the conference embarks on its 10-week, 30-game grind. Friday in Baton Rouge also was the first SEC game for both head coaches, as LSU’s Jay Johnson and A&M’s Jim Schlossnagle are in their first year in the conference.

The game that followed wasn’t a classic Friday night SEC game with crisp play and a pitcher’s duel. Instead, it was a tense grind with both teams scrapping for everything they could get. In the end, A&M scratched out two runs in the top of the ninth to push ahead and held on for a 6-4 victory.

It was an important win for the Aggies (11-6, 1-0), who are banged up right now and have been up and down over the first month of the season. But to be able to go on the road and get that kind of win showed something to Schlossnagle.

“I’ve challenged this team the last couple weeks about their competitive grit,” he said. “There were times I wasn’t sure we had enough of it. Certainly, tonight we had a lot of it. Hopefully we can build on it.”

A&M fell behind 1-0 in the first inning and 3-2 after the fifth. It also gave up the lead in the eighth, allowing LSU (14-4, 0-1) to tie the game at 4. Every time the Tigers punched, the Aggies had an answer.

In the second inning, it was back-to-back home runs from Dylan Rock and Ryan Targac to take the lead. In the seventh, it was heads up baserunning from Targac and Kole Kaler to push two runs across and take advantage of defensive miscues by LSU. In the ninth, it was clutch hitting from Austin Bost and Rock to drive home the go-ahead runs.

In short, it was a group effort from the Aggies. They collected 10 hits and five walks, despite facing a parade of relievers from LSU. The Tigers used eight pitchers in the game – six of whom appeared in the final three innings.

While A&M never had a truly big inning, it consistently made things difficult for LSU’s pitchers by grinding through at bats and making sure they were always dealing with traffic on the bases.

“I thought we swung the bat really well,” Schlossnagle said. “We just hit a lot of balls to the wrong part of the field.”

A&M’s pitching staff, meanwhile, held LSU’s powerful lineup in check. Jordan Thompson and Tyler McManus both homered and Dylan Crews collected two hits and scored twice, but the Aggies avoided any big inning, allowing their offense to get back to work.

Righthander Nathan Dettmer rebounded from back-to-back poor starts to for a better outing Friday. He gave up three runs in 4.1 innings but struck out three and walked none. The bullpen did its job, as Jacob Palisch, Will Johnston and Chris Cortez combined to limit LSU to one run in 4.1 innings.

“I felt great,” Dettmer said. “I’ve been struggling the past couple weeks. But just stepping off the bus, the mindset felt different, it felt great. My team has had my back the whole time and I know they felt it.”

Having won a tough game Friday night, the challenge for the Aggies now is to build on that success. A&M has won back-to-back games just once since starting the season 4-0.

The opportunity to win a road series is also significant. The Aggies last season finished last in the SEC West and didn’t win a conference series on the road. As they look to build momentum and learn from Schlossnagle, winning a series at LSU could be a big building block.

For now, however, Schlossnagle knows the Aggies can’t get ahead of themselves.

“It’s a heavyweight battle, as I’m told,” he said. “This was my first one. But I’ve been in enough other games to have a feel of what it’s like. This is just one; we can’t get too fired up about it.”