« Game 20: Texas at Kansas | Main | Two quick notes »

Tuesday - March 24, 2009

Game 21: Dallas Baptist at Texas

The losing streak is over! Whew. I do believe that four games were enough or all of us. Texas scored single runs in the 3rd, 6th, and 7th innings to beat Dallas Baptist 3-0. Austin Dicharry pitched into the 8th for the win. With 1 out and a runner at 2b, Keith Shinaberry went in to do what he does best: get a couple of quick outs. He gave up a single to start off the 9th so was lifted in favor of Chance Ruffin who went strikeout, fly out to lf, ground out to 2b to earn his first save of the year. Yes, they're still playing with the idea of turning Chance into a closer.

The starting line-ups:

DBU	Texas
1 Ryan Enos, cf 2 Austin Knight, 3b 3 Ryan Goins, ss 4 Trevor Head, 1b 5 Jason Krizan, dh 6 Travis Meiners, 2b 7 Ryan Thompson, rf 8 Brandon Bantz, c 9 Clay Kelley, lf - Victor Black, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Preston Clark, dh 7 Cameron Rupp, c 8 Kyle Lusson, cf 9 Brandon Loy, ss - Austin Dicharry, p

The Horns modified the line-up just a bit from Sunday's game. They switched Rupp and Clark (moving Clark to dh and Rupp to c) and inserted Kyle Lusson in at cf, replacing Connor Rowe. They also dropped Loy back down to the #9 spot.

The bats made a bit (just a bit...a good start, I hope) of a reappearance this evening. The big blow came from Kevin Keyes again (for the 3rd time in the last 4 games). His 1-out double off the lf wall in the 6th drove home the 2nd run of the game. Keyes also came close to hitting a homerun in the 8th...but it was just a bit too high and stayed in the park. In the deepest corner of the park in the lf/cf gap.

Side note. Keyes also struck out twice. I had a gut feeling (without having looked at those particular numbers at all this season), that he was pacing the team in strikeouts this season. And, yeah...he is. But. Yes, there's a but. He's got 14 Ks in 53 at-bats with 8 walks. Rupp has 13 (with 5 walks) in 63 at-bats, Rowe has 13 (with 8 walks) in 43 at-bats (!), and Tant Shepherd has 11 (with 7 walks) in 47 at-bats. So, yeah...he's leading but his percentages are (mostly) better. And, he's tied for 2nd on the team for number of hits, is in the lead in slugging percentage, and is in 3rd place in on-base percentage. (Aside to my side note: Keyes and Rowe are tied for 2nd in walks with 8; lapping the rest of the team is Belt with 19 walks. Wow.)

So, anyway...here's how the Horns scored their runs:

• 3rd inning
• Lusson walked (full count).
• Loy moved Lusson to 2b with a really nice bunt down the 3b line.
• Lusson stole 3b on the 2nd pitch to Tucker.
• Mysteriously, with a 1-2 count, Tucker tried to bunt but hit a foul ball to go down swinging. Weird.
• Torres singled over the ss into lf to drive Lusson home.
• Belt lined out to lf to end the inning.
• 6th inning
• Belt struck out swinging. And, it's all Bob's fault for commenting (about 2 seconds before the pitch) on how hard Belt was hitting the ball. So, if you see Bob, give him some grief for it, 'kay?
• Moldenhauer singled up the middle and was promptly replaced at the 1b bag by pinch-runner Tim Maitland.
• Keyes hit that double I mentioned earlier (off the lf wall) to drive Maitland home.
• Keyes was, sadly, caught stealing 3b a couple of pitches later. On the play, the pitch got away from the catcher and started rolling toward the 1b dugout. Keyes took off. But, the catcher gathered the ball up quickly and threw to 3b to catch Keyes by 2 or 3 feet.
• Clark (at the plate at the time of the "caught stealing" thing) struck out looking.
• 7th inning
• Rupp singled up the middle.
• Lusson hit a sac bunt to the pitcher to move Rupp to 2b. Frankly, we all thought the pitcher had a chance at a play at 2b but he didn't even appear to think about it. He fielded and went straight to 1b. Whew.
• Loy singled to lf, scoring Rupp, and then moved to 2b on a wild pitch with Tucker at the plate.
• Tucker flew out to cf and Torres grounded out to ss to end the inning and the scoring for the Horns.

On the defensive side of things, the Horns gave up solo hits in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th. They never allowed more than one baserunner in any single inning and threw three 1-2-3 innings (the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th). The only lead-off batter to reach was in the 9th. In fact, 3 of the 5 hits given up were to 2-out batters. Not bad at all.

The weather was gorgeous, by the way. The temperature was in the high 70s all evening with virtually no wind. I wish it could be like that all the time. I was, frankly, a bit worried as things wore on this morning that we might not be able to play at all. It was drizzling and raining most of the morning and the roads around campus didn't really start to dry out until about 3 or so this afternoon. But, once the drizzle dried up and the sun came out, the conditions turned lovely.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Texas hosts the Red Raiders this weekend. Tech comes to town with a 10-14 record (3-3 in Big 12 play). It should be an interesting series. Clearly, both teams have quite a bit to prove.

Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 10:29 PM