Texas A&M baseball has looked resurgent here for the second half of the season. The Aggies, after starting off the year entirely inert from the plate and dropping several important games, seemed like a high-potential squad that would instead be missing the playoffs.
However, something changed in the middle of the season. The Ags took on the then-top-ranked Tennessee Volunteers and knocked them off in Knoxville, run-ruling them in the game 3 rubber match to take the series.
Since then, things have been night and day— for the most part. Texas A&M has risen to the occasion several times, taking two out of three games from Arkansas on the road and LSU at home, both of which were ranked number two at the time.
Despite being swept in their rivalry series against the Texas Longhorns, these achievements made it seem as though the Aggies were right back on the road to the postseason. However, what happened last night may have changed all that.
Texas A&M baseball drops killer loss to Missouri, throwing postseason destiny back into question
The Aggies began their weekend series against the Missouri Tigers last night— one which was a bit of an afterthought. The Tigers were winless in SEC play coming into the game, and an abjectly terrible team by most measures.
That made it all the more devastating that the Aggies lost the opener to the Tigers, giving Mizzou their first conference win of the year. A&M led 6-1 early in the game, but Mizzou came all the way back against a struggling Aggie bullpen to add 8 runs, winning 9-6.
It's hard to overstate how debilitating this is given the situation the Aggies are in right now. They needed to stay perfect at home and go take a game or two off of the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens; instead, now they may need to win that Georgia series, if not sweep, and not make this same mistake again.
A&M has a chance to undo all of the poor play from early in the season, but if they choke here at the final hurdle, some tough questions will have to be asked about Michael Earley once the year is over.