Earley recaps final regular season series ahead of SEC Tournament

After a series at Georgia, Texas A&M will travel to Hoover to begin the 2025 SEC Tournament against Mississippi State on Tuesday. Skipper Michael Earley joined TexAgs Live to discuss A&M's trip to Athens, Justin Lamkin's stellar outing and much more.

Key notes from Michael Earley interview

• I don’t think about the next one, but there has to be that sense of urgency in a tournament setting to survive and advance, so to speak. We are excited to get out there and play for sure.
   
• You’ve got to keep working and fixing things and hope you expand on the positives. I hope Gavin Kash extends the bat with Caden Sorrell out. I want to see Justin Lamkin pitch again. Hopefully, we’ll see him on Friday. You have to find confidence and find a vibe and a spark that keeps you rolling into the next game.
   
• We were able to mix up how you set up different stuff, so they couldn’t consistently try and steal bases. Baseball coaches are all paranoid, but yeah, we were moving stuff around and making it hard on them to not get caught in a pattern. If you watch baseball enough, you can find something on every guy, so it's just about continuing to change it up.
   
• They did an awesome job. Kash and Gavin Lyons continue to get better and better. Clayton Freshcorn, the past couple of weeks, has been throwing the cutter that’s been really, really good for him. Grant Cunningham did a great job, too. We need these guys because we want to go deep in the SEC Tournament. Someone’s going to have to emerge. There will have to be a storyline of someone who hasn’t pitched. We've got to get these guys out there and be ready to go.
   
• I don’t want to discredit any pitchers, but right now I can’t remember anyone with a better performance than Lamkin. The ballpark and the wind matter in a place like that. You can throw the ball out to the outfield from home plate. It’s a really great place to hit. Against a team that has a bunch of home runs, and for him to give up no runs with 15 strikeouts? It was incredible. In the sixth or seventh, we asked who’s moving around, and Jason Kelly said Weston Moss. I thought we should sit Moss down. It looks like this is this guy's game. No thought of going to anyone else.
   
• You know how it is when you see an outing like that, you see the control Lamkin had. He’s been a constant professional since he’s been here. His demeanor hasn't changed. He’s grown in confidence, grown stronger and works really hard. Before he pitched, I told Andrew Monaco, I was very confident that he’s going to be a big leaguer. He had the guts to go out and perform like that when we needed him. Says everything you need to know about that kid.
   
• Guys continue to work and make adjustments. You are never a finished project in baseball. You will always have to go back, and someone’s always struggling with something. I think the confidence is in a solid spot, and we will have to be able to bunt and hit line drives. We are going to have to get creative and put pressure on them when, traditionally, at Hoover, people don’t slug as much.
   
• We made the change with Jace LaViolette before Missouri, which was necessary. He was struggling then as he has been now. He’s been uncomfortable, and if I spread him out the whole box or put his feet together, he’s in a slump. We have to get him to simplify this thing, stay on fastballs and hit them in the opposite gap. He’s in a hitting funk where he’s taking fastball strikes and swinging at breaking balls. He’s not trying to do that, but we've got to get his confidence up. He’s usually the best player on the field, and he needs to find a barrel and hit a ball forward into the field. I think he’ll get rolling again.
   
• Sorrell is actually getting a bone scan in Birmingham. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve had the same injury in college. I’m not too hopeful about this. I’m not sure, which sucks for him because he’s worked so hard. I feel bad for him and the team because of how big a part of the team he is for us. It was tough, especially when Sorrell says he can’t swing, you know, he can’t swing. He’s about as tough as they come, but he will be back and be healthy soon.
   
• We gotta play baseball, you have to know that fly balls aren't a use to winning, and neither are strikeouts. You have to continue to have good at-bats and put pressure on these teams. It’s a pretty big outfield, and for us, if we have our starters running, it's good for us, but from an offensive standpoint, we need to put pressure on the other teams and play good innings.
   
• Bear Harrison had a stretch of bad luck. He hit a ball against Missouri 109 to dead center, but he didn’t hit it hard enough to get through the wind. He’s had some good at-bats lately, but honestly, it's been where you see his head forward and get tied up, where he twitched a little more than now, but I like where he is heading into this week.
   
• I’ve learned a ton. It's been quite the experience. A lot of stress and sleepless nights. You pour your life into this thing, and you learn that you love doing it. In the end, you know you have to win. You learn, you adjust and adapt, and you take notes, and you mess it up again and then fix it. You learn for the future and what you need to do to get better.
   
• The thing that keeps me up is my self-awareness. I’m not an excuse maker. I don’t blame players or anyone else but myself. If anything went wrong this year, it’s my fault, and that’s how I need to continue to coach. I need to continue to grow, learn and develop these guys. It’s been a tough year for us, but we aren’t out of it yet. It’s a joy coaching these guys. I’m ready to get out there and continue to battle with them this week.