The Southeastern Conference office is aware of a video, circulating on social media, that accuses Georgia relief pitcher Christian Mracna of applying a substance to the back of his glove, Texas A&M head baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle confirmed with The Eagle.
Other videos posted on social media show Mracna repeatedly touching the same location on his glove between pitches, while closing out Georgia’s 5-4 series finale victory over the Aggies on Saturday.
Mracna, who had started 10 games for the Bulldogs before Saturday’s relief appearance, in which he recorded all six outs via strikeouts. He allowed one hit in two scoreless innings.
The initial video, first posted by the Barstool Texas A&M account on the social media platform ‘X’, shows Mracna pulling something out of his back pocket before squatting down in the front corner of the Blue Bell Park visitor’s bullpen. He places his glove on the ground in front of him, out of view of the field and Section 12 in right field. After almost 30 seconds of doing something to the glove on the ground, he picks it up and continues to touch a portion of the back of the glove, on the thumb. Other videos show him touching the same location, while on the mound.
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— Barstool Texas A&M (@BarstoolTexasAM) April 28, 2024
Mracna is second on the Bulldogs in strikeouts this season with 57 and has a 4.00 earned run average in 36 innings.
The Aggies took the first two games of the series over the then 17th-ranked Bulldogs, including overcoming a 9-0 first-inning deficit in the second game to run-rule Georgia in seven innings, 19-9.
An email by The Eagle to the SEC offices, asking if they are looking into the incident, did not receive a response by the time of publication.
A&M home to Tarleton tonight. The top-ranked Texas A&M baseball team will play Tarleton at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Blue Bell Park.
The Aggies (38-6) are the consensus country’s best for a third straight week. A&M is 11-0 in midweek games and 23-0 in nonconference. A&M is coming off winning its sixth straight Southeastern Conference three-game series, all coming against ranked teams. The Aggies beat 17th-ranked Georgia, 5-2 in the opener and split a Saturday doubleheader, scoring 19 unanswered runs for a 19-9 run-rule victory in the first game before Georgia rallied for a 5-4 victory in Sunday’s finale.
“It stinks when it’s the third game that you lose, because that’s the taste in your mouth when the weekend’s over,” A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “Given the situation, being down 9-nothing in one of the games to win a series against a great team, that’s awesome.”
A&M is a game behind Arkansas (37-7, 16-5) for the SEC West lead. Mississippi State (29-15, 12-9) is in third, the only other team in the division above .500.
Kentucky (33-9, 16-6) has a game lead on Tennessee (37-7, 15-6) in the East, followed by Vanderbilt (31-13, 11-10), South Carolina (29-14, 11-10) and Georgia (31-12, 10-11).
A&M will be at defending national champ LSU (28-17, 7-17) for a three-game series starting Friday. The Tigers are tied with Ole Miss (23-20, 7-17) for fifth in the West, right behind Alabama (28-16, 9-12). Auburn (21-22, 3-18) is last in the West and Missouri (19-26, 6-15) is last in the East. Only the top 12 teams make the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., on May 21-26.
Tarleton is 25-19 overall, including 15-9 to be fourth in the 11-team Western Athletic Conference behind Grand Canyon (25-18, 16-5), California Baptist (28-16, 14-7) and Abilene Christian (27-18, 14-7).
The polls. The top four spots in the USA Today baseball coaches poll remained intact for a second straight week with A&M first followed by Arkansas, Tennessee and Clemson. A&M had 29 of the 31 votes for the third straight week. The Aggies also had 772 points for the second straight week, 32 more than Arkansas, which picked up four points from last week.
East Carolina is fifth, followed by Florida State, Oregon State, Kentucky, Duke and Virginia and California-Irvine sharing 10th. North Carolina is 12th followed by Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Wake Forest, Oklahoma State, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana-Lafayette and North Carolina State. Mississippi State is 21st followed by Indiana State, Oklahoma, Arizona and Dallas Baptist.
Game of inches. Sam Houston had the tying home run taken off the board at Conference USA-leading Louisiana Tech on Saturday because Walker Janek did not touch home plate after he connected with two outs in the eighth inning of a one-run game.
Janek came just inches short of touching the plate with his right foot, and Louisiana Tech appealed. Janek was called out following a video review, and the play was scored as a triple.
Tech (33-13, 11-4) held on to win 5-4 and swept the three-game series. Western Kentucky is second (31-14, 13-5), just ahead of Dallas Baptist (31-11, 10-5). The Bearkats (24-20, 7-11) are tied with New Mexico State (20-23, 7-11) for sixth.
Sam Houston will be at Texas on Tuesday night before playing host to Tarleton this weekend.
Utah on the rise. Utah, which finished at the bottom of the Pac-12 last season, is coming off its first three-game sweep of UCLA and will go into May, tied with Arizona for first.
The Utes (29-13, 14-7) have won 10 of 11 weekend series, are heading toward their first winning record since 2017 and bidding for their first Pac-12 title since 2016. From 2018-23, the Utes had finished no higher than second to last in the league.
NOTES — Vanderbilt’s Jayden Davis was hit by a pitch in the face while attempting to bunt against Mississippi State on Saturday and will require eye surgery to repair orbital damage. ... Charlie Condon’s homer against Texas A&M on Saturday was his NCAA-leading 29th of the year and 54th in 99 career games. ... Texas tied a program record with six homers in a 12-10 series-clinching win at Oklahoma on Sunday in a game that ended in the eighth inning because of lightning. The Longhorns hadn’t gone deep six times in a game since 1998. ... Tennessee’s bullpen allowed just one run in 13 innings against Missouri.