Texas A&M flounders at plate in series-opening loss to Auburn, 2-1

WP: Casey Mize (5-1)


Everyone's heard the old maxim that baseball is a game of inches. As expansive as the field is, games often come down to a strike that barely catches the corner of the plate or a ball that just gets past the glove of a diving defender. On Friday night at Olsen Field, it proved true once again.

While Texas A&M's Brigham Hill and Auburn's Casey Mize battled on the mound, the Tigers won the game of inches at the plate, getting a few key hits to fall. Texas A&M never got that break in a series-opening, 2-1 loss.

Hill and Mize worked through the first two innings with ease, facing the minimum number of batters, but the Aggie ace ran into trouble in the third. After Tiger second baseman Will Holland sent a soft liner into left field to put two on base, Jay Estes pushed a double down the third base line, getting the Tigers on the board, 2-0.

"I've got to do a better job," said Hill after the game. "In the third inning, they strung together some hits. I've got to do a better job of damage and run control."

Hill got out of the inning with a double-play shortly thereafter, but that was all the offense the Tigers would need.

Mize was nothing short of masterful on the mound for his seven innings. Allowing just two hits and one walk throughout the night, the Tiger sophomore shut the Aggies down to the tune of 12 strikeouts on 25 batters faced.

"That guys was pretty special tonight," A&M head coach Rob Childress said of Mize. "We had very, very few opportunities ... When you have a guy going like that, your opportunities are limited, and you have to make the most of the ones you do have."

The Aggies didn't threaten until the seventh. A walk from Joel Davis and a Hunter Coleman single put runners on first and second for Childress' crew and brought senior Walker Pennington to the plate.

Pennington laced a ball down the left field line, which caused the crowd at Blue Bell Park to draw a collective breath before it fell foul by a few inches. The left fielder proceeded to strike out a couple of pitches later. Blake Kopetsky followed with a strikeout of his own to end the short rally.

"I was on second base, and I started rounding it," Davis said of the play. "It just missed it by a couple of inches, so that was tough. That was tough right there."

Cason Sherrod took over for Hill and kept the Tigers at bay for the remainder of the game, but the Aggie bats struggled even when Mize was relieved in the eighth. A&M touched reliever Cole Lipscomb for two hits in the frame but failed to push a run across.

When the ninth inning rolled around, first baseman Joel Davis broke the shut-out with a lead-off home run, but the Aggies couldn't string anything together, flying out twice and striking out once more to end the game.

All told, Texas A&M batters struck out 14 times on Friday night and recorded just five hits and one walk. Davis knows the Aggies can do better.

"Our main focus is playing A&M baseball," he said. "If we play our ball, we're in every single game. That's the biggest thing right now is going out and competing. You don't like losing, but you'd rather get beat. If we go out and play our game, everything will take care of itself."

Texas A&M will have its chance to bounce back tomorrow against the Tigers. First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.