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Sunday - May 20, 2007

Game 56: Texas A&M at Texas

I really need for there to be more hours in the day. I have so much I want to say about today's game. And, I have some nice photos I'd like to post but look at the time. It's already 11:40 at night and this is the first chance I've had to post about today's game. So sad.

Let's see...Austin Wood took the mound for the Horns and pitched a very solid 8 innings. He had a perfect game through the first 4.1 innings! He finally gave up a base hit to the second batter of the 5th inning. Travis Tucker made a great play to knock the ball down and nearly made a great play to get the out (and keep the mystical perfect game in sight). Alas. As I said, Austin lasted 8 innings. All told, he gave up 1 run (earned) on 5 hits with 2 strikeouts, 1 walk, 2 hit batters, and 1 wild pitch. By my count, he threw 93 pitches. Very nice. Pat McCrory went in for the 9th and threw my favorite thing: a 3-up/3-down inning. Chais Fuller made a beautiful leaping catch to snag a line drive to sit down the first Aggie batter of the 9th and then Pat struck the next two out.

On the offensive side of things, all the scoring took place in the 4th and 6th innings. The Horns threatened more in the 3rd and 8th, but those runs scored in the 4th and 6th were more than enough. They went like so:

• 4th inning:
• Aggie starter Migl on the mound.
• Chance Wheeless singled to lf.
• Bradley Suttle hit a double off the top of the wall in rf. Chance moved to 3b.
• Russell Moldenhauer hit a sac fly to the deep part of the lf/cf gap. Chance scored and Bradley moved to 3b.
• Preston Clark hit a long home run over the lf fence. Purty. Texas up 3-0.
• Chais Fuller grounded out to 3b.
• Nick Peoples was hit by a pitch.
• Travis Tucker worked an 11-pitch (!) walk. It was something. Nick broke hard for 2b at least 5 times during the at-bat and had to return to 1b each time as Travis would foul off another pitch. Nick must've been worn out by the time he was moved to 2b on the walk.
• The Aggies replaced the starter with Matt Ueckert.
• Jordan Danks then took a 2-0 pitch way over the rf fence. Texas up 6-0.
• Kyle Russell flew out to cf to end the inning.
• 6th inning:
• Chais Fuller singled up the middle.
• Nick Peoples worked the count full (in fact, saw 9 pitches) before flying out to rf. All that work for naught. Heh.
• Travis Tucker doubled to lf. Chais moved to 3b.
• With a 2-0 count to Jordan Danks, the Aggies sent Kyle Thebeau to the mound.
• The 3rd pitch Thebeau threw was wild. Chais scored and Travis moved to 3b.
• Jordan ended up walking (after seeing 7 pitches...from two different pitchers). Since Thebeau entered with a 2-0 count, by the way, the walk was charged to Ueckert.
• With runners at the corners, Kyle Russell popped the first pitch he saw to the ss. Kyle did not have a good day today. He went 0-for-5 with 2 strikeouts. That's one of the things you have to love about this team. When one guy doesn't have his best day, someone else steps up.
• With 2 outs and runners still at the corners, Chance Wheeless reached on a 4-pitch walk. Bases loaded.
• Bradley Suttle singled to rf. Travis and Jordan both scored. Chance moved to 3b.
• Russell Moldenhauer then flew out to cf to end the 6th.

So...Horns win 9-1. And, get the sweep. Sweet.

Something kind of odd happened in the 7th. With runners at 1b and 2b and nobody out, Colligan hit a ground ball toward 3b. Bradley Suttle was in front of the 3b bag. He had time to get the lead runner out so he did. He wasn't able to plant his foot very well, though, and did not get the batter running to 1b. So, with runners still at 1b and 2b, Green then hit a sharper ground ball to Bradley. This time, Bradley was a bit behind the 3b bag. And, this time, he fielded smoothly, stepped on the 3b bag and threw a bullet to 1b to complete the double play. Pretty. In the bottom of the inning, Preston Clark and Chais Fuller both grounded out to 3b. It just struck me as odd that the last two plays of the top of the inning and the first two plays of the bottom of the inning were all ground balls hit to 3b. Shrug.

By the by, it was Senior Day! Last year, we had all of three (3!) seniors on the roster. This year? Seven. They were introduced at the beginning of the game: Randy Boone, Chais Fuller, Joseph Krebs, Brett Lewis, Nick Peoples, Clay Van Hook, and Chance Wheeless. What a great group of guys! And, here they are (along with two of the trainers who are also seniors, sorry to say that I did not catch their names):

And, finally...post-game comments. Augie told Keith that they would probably try to start Joseph Krebs in the first game of the Big 12 tournament. He also said they'd be shipping all of their equipment to Oklahoma City by bus but would be flying up on a non-stop Express Jet flight. He seemed kinda jazzed about the idea of "flying light"...as it were. He also said they hoped to win the Big 12 tournament but that the priority would be the Regional. And, moving forward from there.

That's about all I can handle this evening. As it is, it's taken me nearly 50 minutes to get this out! I'll try to post more photos sometime during the week but can make no promises. We're set to be very busy at work again and that leaves me with little energy for this "obsessive hobby" (so-called by Christy...or is it Kristy?...today when she found out I have a web page dedicated to Texas baseball) in the evening.

Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 11:39 PM