Jim Schlossnagle praises Texas A&M's pitching amid Troy Wansing shutout vs. Tennessee

Jim Schlossnagle is having a solid start to his morning with No. 10 Texas A&M up 2-0 early against No. 7 Tennessee. The biggest part of that has been the Aggie’s pitching as it’s been something he thinks they’ve found a lot of success with early in Hoover.

Schlossnagle spoke with the SEC Network broadcast about his team’s performance, specifically that of Wansing, so far. He said they’re very obviously starting to find a groove in large part due to the pitching to start over the last few weeks which, as of now, is culminating with Wansing.

“We really are (starting to get things looking right). Brett (Minnich) being back? It stinks to not have him in the field. But he had a big weekend, a big hit for, a grand slam, the other day against Mississippi State,” said Schlossnagle. “But the brightest spot, knock on wood, is our starting pitching. (Nathan) Dettmer, (Justin) Lamkin, and Will Johnson were all really, really good this past weekend. And Troy, so far, has been pretty good.”

To this point, Wansing has three strikeouts against the Volunteers. The sophomore is doing what he needs to for the Aggies at the moment and, as long as Tennessee keeps swinging, Schlossnagle is happy to let him go to work and do his thing.

“He’s got the big breaking ball. It’s just a matter of throwing enough strikes with his fastball,” Schlossnagle said. “They’re swinging so (we’ll) see if we can keep it going.”

Tony Vitello provides Jared Dickey update, shares message to team for SEC Tournament

Tennessee baseball is getting started with its SEC Tournament run on Tuesday afternoon. But before the game got underway, the SEC Network crew was able to catch up with Volunteer head coach Tony Vitello to discuss a few personnel storylines and get his message to the team for the start of postseason play.

He explained that every player has to be ready to have their number called, no matter what the job is. He wants the clean-up hitter to be just as excited about his role as the guy called in to pinch hit for one at-bat. It takes sacrifice and a full team effort to win in late May and June at the college level, per the Vol head coach.

“I think just be ready for the baseball when your name is called. In particular this time of year. But our season was unique. I mean, it really came with a lot of different storylines to start the year. And because things weren’t going quite as well as we wanted — and everybody’s got different opinions on where our team should be at — the bottom line is things needed to adjust”

Next, Vitello addressed the injury situation with star hitter Jared Dickey, who had been nursing some shoulder soreness of late but should be good to go.

“He’s good. He feels good swinging it. He was swinging it about as aggressive as he has the whole year in the cage. There was an issue. You know, he took a slide where he was trying to make a hustle play. And (he) just kind of jammed his shoulder into the ground a little bit. So it was sore. And, again, I kind of mentioned off air, he’s an emotional kid in a good way. A ton of passion. And he doesn’t want to miss any action with this group. So I think he was more bummed about that than anything, but really, all’s it was was to give that soreness a chance to calm down and get back to it.”