Series Preview: MCWS rematch takes center stage on Rocky Top

Also included above is a TexAgs Live segment with Ryan Brauninger, Richard Zane and Scott Clendenin from Friday morning, previewing this weekend’s series at No. 1 Tennessee.

Who: No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers (27-2, 8-1 in SEC)
Where: Lindsey Nelson Stadium - Knoxville, TN
When:

Friday: 6 p.m. CT (ESPNU)
Saturday: 5 p.m. CT (SEC Network+/ESPN+)
Sunday: 2 p.m. CT (ESPN2)

Pitching matchups

Friday: LHP Ryan Prager (2-1, 3.35 ERA) vs. LHP Liam Doyle (4-1, 2.95 ERA)
Saturday: LHP Justin Lamkin (1-3, 3.76 ERA) vs. RHP Marcus Phillips (2-0, 2.02 ERA)
Sunday: LHP Myles Patton (2-3, 3.82 ERA) vs. TBA

Scouting Tennessee

Tennessee is no longer the “bad boys” of college baseball, and as the nation’s top-ranked team, the Volunteers are focused on defending their crown. Anything that stands in their way has been pummeled into submission, week in and week out. Big Orange won the Astros Foundation College Classic (where A&M went 1-2) with a perfect 3-0 showing in Houston and are currently 8-1 in conference play with sweeps over Florida and South Carolina.

Jamie Maury

Each of the last five meetings between the Ags and Vols have taken place in the postseason.

The Vols are 19-1 inside the rather small confines of Lindsey Nelson Stadium, with their lone loss coming in 10 innings to ETSU on March 18. Further, they’re riding a seven-game win streak after taking the last two at Alabama two weeks ago, sweeping the Gamecocks and winning a pair of midweek games in between. Not that there is ever a “right” time to catch the defending champs, but this weekend isn’t exactly it.

While the cast of characters is a little different, Tony Vitello’s Vols are just as dangerous as the 2024 club that won the national title. Rest easy knowing Christian Moore can’t hurt you, but also facing Gavin Kilen and his .425 average, 1.519 OPS, and 10 homers is enough to keep the Aggies up at night...even though he hasn’t started a game since suffering a hamstring injury in the aforementioned ETSU loss. Still, Vitello said this week that Kilen is nearing a return to the lineup after pinch-hitting last Saturday at South Carolina.

Even without Kilen, Tennessee has eight qualified hitters with averages higher than .300 and six north of 1.000 in OPS. Ole Miss transfer Andrew Fischer leads the Vols with 11 home runs, while redshirt senior (and Aggie killer) Hunter Ensley and junior Reese Chapman are the top RBI men with 33 apiece.

Simply put, there is nowhere to breathe when facing Tennessee’s offense.

Junior left-hander Liam Doyle is thriving after transferring within the league. The former Ole Miss Rebel checks in at No. 75 on MLB.com’s top 100 draft-eligible prospects with his mid-90s fastball, wipeout slider and an upper-80s cutter. With 73 strikeouts in 36.2 innings pitched, Doyle’s K/9 is approaching 18.0. While it’s not Paul Skenes or Hagen Smith, it’s still ridiculous stuff.

Beyond Doyle, righty Marcus Phillips — owning a team-leading 2.02 ERA and 0.93 WHIP — takes the ball on Saturday, while Vitello is electing to see how the first two games play out before deciding who to trot out in Sunday’s finale.

In the bullpen, sophomore southpaw Dylan Loy leads the SEC in opponent batting average at .050 across 12 appearances, and junior right-hander Nate Snead leads the Vols in saves with three, owning a 2.08 ERA and 1.12 WHIP in 26.0 innings across nine appearances.

Yeah, this club is the title favorite.

We won’t blame you if you simply scroll past the numbers.

Texas A&M storylines to watch

Last week, the first A&M storyline I wrote about was health. That had to do with Caden Sorrell, who made his much-anticipated, long-awaited return to the Aggie lineup last Saturday, hitting a sky-scraping home run in his first at-bat. Despite the extremely late start to his sophomore season, Sorrell is currently 3-for-13 with three RBIs as he gets back into the everyday groove again.

Getting Sorrell back is the good news. The bad news is that first baseman Gavin Kash suffered a pulled hamstring in the final (eighth) inning of Sunday’s loss to Kentucky. While his numbers have certainly fallen short of expectations, the Texas Tech transfer is another veteran presence that will be on the shelf this weekend. In Kash’s place, expect to see Blake Binderup start at first base. Obviously, the hope is the College Station kid can take the success found in Tuesday’s rout of Incarnate Word and carry it into Knoxville.

Further, for much of 2025, the 12th Man has been waiting for the offense to finally wake up. Perhaps the Aggies offered a glimpse of what their capable of by scoring 25 runs in a conference series last weekend. Entering the three-game set with Kentucky, the Aggies were averaging 2.5 runs per SEC game. That number now sits at 4.44, which isn’t great but is an obvious improvement.

For A&M to have any chance of pulling off a stunning upset this weekend, those offensive numbers must continue to trend in the right direction...but if you read the above section, you understand that Tennessee’s staff is much more equipped to shut down the Aggies than the group Nick Mingione brought to Blue Bell Park a week ago.

Additionally, the one unit the Aggies could hang their hats on — the starting pitching — faltered in a big way vs. Kentucky. The trio of Ryan Prager, Justin Lamkin and Myles Patton surrendered 21 runs (20 earned) in just 12 combined innings across the three days with the Wildcats. Each starter watched their personal ERAs jump by at least a run while the staff ERA ballooned to nearly 4.00. Hoping that last week was just a blip, the three lefties (and whoever trots in out of the bullpen) must be sharper than usual against such a potent Tennessee lineup inside a bandbox.

Zoe Kelton, TexAgs

In five conference appearances, Weston Moss owns a 1.98 ERA with 0.98 WHIP in 13.2 innings pitched.

At some point this weekend, the bullpen will be called into action. Can Weston Moss build on what was the best relief performance by an Aggie this season? His six-inning outing vs. Kentucky last Friday was extremely impressive as the Maroon & White needed every ounce of brilliance from Moss to win its first SEC game of the year. Will Kaiden Wilson start getting his name called in higher-leverage spots? What about fellow left Caden McCoy? After an impressive collegiate debut on Tuesday, will Jackson Brasseux make the travel roster? As names like Clayton Freshcorn and Brad Rudis have struggled, those seem like the most trusted options at the moment.

When it comes to offense, defense, starting pitching and the bullpen, A&M has yet to play a complete game this season, let alone a complete series.

That has to change.

What’s at stake this weekend

Well, this isn’t exactly the national championship rematch we thought it would be.

The Vols are on a trajectory to defend their crown. The Aggies are backed into a corner and have to start defending their honor before they can start thinking of Omaha again. Even the postseason seems like a dream at this point.

Dreaming. Waiting. Hoping. Same thing at this point. And as we all know, it’s the hope that kills you.

With an RPI of 110, A&M is watching its postseason percentages dwindle lower and lower by the week. The only way to reverse that trend is to begin playing winning baseball and actually winning games and series. While that’s a daunting task, given the opponent at hand, the Maroon & White have to pull a rabbit out of the hat this weekend in Knoxville.

Anything short of a magical weekend that ends with an unexpected series victory, and A&M’s already long postseason odds will keep getting worse.

But crazier things have happened! #BTHOtennessee