« Missouri opener postponed | Main | Game 15: Missouri at Texas »

Saturday - March 14, 2009

Game 14: Missouri at Texas

Sorry I didn't get this posted sooner. I was tired when I got home and just kinda lazed around watching TV for a few hours after I got home.

Anyway.

Yesterday's Big 12 opener against Missouri was postponed due to cold and rainy conditions. It was raining most of the day. And, the high only reached 42 °F. So, the teams agreed to play two 9-inning games today starting at 1 o'clock. And, how was the weather today? No rain. But, it was still cold. It was 46 °F at the start of Game 1. And, it got up to 48 by the end of the game. It wasn't raining but there was still plenty of moisture in the air. And, a bit of a light wind blowing in from the north. Brrrrr... We bundled up big time. But, there was no chance of staying warm today.

Sadly, the Horns dropped the opener 0-2. It was a tough loss. The main problem today? A pitcher named Kyle Gibson. The Horns just couldn't string together any hits. Not more than one hit in any given inning. It's tough to win a game that way. On the other side of things, Missouri got 4 hits in the 3rd to score those two runs. They managed two additional hits...in the 9th. But that was it. It's awfully tough to no-hit a team for 7 innings and walk away with a loss, eh? Awfully tough.

The Horns switched things up a bit today. I think they were trying to put a more offensively-minded line-up together. But, there was that Kyle Gibson problem. So, here were the line-ups for today's opener:

Missouri	Texas
1 Greg Folgia, lf 2 Conner Mach, dh 3 Ryan Lollis, cf 4 Aaron Senne, rf 5 Trevor Coleman, c 6 Steve Gray, 1b 7 Andrew Thigpen, 2b 8 Kyle Mach, 3b 9 Michael Liberto, ss - Kyle Gibson, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, dh 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, rf 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Cameron Rupp, c 7 David Hernandez, ss 8 Kyle Lusson, cf 9 Brandon Loy, 3b - Chance Ruffin, p

Yep, Travis Tucker was back in the line-up and out on the field. He looked good and did not appear to be bothered by any ankle pain. At least, that's how it looked from high up in the stands!

The Horns actually started the game off very nicely. Chance Ruffin struck out the first batter he faced but hit the next (C. Mach). He picked Mach off after tossing a few throws over to 1b and then got Lollis to ground out. In the bottom of the inning, Belt and Moldenhauer reached on back-to-back 2-out walks. But, Shepherd hit into a fielder's choice to end the inning. Alas, that's pretty much the way the game went offensively. The Horns went 3-up/3-down in the 3rd and 9th and had 1 hit in each of the other innings (all singles except for one double by Moldenhauer in the 6th). The did not manage to get the lead-off batter aboard at all during the game. And, when they did get a man aboard, Gibson would buckle down and kill any thought of a rally.

And, what about those two runs the Horns gave up? In the third, Kyle Mach reached on a 1-out bloop single to shallow lf and then moved to 2b on a throwing error by Ruffin (bad pick-off throw...yes, after that beautiful effort in the 1st). He moved to 3b when Liberto singled through the right side. Folgia then singled to lf, scoring Mach and moving Liberto to 2b. Connor Mach then singled through the left side...the ball just barely skipped under the diving Brandon Loy's outstretched glove. Liberto scored on that one. Four singles in a row. Ouch. Lollis and Senne both flew out to lf to end the Missouri half of the inning and the scoring for the game. Ruffin went on to mow down the next 9 batters he saw. He walked one (the only walk on the day for him) and then sat down 7 more before giving up another hit to the 2nd batter in the top of the 9th. At that point, Austin Wood went to the mound to get the final two outs (he also gave up a single). So. One bad inning made all the difference. So sad.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

'Back with today's 2nd game in a bit.

Posted by Joanna at 10:28 PM