Texas A&M Baseball: Mississippi State preview

Texas A&M Players to Watch

The Aggie bats made progress against ACU on Tuesday: every starter collected at least one hit, and when that happens it usually means good things for the team. The quality of ACU’s pitching staff and the quality of an SEC pitching staff aren’t the same though, so it will be interesting to see how things carry over, if at all.

What I really want to point out this week is something we haven’t talked much about this season, and that’s the Aggie bullpen. It’s true that the bats need to be better in order for the Aggies to pick up more wins, but the bullpen has lost several games for Texas A&M this season too.

The gap between starters Mitchel Kilkenny, John Doxakis, closer Nolan Hoffman and the rest of the bullpen is fairly significant. It’s been an interesting season in that regard because it has been a while since the bullpen was a weakness of A&M’s. Ross Stripling, Michael Wacha, and Daniel Mengden are just a few of the pitchers Texas A&M has sent to the big leagues in the last few years.

Rob Childress is running out of time to find an answer that will take the Aggies on another deep postseason run. Right now the Aggies are still in the field, but as it stands currently they would miss out on hosting a regional.

Next: A&M drops in polls after loss to Tennessee

The most recent projections from D1 Baseball have Texas A&M as a number two seed in the Austin Regional, and the number 22 overall seed in the tournament, just six spots outside of a top 16 hosting seed. Aggies and the Longhorns meeting in the postseason? Sign me up.

***all stats come from hailstate.com and 12thman.com***