OMAHA, Neb. — They are so close, these Texas A&M Aggies whose story we want.
The lock came close and was nearly broken two years ago, but Saturday night he faced 10 Tennessee batters and struck out seven.
The son of the major leaguer who had to replace an injured All-American for the NCAA Tournament and hasn’t stopped hitting since.
The freshman hitter whose home run shook his team just three pitches short of the Men’s College World Series finale Saturday night.
The actors on the mound who refused to let their opponents come up for air in Omaha.
The coach, who graduated magna cum laude thirty years ago and brought seven teams here, still craves the feeling only a champion can know.
So close now, everyone.
“It’s a victory. I can’t do more than that,” Jim Schlossnagle said after Texas A&M’s 9-5 victory over Tennessee in Game 1 of the best-of-three championship series. “I still have one match to win, one series to win”
And there’s still a powerful Tennessee team to beat once again.
“They know it’s just one game,” Schlossnagle continued of his players. “We all know what is at stake. There is no Lombardi speech. We just try to keep them as loose as possible. We’ll hit the nets, get our ground balls tomorrow and play. I know that sounds arrogant, but if you start thinking about things other than that, Tennessee is going to take you out of this ballpark.
Maybe Tennessee can still find the answer no one else has this month: how to beat Texas A&M.
Fact: The Aggies are now 9-0 in the NCAA tournament by a combined score of 69-29, and 4-0 here by a score of 23-8.
Maybe the Vols can at least take the lead.
Fact: No one has done that against Texas A&M since the Aggies came to Omaha. Out of 36 MCWS innings so far, Texas A&M has led at the end of 30 of them.
Maybe Tennessee’s hitters can deliver the timely hits that Texas A&M’s pitchers refused to allow.
Fact: The Aggies’ four opponents in this MCWS are 4-for-42 with runners in scoring position. The Vols had some chances on Saturday. They also struck out 17 times, a Championship Series record for a nine-inning game.
Maybe all of the above will change and Tennessee can stop the Aggies Express. If so, it must be now.
Sunday will be Tennessee’s second playoff game. The first came after the Vols lost to Evansville in their own super regional. Tennessee won the next day 12-1. “As crazy as it was, that Evansville game was kind of good for us,” coach Tony Vitello said. “I think you need to be reminded every now and then of some of the things you need to do. That Evansville game did that to us, and it was similar. Additionally, the Vols have only lost consecutive games once all season and that was in March at Alabama.
Sunday will have to show if any of this matters.
“It’s not that big of a deal, like we have to fix a problem or anything,” Vols pitcher AJ Causey said. “We just have to play baseball that we can play.”
A problem for Tennessee. Texas A&M plays baseball it can play.
Aggies hitters are trained to know the strike zone. Six of their runs Saturday came on two hits.
Pitchers are trained to pound the strike zone. Of the 42 Tennessee batters who came to the plate Saturday, 32 saw a strike on the first pitch. Closer Evan Aschenbeck threw 46 total pitches and only 12 were balls.
It was a combination the Vols couldn’t handle. Not Saturday anyway.
“Our approach all the time is to throw strikes and take balls, as hard as that is. This is what we do. That’s our mantra, that’s what we rely on,” second baseman Kaeden Kent said of the Aggies’ hitting approach.
“It’s the first thing we work on from the first day of fall practice,” Schlossnagle said.
Both of Texas A&M’s home runs resulted in two strikes. Freshman Gavin Grahovac hit the first home run in a championship game in 21 years. This is called setting the tone. “I hit that ball and I thought, oh my God, that really just happened,” Grahovac said. Kent added a two-run shot in the seventh that all but put the game away.
Kent — the son of All-Star Jeff Kent — was a reserve who made little noise for the Aggies before All-American outfielder Braden Montgomery broke his ankle in the super regional. That represented a loss of 27 homers and 85 RBIs, so someone had to help fill the void. In the six games since, Kent has hit .480 with 14 RBIs. That’s the same number of RBIs he had over the first three months of the season.
“Baseball is a frustrating game. So the consistency and the time you put in doesn’t always show on the field when you play,” he said. “The countless hours spent in the cages sometimes turn into 0 out of 4 when we go out on Tuesday. But it’s just repetition, man, you’re piling days upon days. The compound effect. And you just have to keep making it happen.
As for what the Aggies pitchers did, Evan Aschenbeck will do that as an example. In the fall of 2022, he was almost cut from the team. Then things quickly improved. This season, he was named the National Stopper of the Year, with his 10 saves and 1.54 ERA through Saturday and 77-12 strikeout ratio.
He was there Saturday night, slamming all the doors on the formidable Tennessee lineup, going the final 2.2 innings.
“That’s what pitchers are there for,” Aschenbeck said. “When I get the opportunity to go out and throw, I just want to throw strikes, limit the free bases. If they get a hit, they get a hit. It’s baseball. It’s going to happen. You just have to keep moving from pitch to pitch and strike to strike.
Words that rejoice the heart of his coach.
“I don’t take it for granted. I’ve had great relievers in the past, and he’s up to the task with all of them,” Schlossnagle said. “You just know he’s going to control his heart rate, number one. The moment is never too big. He’s going to be in the strike zone with at least two pitches, usually three.
“I always measure a pitcher by my heart rate when he’s throwing. My heart rate isn’t good during most games, but when he’s pitching, it’s much better.
Aschenbeck isn’t the only Aggie who’s an expert at damage control. How do we explain this 0.95 batting average by Texas A&M’s opponents with runners in scoring position?
“Our players are not afraid of the moment and they understand that when there are ducks on the pond, they don’t need to make a great throw.” pitching coach Max Weiner said. “They’re just making their pitch.”
Speaking of timing, Sunday could be the biggest in Texas A&M baseball history.
One more game. Or as they say in the Tennessee camp, two more.