Series Preview: Friday twinbill opens A&M's weekend with Oakland

Also included above is a TexAgs Live segment with Ryan Brauninger and Richard Zane from Friday morning, previewing this weekend’s series vs. Oakland.

Who: Oakland Golden Grizzlies (1-11, 0-0 in Horizon League)
Where: Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park – Bryan-College Station, Texas
When:

Friday, Game 1: 2 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
Friday, Game 2: 6 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
Saturday: 2 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)

Pitching matchups

Friday, Game 1: LHP Shane Sdao (2-0, 1.96 ERA) vs. RHP Jordan Dahlof (0-2, 15.0 ERA)
Friday, Game 2: RHP Weston Moss (1-1, 6.92 ERA) vs. RHP Camden Cooper (0-0, 9.45 ERA)
Saturday: RHP Aiden Sims (2-0, 2.04 ERA) vs. LHP Tanner Ware (0-1, 6.00 ERA)

Scouting Oakland

This club isn’t California, but the Grizzlies are still golden. Hailing from Oakland County, Mich., the first of back-to-back “OU” teams on the Aggie schedule is rather punchless. The stats below will showcase just how superior the Maroon & White have been in comparison to the Golden Grizzlies.

An interim head coach in 2025, Bastrop native Brian Nelson was elevated to full-time head coach ahead of this season. Interestingly enough, Nelson is a Texas A&M Former Student, graduating from the College Station campus with a sports management degree in 2010. The Brazos Valley also might remember “Nelly” as the head coach of the Bombers when the club won its sixth Texas Collegiate League title in 2019.

Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press

Located in Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills in suburban Detroit, Oakland University opened in 1957 and has a student body of 16,108.

Other Texas ties include junior utility man Blake Sehlke (Tomball) and freshman left-hander Tagertt Dillard (Palestine). The former pitched once (failing to record an out), while the latter, the son of former Bryan High School head baseball coach James Dillard, has allowed three runs in 1.2 innings across two appearances.

While the trio of Nelson, Sehlke and Dillard might be comfortable in familiar surroundings, the rest of the weekend should be wildly uncomfortable for the entirety of this Oakland club.

Picked to finish fifth out of five in the Horizon League, the Golden Grizzlies’ lone win was a 3-2 decision vs. Lamar in 10 innings on Feb. 15. Since then, Oakland was swept by Southern Indiana and No. 10 Georgia in a pair of four-game sets. With the 11-2 loss to No. 19 Tennessee in Knoxville on Wednesday, Oakland has been outscored 127-49 through 12 games.

When it comes to individual standouts, junior outfielder Aidan Orr is the only hitter with an OPS over 1.000 at 1.401. Orr is also one of three with an average north of .300 at .438, and he’s joined by Sam Patton (.308) and Mason Palermo (.300). On the mound, left-hander Tanner Ware is the only qualifying pitcher with a 6.00 ERA in 12.0 innings across three starts. Other individuals with multiple starts under their belts are Jordan Dahlof and George Hansen, and their respective ERAs are 15.00 and 21.32, which is unsurprising considering the staff’s ERA is above 10.00.

Needless to say, the Aggies better score in bunches while re-establishing the pitching dominance seen vs. Penn.

Texas A&M storylines to watch

Michael Earley is playing weatherman with a wave of showers hitting Aggieland this weekend and impacting the schedule of this three-game series. A&M will be out of its usual routine, so how they handle the uncertainty of when games will begin and the potential start-and-stop nature of possible rain delays will be an interesting storyline to follow.

Assuming all three contests are played this weekend, perhaps the most attention will be placed on Weston Moss as he makes his fourth start of the season on Friday night. While Shane Sdao and Aiden Sims have been as advertised (if not better), Moss has not found the same success. Sure, he drew the toughest matchup last week when No. 1 UCLA lived up to its top-ranked billing and tagged Moss for six runs in just two innings. He enters the Oakland series with an ERA approaching 7.00 and a 1.69 WHIP in just 13 innings of work, but perhaps he just needs one quality start to regain his confidence before the SEC slate begins. If Moss can’t dominate an overmatched Oakland squad, Earley and Jason Kelly might begin seriously considering a shakeup to the weekend rotation.

Will Huffman, TexAgs

In 45 appearances with only seven starts, Weston Moss has a 4.15 ERA and a 1.24 career WHIP.

A&M’s bullpen certainly has a couple of options that could challenge for that third starter spot if Moss is shaky again, but for this club to be at its best, the current relievers likely need to remain in their current roles and remain dominant. Right-hander Clayton Freshcorn has a perfect 0.00 ERA in eight innings with 10 strikeouts. Further, southpaw Ethan Darden started nine games at Clemson in 2025. In four appearances as an Aggie, the lefty has a sub-1.00 WHIP while allowing a pair of runs in seven innings.

Of course, those are not the only two weapons in relief Earley can deploy. Josh Stewart was brilliant on Tuesday vs. Incarnate Word, using a lethal sweeper-cutter combo to strike out all four men he faced. Speaking of perfection, Panamanian righty Juan Vargas retired all nine batters he faced in the midweek and has allowed just one base runner in seven innings. Both Stewart and Vargas have 0.00 ERAs.

Offensively, not enough is being said about the start Jake Duer is off to. The FAU transfer leads the club in average (.432), hits (19) and doubles (5), and he has built his 1.260 OPS by recording a hit in 11 of A&M’s first dozen games. Duer is also one of three Aggies (along with Terrence Kiel II and Boston Kellner) to reach base safely in all 12 ballgames thus far. Earley likened Duer to Jack Moss earlier this week, and it’s never bad to have a professional hitter in the middle of the lineup. Duer has been just that early in his Maroon & White career.

Danny Grant, TexAgs

Jake Duer is currently on an eight-game hit streak. He has an extra-base hit in five of his last six.

It’s no secret that the Aggie offense has been strong despite not being at full strength. Three Aggies (Duer, Kiel and Caden Sorrell) own averages over .400, and four are north of 1.000 when it comes to OPS (Duer, Sorrell, Nico Partida and Kellner). Now imagine if Chris Hacopian and Wesley Jordan can pick up where they left off once they return to action. While they don’t have enough at-bats to qualify for any statistical categories, Hacopian and Jordan are hitting .455 and .474, respectively. Their OPS numbers are 1.265 and 1.602. Inserting those two into Earley’s starting nine would take A&M’s unit to the next level. The status of both Hacopian and Jordan remains unknown entering Friday’s opener.

With or without reinforcements, A&M’s offense should destroy an Oakland pitching staff that is, quite frankly, very overmatched. As long as Kiel continues to set the table, Sorrell continues to mash, Gavin Grahovac gets back on the barrell and the freshmen remain locked into their mature approach, the Aggies will roll.

What’s at stake this weekend

It’s your final chance to “get right” before the conference gauntlet gets underway.

A&M has way more talent than the Golden Grizzlies, and it shouldn’t take long for that face to shine through, even on a rainy weekend.

Earley & Co. have handled their business through the first few weeks of the year, with the only blemish coming to the nation’s top-ranked club last weekend in Arlington. It’s paramount that the Aggies avoid any devastating setbacks against a team picked to finish dead last in the five-team Horizon League.

Get healthy. Get right. And get ready for go time next weekend in Norman.