Texas A&M baseball has been hot in every facet of the game since the start of March with conference play finally beginning this weekend against Florida. The No. 5 Gators sport a 13-5 record entering SEC opening weekend.
The Aggies have been on an excellent run over their last 15 games, winning 14 with a current win streak of 11 games beginning on March 2 against Houston Baptist.
A&M coach Rob Childress said the highly competitive SEC field, which only has one team with a losing record and just two with more than four losses, is going to be entertaining to go up against.
“Everybody’s good, everybody’s got great depth, balance and experience back,” Childress said. “The 30-game schedule we play is going to be very exciting, an awful lot of fun and we’re looking forward to it opening up first with [the] University of Florida.”
Junior pitcher Dustin Saenz, currently slotted No. 1 in the Aggies’ rotation, agreed with Childress, saying the SEC is always hyper competitive, especially this year, so the team needs to be calm and play their game.
“The past few years I’ve been here the SEC has been no pushover,” Saenz said. “I think we all know that, and we have to go in with the mindset of us staying within ourselves and playing our brand of baseball. If we do that I think we’re going to be in a good place.”
Childress also said that the weekend rotation of Saenz, Bryce Miller and Jonathan Childress will have bumps in the road like other teams, but they have the capability to bounce back when they need to.
“They’re going to get punched in the mouth, and so is everybody else’s rotation, but it’s how you respond to that adversity,” Rob Childress said. “Those three guys have been in the SEC grease a little bit.”
A&M outfielder Ray Alejo, who has a nine-game hit streak entering the weekend, said the pitching staff has been remarkable during this winning streak and has been throwing a lot of strikes.
“I feel like I almost don’t do too much these days [in the outfield] because they’re striking everybody out,” Alejo said. “It’s an unbelievable thing to see. There’s nothing worse when you’re out on defense and your pitcher’s walking a ton of guys, so it’s nice that they’re attacking the zone and getting strikes.”
Saenz, who has allowed no earned runs in his last 15.2 innings on the bump, said that throwing strikes and limiting free bases is the key to success for A&M baseball as a whole.
“We do harp on the fewest amount of walks per nine [innings] in the SEC,” Saenz said. “We just have to keep doing our thing and doing our job on the mound.”
The 13-5 Gators, who started the season 1-2, have won seven of their last nine entering this weekend. The series begins on Thursday, March 18 at Florida Ballpark on SEC Network with first pitch set for 6 p.m. as games two and three take place on SEC Network+ Friday and Saturday with 5:30 p.m. and noon start times, respectively.