Auburn baseball never found the production it needed out of its offense on Thursday, leading to a 3-2 loss at the hands of Texas A&M and an early exit from the Southeastern Conference tournament.

In year’s past, a Day 1 loss in Hoover didn’t necessarily mark the end of the road, but the tournament moving to a strictly single elimination format in 2025 means the Tigers’ run is over.

Now, Auburn will await its seeding in the NCAA tournament as a top eight national seed hangs in the balance.

“I just wish in a couple of moments, we could have knocked in a few more runs,” head coach Butch Thompson said after the game. “Had some chances today, but didn’t, didn’t happen

Here are three takeaways from Auburn baseball’s loss to Texas A&M in the second round of the SEC tournament.

Another early hole

Similar to during its series against Ole Miss, Auburn found itself playing form behind early in Thursday’s game.

After giving up a single and a hit by pitch in the top of the third inning, starting pitcher Cam Tilly surrendered his fourth home run of the season on a three-run shot to right field by Texas A&M shortstop Kaeden Kent.

Being in a three-run hole at that stage isn’t ideal in any game, but especially not when you’re facing the opponent’s ace pitcher.

Texas A&M starter Justin Lamkin came into the game with a 3.52 earned run average and 93 strikeouts, striking out 15 in a complete game against Georgia last week. He stayed true to form against Auburn, holding what has been a hot lineup to just one run and three hits in five innings.

The Tigers scored just one run the rest of the way, never getting out the three-run hole.

Offense couldn’t breakthrough

Auburn’s bats had been hot the past few weeks, but Texas A&M’s pitchers kept the Tigers from the breakthrough it often finds.

The biggest moment came in the bottom of the eighth, where Auburn had runners on first and second for outfield slugger Ike Irish, but the Tigers were met with misfortune rather than celebration and relief.

Irish hit a ground ball to second base, causing an easy force out at second, but Irish beat out the throw at first to seemingly avoid the double play.

But just as Cooper McMurray walked toward the batters box to try and bring home a run from third with two outs, the umpires called Irish out at first after they ruled Eric Guevara had slid into the restricted area at second, meaning both he and Irish were out.

Thompson said after the game that he thought the call was correct after seeing the replay, but also said it “absolutely took momentum away from us.”

It put an end to what might have been Auburn’s best chance to finally breakthrough and get out of the hole it put itself in earlier in the game. The Tigers tacked on a solo home run in the ninth, but it wasn’t enough as it could never convert with runners on base.

“There’s an old adage in pitching too that we’ve always had that solos don’t beat you,” Thompson said. “We actually hit two home runs to their one home run.”

One mistake was all it took

It’s hard to be overly critical of Auburn’s pitching staff against Texas A&M. It held the Aggies to three runs and four hits, all while ace pitcher Sam Dutton didn’t even touch the mound.

But sometimes all it takes is one poor pitch to change the game. That pitch came in the third inning, when Tilly left one over the plate enough for Kent to knock the ball over the fence, giving Texas A&M enough of a cushion to hold onto for the remaining six innings.

Outside of that at bat, Tilly, Carson Myers and Cade Fisher combined to put together an outing that would win most games. But on Thursday it wasn’t enough, and Auburn now moves on to the next and more important phase of the postseason: a regional at Plainsman Park.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m