Nothing at all seemed to go right this weekend, as the Kentucky Wildcats handed Texas A&M baseball three straight losses to open SEC play.
Texas A&M (14-7, 0-3) was swept at home for the first time since April of 2013 as the Kentucky Wildcats (15-6, 3-0) made a very loud statement over the weekend in College Station. What seemed to be just an off night on Friday quickly unraveled into a very bad weekend for the Aggies. The bullpen struggled, the bats were silenced when needed and Kentucky came ready to play from the first pitch.
Game No. 19: Friday, March 17
Kentucky defeats Texas A&M 6-0
This was one of Texas A&M’s worst performances of the season by far. Granted, Kentucky’s Sean Hjelle had a phenomenal night, pitching a complete game with only 4 hits allowed and 9 strikeouts. Still the Aggies very strong offense didn’t manage a hit until the 4th inning and not one player advanced past second base the entire evening. To make matters worse, the Aggie offense went three up and three down in 4-of-9 innings on Friday.
On the other side, Kentucky started with a bang right out of the gate. Tristan Pompey, the 2nd batter of the game, sent one over the center field wall to begin the onslaught. It continued in the 3rd when Zach Reks singled to drive in Tyler Marshall. Kentucky later picked up 3 more in the 6th inning and one final run in the 8th while the Aggies unceremoniously did not have one player cross the plate.
Was this hangover from the Texas game last Tuesday? Was it just an off night for Texas A&M? It sure seemed so. Brigham Hill had his roughest outing of the year so far, giving up 5 runs on 6 hits in 5.1 innings pitched. Kaylor Chaffin and Cason Sherrod were decent in relief but nothing clicked for Texas A&M in Game 1 of the series.