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Wednesday - April 2, 2008

Game 28: Texas Southern at Texas

The Horns beat the Texas Southern Tigers 7-4 this evening. Today's game wasn't part of the original 2008 schedule. When Texas had to cancel a game last month against Dallas Baptist (due to rain), they quickly added this evening's Texas Southern game to make up the difference. The two teams had only met once before; they played a game in 1995 here in Austin which Texas won 25-1.

Kenn Kasparek started but only pitched the first inning. I thought that meant we'd be seeing 6 or 7 pitchers. But, Casey Whitmer went in for the 2nd and stayed on the mound through the 5th. Kyle Walker threw the next 1.2 and Stayton Thomas closed out the game for his second win of the year. Kenn put the three batters he faced down in order. Casey struggled a bit. He faced 21 batters and gave up 3 earned runs on 5 hits (3 singles, a double, a homerun) while striking out 4 and walking 3. He also hit a couple of batters. Kyle faced 9 and gave up an unearned run on 2 hits and 3 strikeouts. He committed an error and hit a batter. Stayton faced 7 batters and put 'em all down in order while striking out 3.

The offensive highlights: Michael Torres went 1-for-4 with a run scored and a walk. Travis Tucker went 1-for-3 with a run scored, a sac bunt, a stolen base, and a walk. Jordan Danks went 1-for-3 with 2 runs scored, one batted in, a stolen base, and 2 walks. Brandon Belt went 1-for-4 with a double, a run batted in, a walk, a stolen base, and a strikeout. Russell Moldenhauer went 1-for-2 with a double, a run scored, 2 batted in, and 2 walks. Kyle Russell went 1-for-4 with a triple, a run scored, a run batted in, and 2 strikeouts. Cameron Rupp went 2-for-2 with a run scored, a run batted in, a walk, and a sac fly.

Defensively, the Horns started with Russell Moldenhauer, Jordan Danks, and Kyle Russell around the outfield, Pat McCrory, David Hernandez, Travis Tucker, and Brandon Belt around the infield, Cameron Rupp behind the plate, and Michael Torres at dh. Preston Clark went in at 3b in the top of the 8th. Coach Garrido said after yesterday's game (and again before today's, I'm told) that the best athlete available to play 3b at the moment is Preston Clark. He's a little leery of moving Preston out from behind the plate, but he knows something has to change in order to get the team on track. Preston ended up seeing two ground balls to 3b (the last two batters of the game it turns out) and he converted both ground balls into outs.

The line:

																			R	H	E
Texas Southern			0	2	0			0	1	0			1	0	0		-		4	7	1
Texas			1	0	1			0	0	2			2	1	x		-		7	8	1

The Horns travel to Oklahoma this weekend. The Sooners stand at 21-8-1 on the season with a 2-3-1 conference record. They went 0-2-1 in Lincoln two weeks ago and 2-1 at home against Baylor last weekend.

Go, Horns!!

Posted by Joanna at 11:48 PM