Jared Wegner crushes go-ahead grand slam against Texas A&M in SEC Tournament
Arkansas hadn’t got much offense going at all on Wednesday through six-plus innings in their first SEC Tournament game. Stepping on the field against a Texas A&M squad that already had a game under their belt, the Razorbacks were down 4-1 after just a handful of innings.
But eventually as the Aggies dipped deeper into the bullpen, Arkansas started applying pressure. The bases were juiced in the bottom of the seventh inning when grad-transfer outfielder Jared Wegner stepped to the plate.
On the first pitch of the at-bat, Wegner got a fast ball drifting over the inner half of the plate. The batter needed no extra cue, clobbering the a no-doubt grand slam to give the Razorbacks a 5-4 lead.
There are worse ways to crack open the scoring than plating four runs with a single swing of the bat. According to the broadcast, it was the first grand slam at the SEC Tournament since 2018. It’s Wegner’s 13th of the season.
It’s been a bit of an unlucky afternoon for the Aggies against Arkansas
In the superstitious world of baseball, not much is unreasonable if it’s preventing bad luck. And that seems to be the view Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle adopted on in-game interviews during the Aggies second round SEC tournament game against Arkansas.
With the Aggies in the field, SEC Network play-by-play announcer Dave Neal asked the coach about the importance of pitching in the postseason. As Schlossnagle answered, the Arkansas batter popped a pitch high into right field foul territory.
“Um if they can continue to swing,” Schlossnagle said as the ball apexed and right fielder Jace LaViolette tracked under the ball. “let’s — I have bad luck with these interviews.”
Neal playfully responded that such couldn’t be the case.
“No you don’t, you’ve got it, look,” Neal said. The ball thudded into foul ground a few feet behind LaViolette. Neal had an addendum: “Oh, see, it was.”
And be it commitment to the bit, genuine frustration or just some superstition, the Texas A&M head coach decided that was enough of the in game interview.
As Neal and color commentator Ben McDonald chuckled, Schlossnagle — in good enough humor — said goodbye and handed the headset to the SEC Network production assistant in the dugout. The announcers made out a few lip readings of Schlossnagle joking to his players and assistant coaches about the luck after he walked off.
“Schloss, we’ll see you later,” McDonald said.
“Goodbye,” Schlossnagle said. “Goodbye.”
“Unbelievable, we’re never going to talk to him again,” Neal said, laughing.