Texas A&M baseball falls to MSU in SEC Tournament; Aggies now face elimination

Texas A&M baseball on brink of elimination after loss to Mississippi State; Aggies must defeat Tennessee to stay in the tourney

Despite a comeback after being down 3-0, Texas A&M baseball fell to the Mississippi State Bulldogs late last night in Hoover in their first game in the SEC tournament. This evens the season series with the Bulldogs at 2-2, after the Aggies won a home series against the conference #5 seed 2-1 early in SEC play.

The tourney is in a double-elimination round, so the Aggies are currently still alive in the bracket. They now face elimination, though, as they are slated to play the Tennessee Volunteers—the top overall seed coming into the tournament—who lost a blowout game to the Vanderbilt Commodores yesterday.

Even if the Aggies lose today, though, it’s really not a terrible outcome for the Maroon and White. Texas A&M baseball’s place as one of the nation’s top seeds is all but secured, and their conference tournament performance wouldn’t do much to affect that in either a positive or negative way.

In that vein, it looks like Schlossnagle had a similar evaluation of what was required from the Ags in this one. Texas A&M baseball’s normal starters didn’t come out to the mound for this game, and it looked like Schloss was intent on saving his best arms. We did see some quality innings from Chris Cortez later on, though.

That said, this speaks to the depth of this baseball conference. The #4 and #1 seeds are facing off for elimination almost right off the bat (I’m not even sure that counts as a pun), and one of them will be going home without a win in Hoover.

All that matters, in the end, is the Aggies performing well in their regional. I am not the biggest fan of coasting into postseason play, but I still feel sure that Schlossnagle will have the Aggies ready.