Coming off their third straight conference series victory, Texas A&M baseball heads to Louisiana this weekend to take on reigning national champion LSU (23-15, 6-9 SEC) in Baton Rouge.
The 10th-ranked Aggies (28-7, 9-5) leaned on the freshman in their midweek against Houston. Jorian Wilson and Nico Partida combined to go 5-for-8 with two homers and seven RBI in the 10-2 win over the Cougars. Gavin Grahovac added to his great weekend against Texas with a three-run homer halfway up the batter’s eye
in center. Despite a rough start from Cole Hubert, six Aggie arms tossed scoreless outings, highlighted by Grant Cunningham’s three scoreless frames and earned the win.
Shifting focus to the weekend, the Aggies sit in a great spot headed to the Louisiana capital city. With the cancelation of game three versus the Longhorns, A&M will have one less game than their SEC counterparts as the second half of the SEC gauntlet begins. This portion of the schedule sees ranked competition on the weekend in all but one – this upcoming weekend. The goal is always to get to 14-15 wins in SEC play, but after the sweep of Texas last weekend, it feels like A&M is capable of much more and has given themselves a chance to host a regional in the NCAA Tournament. The Aggies will have to win close to 17-18 games and have a good showing at the conference tournament in Hoover, Ala., to feel like a hosting job in hand.
As for now, LSU is no easy opponent. But historically, A&M has been better in Alex Box Stadium against the Tigers (17-11-1) than at their home confines in College Station (16-17), so there’s that.
LSU has had stretches of good and lapses of bad this season as they entered the 2026 season looking to defend their national championship. They had won two straight SEC series (vs. Kentucky, at Tennessee) before getting swept on the road against Ole Miss last weekend. As for common opponents, they lost three-game sets to Vanderbilt (A&M won) and Oklahoma (A&M lost). The Tigers have been defeated in three midweeks – vs. McNeese, at Louisiana, and vs. Bethune-Cookman this season. Also, LSU dropped a series at home in Baton Rouge to Sacramento State back in March. On the converse, the Tigers swept and took home the Jax College Baseball Classic Championship Belt, beating Indiana, Notre Dame, and UCF in Jacksonville, Fla., in February.
Just as we saw last week, the recipe to A&M’s success is offense, offense, and offense. The Maroon and White scored 20 total runs in two games against the best pitching staff in the conference. They were patient at the plate, punishing Longhorn pitching with long at-bats, pitch counts, scoring runners that walked and power swings.
The pitching was complementary to the offense, doing just enough in game one, while dominating the later innings to wrap up game two. More of the same will be needed against a Tiger lineup that averages 8.16 runs per game.
With the entire series televised nationally, this is Texas A&M’s chance to show last weekend’s result over an in-state rival was not a fluke. It is an opportunity to grow Wilson’s and Partida’s names into the Freshman of the Year conversation. It is another set of games to show how potent one through nine in the lineup can be. Most importantly, the series is a way to demonstrate to the nation that A&M’s mentality can travel and work away from the home-field advantage of Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park.
An intriguing storyline for the series finale; both squads have not listed a starter. Weston Moss last threw on April 3 vs. Vanderbilt and would be the likely arm to start for the Aggies on Sunday, but there is a possibility we see him on Friday or Saturday in a long relief role. In that case, it would set up a rare bullpen game for both sides in what could be a crazy, high-scoring affair from Cajun Country to close out the series.
Games one and three can be seen on the Worldwide Leader (ESPN), while game two of the series will be on SEC Network. Karl Ravech (play-by-play), former Stanford pitching standout Kyle Peterson (analyst) and Tennessee infielder and Astros legend Chris Burke (analyst) will be on the call for the entire series from Baton Rouge.
Probable Starters:
- Friday: LHP Shane Sdao (3-2, 5.77 ERA) vs. RHP Casan Evans (2-1, 4.91 ERA)
- Saturday: RHP Aiden Sims (6-0, 3.56 ERA vs. RHP William Schmidt (4-3, 3.22 ERA)
- Sunday: TBA vs. TBA
Game Info (weather permitting):
- Friday: 6:00 p.m. on ESPN
- Saturday: 7:00 p.m. on SEC Network
- Sunday: 1:00 p.m. on ESPN
