Early & Often: A&M's offense explodes en route to series victory, 17-3

Game #31: Texas A&M 17, Kentucky 3
Records: Texas A&M (19-12, 6-6), Kentucky (19-13, 4-8)
WP: Micah Dallas (4-1)
LP: Tyler Bosma (3-3)
Box Score

SEC Saturday Slugfest.

After dropping two consecutive rubber matches, a relentless offensive explosion highlighted by Ryan Targac’s cycle led Texas A&M to its most lopsided win of the season, annihilating Kentucky, 17-3.

Targac became the second player to hit for the cycle this season after Jack Moss accomplished the same feat 12 days ago in an upset win over Texas.

“We didn’t hear anything about it till my last at-bat when someone in the dugout looked out at me and held up the number two,” Targac said. “We normally don’t talk about that stuff until it happens, but it still happened. It’s awesome.”

The sophomore third baseman ended the day 4-for-5 with a career-high five RBIs and three runs, including a monster 475-foot bomb over Section 12 in the fifth.

Not to be outdone, Dylan Rock drove in four runs and collected his team-leading eighth homer of the season.

For the first time in the series, the Maroon & White struck first with two runs in the first inning.

Leading 2-1, the Aggies unleashed a five-run fourth with Targac scoring after three consecutive wild pitches. Facing a full count, Rock laced a bases-clearing triple to left field and later scored to polish off the charge.

“Staying on the ball and seeing the ball. Everybody’s up there competing, and they were just able to see the ball better today and stayed in it,” Rock said of the team’s offensive revival following last night’s 1-for-15 showing with runners in scoring position.

In the sixth, a bases-loaded walk immediately followed by an Austin Bost sacrifice fly set the stage for what became another robust inning for the Aggies. Targac smashed a two-run triple down the right-field line to give A&M a 13-3 lead.

In total, the Aggies recorded three triples as Kole Kaler capped off the scoring with a three-bagger of his own in the eighth inning.

After struggling to find command in his last start, Micah Dallas provided a strong foundation on the mound through an efficient seven innings of work to earn his first SEC win in the process. 

Brooke Homfeld, TexAgs

Dallas allowed three runs across seven innings of work while striking out five Wildcats to earn his first SEC win.

“That’s so much fun. I’ve been waiting for it for a couple of weeks now,” Dallas said. “But just being able to go out there and having the offense put on a show, it was a fun baseball game.

“Whenever they need me is when I’m going to be ready.”

The win marks the most runs by Texas A&M since 2019 en route to the team’s first SEC series win in nearly a month.

With the trenches of their conference schedule looming, today’s dominating outing undoubtedly serves as a shot of confidence for the Aggies.

“It doesn’t get softer, that’s for sure,” Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “But we really needed to win a series, so I told the team yesterday that the last couple of weeks, we’ve split the first two games and lost the third won.

“You want to win them all, but most of the series in this conference are going to come down to somebody winning on the third day to win the series. We definitely needed that.”

The Aggies travel to Whataburger Field for a midweek road clash with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday night. First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. CT.