Longhorns Arms No Match For Fiery Texas A&M Power Hitters in Saturday Loss

Not everyone is invincible — the No. 2 Texas Longhorns are certainly not, and it was on full display against the No. 18 Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday night in a series-defining second game.

While the Longhorns arms, especially the starting rotation of Ruger Riojas, Luke Harrison, and Dylan Volantis, have been able to eat up innings for the entire season, giving the head coach Jim Schlossnagle and Texas the ability to send out its best arms in the bullpen late in the second game of the series.

The Aggies cracked the code.

Texas A&M remained hot, despite the almost hour-long rain delay, dominating Harrison in the first inning for six hits, three walks, and eight earned runs. It was downhill from there for Texas.

In the past two games, the Longhorns' pitching staff has given up the most in a two-game series in the Schlossnagle era, with 20 runs against the Aggies.

“I still believe we have good starting pitching,” Schlossnagle said. “Two things can happen: one, they can have a bad day, and two, the other team has scholarships and NIL too. Certainly, A&M is very talented.”

Over From The Start

Texas Baseball — The Longhorns celebrate following a victory at the Bruce Bolt College Classic | Texas Athletics

For four out of the five Southeastern Conference series of the season so far, the Longhorns have dropped the series opener due to the hands of the bullpen. Tonight was the first outlier of the season, with the starting pitching being the main contributor to the loss.

Harrison has been given the hardest job in the Texas starting rotation, being the sole member to maintaining the Longhorns' hopes of splitting the series and giving them the chance to win it on Sunday.

The Aggies, though, are the best-hitting team in the country that the Longhorns have faced this season, and it showed in the series-defining game. Harrison allowed back-to-back singles, then, after the rain delay, couldn’t get out of the loaded bases jam.

“They hit a lot of balls hard, especially early on,” Schlossnagle said. “[It’s] a very offensive ballpark that for sure and had the momentum of their crowd.”

“It doesn’t surprise me because it's baseball,” Schlossnagle said.”But certainly I expect them to pitch better, and they expect to pitch better next week.”

In the first inning alone, Harrison allowed four extra-base hits, with Texas A&M first basemen Gavin Grahovac's second hit against Harrison in the opening clearing the bases with a 3 RBI triple.

The Longhorns relievers of Max Grubbs, Bordy Walls, Michael Winter, and Cal Higgins were able to mediate the damage for the rest of the night. The group combined for three hits and three more earned runs.

The first-inning blowout was too much to allow the Texas offense to split the series, struggling to drive in runs against the Aggies' pitching duo.

The Longhorns' pitching staff on Saturday only combined for four strikeouts on 41 batters faced, with Harrison picking up two of them in his only inning of play.

Fortunately, Texas will be able to trot out Volantis and still has freshman pitcher Sam Cozart fresh in the bullpen as they look to avoid the series sweep.

The Longhorns will face the Aggies tomorrow at 1 p.m. CT at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park in College Station, Texas.

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