Before the season, senior Ryne Price said hitting coach Kevin Tucker wanted his hitters to improve with runners in scoring position. Price said Tucker called it being “badasses.”

Well, Kansas could have used a badass in the bottom of the fifth of Sunday’s game against Texas A&M.

Already leading 7-6, Kansas’ first three batters of the inning reached to load the bases. The next three batters promptly made outs, ending the inning with the score unchanged. Failing to convert any of those runners into runs may not have cost Kansas (18-12, 1-5) the game, but it certainly didn’t help as Texas A&M (21-6, 6-3) completed its sweep with a 10-8 victory.

“I’m really proud of how hard we played. I’m really proud of the maturity that’s in our dugout, how hard we played and the way we swing the bats,” Kansas coach Ritch Price said. “I just told my team, everything that we need to do better, we can fix. It’d be one thing if we didn’t have good enough players to fix it. It’s got to start with our starting pitching and we’ve got to do a little bit better job making adjustments within the game because our number of quality at-bats throughout the course of the game needs to improve, too.”

Junior left-hander Sam Freeman started for the Jayhawks, but he didn’t last long, allowing six runs in two innings, including a grand slam in the top of the first to Texas A&M designated hitter Darby Brown.

In his brief appearance, Freeman saw his ERA jump from 5.04 to 6.67. As for Brown, his day was far from over.

“He’s still learning how to pitch,” Price said of Freeman. “He does not have good mechanics yet and he was out of sync today. You could see him rushing, his front foot was falling on its heel and he had no command.”

For the weekend, Price received a grand total of 7.2 innings from his starting pitchers. Junior lefty Nick Czyz collected 5.1 of those himself Saturday.

“It’s tough when you’ve got to try to fight your way out of a hole from the first inning and the first three innings take an hour and a half and you’ve still got six to go,” senior shortstop Erik Morrison said.

But the Jayhawk offense didn’t roll over, striking back in the bottom of the second.

With two on and no out, junior first baseman Preston Land doubled to the left-center field gap to drive in Ryne Price and Morrison. Kansas collected five more hits and runs in the inning, sending 13 batters to the plate, and got Freeman off the hook, assuming a 7-6 lead.

Freshman T.J. Walz entered in the third and the young right-hander gave his team a brilliant effort. At one point Walz had retired nine straight Aggies, but he was no match for Brown in the top of the seventh.

With an 8-6 lead to work with, Walz put second baseman Blake Stouffer on with a leadoff walk. After Walz retired the next two batters, Brown sent a bomb to center field that nearly flew over the batter’s eye, a giant tarp behind the fence that allows hitters to see pitches. Brown’s second home run of the day tied the game, 8-8, and capped off a 2-for-5 day and 8-for-15 series for the designated hitter.

Kansas escaped the inning with the score tied, but Texas A&M right-handers Kyle Thebeau (2-2) and Travis Starling shut down the Jayhawk offense.

After Kansas squandered its bases-loaded, no-outs opportunity in the fifth, it managed to tack on only one more run to its total — an RBI single by Morrison in the bottom of the sixth.

Senior right-hander Andres Esquibel (2-1) got Kansas out of the seventh, but Texas A&M got to him in the eighth. With two on and two out, third baseman Dane Carter singled to center field, driving in pinch runner Brooks Raley and center fielder Kyle Colligan.

With a 10-8 lead, Starling sealed the victory for the Aggies, earning his sixth save of the season and dropping the Jayhawks to last place in the Big 12.

“We racked up 12 hits and we hit around a good ball club pretty good and, when you score eight runs in a game, you should be able to come out with a win,” Morrison said. “Our main thing is, just to not give up on each other, not start pointing fingers, stay positive and keep the aggressiveness and confidence that we’ve got at the plate and everything will work out for us.”

— Edited by Daniel Reyes