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Wednesday - April 29, 2009

Can we please take it down a notch?

Yo, sound people at Disch-Falk. I'm talking to you.

Can you please lower the volume by about half? Things weren't so bad at the beginning of the season but it's getting really bad again. Every game, it's just a little bit louder. It was so bad last night that the vibrations from the sound system were actually giving me a stomach ache. Throwing all that volume at us does not make us want to cheer louder for the team. All it does is make us wish we knew which one of you was responsible so we could knock some sense into you. It also makes us just a bit resentful, and...in point of fact...we're actually less likely to cheer loudly for the team because it's all so pointless. Whenever we do get up a bit of steam on our own, you start with the pre-recorded crap. Please, please, please show us a wee bit of respect (not to mention, sympathy) and lower the volume. Please.

And, while you're at it: could you please use a recording of the TEXAS LONGHORN MARCHING BAND playing the National Anthem when you don't have a live performer? Instead of that a cappella boy group? This is THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS after all.

Sigh...

Posted by Joanna at 7:18 AM | Permalink

Tuesday - April 28, 2009

Game 42: Texas State at Texas

Texas beat Texas State 12-2 this evening. Now, that's more like it! 'Twas a good night at Disch-Falk. The Horns looked good. Nice and relaxed. I don't usually declare "Players of the Game" but I feel compelled to give props to Kevin Lusson (who got his 2nd start at 3b) and Stayton Thomas who earned his 2nd win of the year. Kevin went 4-for-4 with 2 doubles, a walk, 5 runs scored, and 2 batted in. He also made a couple of nice plays at 3b. Stayton pitched the middle 5 innings without giving up any runs; he gave up 3 singles, struck out 2, and hit two, while facing 18 batters. Very nice.

Today's starting line-ups:

Texas State	Texas
1 Tyler Sibley, rf 2 Bret Atwood, cf 3 Paul Goldschmidt, 1b 4 Keith Prestridge, dh 5 Spenser Dennis, lf 6 Ben Theriot, c 7 Kyle Livingstoe, 2b 8 Kyle Kubitza, 3b 9 Jason Martinson, ss - Garret Carruth, p	1 Michael Torres, dh 2 Travis Tucker, 2b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Kevin Keyes, rf 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Lusson, 3b 7 Brandon Loy, ss 8 Preston Clark, c 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p

Texas stayed with the same line-up they used in Sunday's game against Kansas State. With a little change: Torres and Kevin Lusson switched positions; Torres went to dh and Lusson went in at 3b.

• 1st inning, TSTU
• Brandon Workman on the mound.
• Sibley was hit by a pitch.
• Atwood grounded out to the pitcher. Sibley moved to 2b on the hit and run.
• Goldschmidt popped out to ss in shallow lf.
• Prestridge singled to cf, scoring Sibley.
• Dennis grounded out to the pitcher.
• Texas down 0-1.
• 1st inning, UT
• Garret Carruth on the mound.
• Torres flew out to cf. The center fielder made a long run and then a nice over-the-shoulder catch to rob Torres of a double.
• Tucker singled up the middle.
• Belt hit a homerun into the TSTU bullpen in the lf corner.
• Keyes lined out to cf.
• Shepherd struck out swinging.
• Texas up 2-1.
• 2nd inning, TSTU
• Theriot drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Livingstone grounded out to 3b, moving Theriot to 2b.
• Kubitza flew out to cf (at the warning track just in front of the 405 sign in left-center). Theriot tagged up and moved to 3b.
• Martinson worked the count full, fouled off a couple of pitches, and eventually walked, putting runners at the corners. Skip Johnson, by the way, made a trip to the mound after the first pitch (a ball) to Martinson.
• Sibley hit a bloop single over 2b into rf, scoring Theriot and moving Martinson to 2b.
• Atwood grounded out to the pitcher. 3rd ground out to p through the first 11 batters!
• Game tied 2-2.
• 2nd inning, UT
• Kevin Lusson singled through the right side.
• Loy singled through the left side, moving Lusson to 2b. Coach Garrido took a quick offensive timeout after Loy watched two called strikes. Loy hit the next pitch. Nice.
• Clark advanced Lusson to 3b and Loy to 2b on a very nice 5-4 sac bunt. Purty.
• With Rowe at the plate, Lusson scored and Loy moved to 3b on a wild pitch.
• Rowe hit a single into rf, scoring Loy.
• Torres grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.
• Texas up 4-2.
• 3rd inning, TSTU
• Texas sent Stayton Thomas to the mound, replacing Workman.
• Goldschmidt was hit by a full-count pitch. Tsk tsk.
• Prestridge grounded into a 4-6-3 double play...on a hit and run! Very nicely turned by Tucker and Torres.
• Dennis flew out to rf. Keyes made a long run to make the difficult play.
• 3rd inning, UT
• Tucker singled off the mound and into cf.
• Belt lined out to cf. Nice diving catch by the center fielder.
• Keyes flew out to cf.
• Shepherd lined out to cf.
• Dang.
• 4th inning, TSTU
• Theriot grounded out to ss. Loy made a fantastic back-handed grab and a long throw to make the out.
• Livingstone was hit by a pitch. First pitch, this time.
• Kubitza singled to lf, moving Livingstone to 2b.
• Martinson struck out looking.
• 4th inning, UT
• Kevin Lusson doubled to right-center (2-0 pitch).
• Insert visit to the mound. Coach Garrido took advantage of the time to visit with Loy and Clark.
• Loy grounded out to ss.
• Clark struck out looking.
• Rowe doubled down the lf line, scoring Lusson. The ball was just barely fair. Last week, with the luck the Horns were having, that ball would've been foul by inches.
• The Bobcats sent Tyler Brundridge to the mound, replacing Carruth.
• Torres grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 5-2.
• 5th inning, TSTU
• 3-up/3-down: Adwood grounded out to p, Goldschmidt struck out swinging, and Prestridge grounded out to 2b.
• 5th inning, UT
• Also 3-up/3-down: Tucker grounded out to ss, Belt flew out to cf, and Keyes flew out to cf.
• 6th inning, TSTU
• Another 3-up/3-down inning: Dennis grounded out to 2b, Theriot (after fouling off several pitches) also grounded out to 2b, and Livingstone grounded out to 3b.
• 6th inning, UT
• Shepherd struck out swinging.
• Kevin Lusson drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Loy grounded out to 3b, moving Lusson to 2b. Very nice play by the third baseman who fielded behind the bag and had a long throw across the infield.
• Clark drew a 5-pitch walk.
• The Bobcats sent Lance Loftin to the mound, replacing Brundridge.
• Rowe singled to rf, scoring Lusson and moving Clark to 3b.
• Torres drew a 4-pitch walk to load the bases.
• Tucker drew a 5-pitch walk, scoring Clark.
• Belt struck out swinging.
• Texas up 7-2.
• 7th inning, TSTU
• Kubitza grounded out to 2b. Tucker made a nice back-handed stop and then threw to 1b in plenty of time.
• Martinson lined out to 2b.
• Yes, it was almost like the Bobcats took over the offensive bad luck the Horns experienced all week last week.
• Sibley reached on an infield single to ss. Loy made a stop deep in the hole and threw to 1b but off-line. Belt moved over and caught the ball, avoiding any sort of error.
• Adwood reached on an infield single to 2b (behind the 2b bag), moving Sibley to 2b.
• Suddenly, the hitting luck had changed.
• Goldschmidt hit into a 4-6 fielder's choice. Another nice play by Loy.
• Whew. Back on track.
• 7th inning, UT
• Texas State sent Aaron Taylor to the mound, replacing Loftin.
• Keyes singled up the middle. Texas sent Tim Maitland in to pinch-run for Keyes.
• Shepherd popped out to 2b.
• Texas State sent Jeff McVaney (lhp) to the mound, replacing Taylor.
• Kevin Lusson turned around and batted right-handed. He doubled into lf, scoring Maitland (who'd advanced to 2b on a wild-pitch).
• Loy reached on a full-count walk.
• Texas State sent Michael Russo to the mound, replacing McVaney.
• Clark singled to cf, scoring Lusson and moving Loy to 2b.
• Rowe popped out to 2b.
• With Tucker at the plate, Loy and Clark moved up to 3b and 2b on a wild pitch.
• Torres grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 9-2.
• 8th inning, TSTU
• Texas sent Andrew McKirahan to the mound, replacing Thomas.
• Texas also sent Kyle Lusson in for Shepherd and and moved him to rf. Maitland stayed in and moved out to lf.
• Laurn Randell, pinch-hitting for Prestridge singled to cf.
• Dennis hit into a 6-4-3 double play. Yet another really nice defensive play by Texas. Loy fielded the ball deep in the hole and made a nice throw to Tucker who, in turn, made a nice relay throw to 1b.
• Theriot drew a full-count walk.
• Livingstone flew out to cf.
• 8th inning, UT
• Texas State sent Jordan Kopycinski in to catch, replacing Theriot.
• Jordan Etier, pinch-hitting for Tucker, singled off the second baseman. I was surprised it was ruled a hit rather than an error. If the second baseman had made a clean pick, it appeared he would've had plenty of time to throw Etier out at 1b.
• Texas State sent Covey Morrow to the mound, replacing Russo.
• Belt drew a 5-pitch walk, moving Etier to 2b.
• Kyle Lusson (batting out of order in Maitland's spot!) grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, moving Etier to 3b. I don't know if Texas State didn't notice, or chose not to do anything about, the out-of-turn batting since Lusson hit into a double play. I suspect it was the latter. If Lusson had reached base, Texas State could've appealed, Lusson would've been ruled out, the other runners would've had to return to their original bases, and Kevin Lusson would've been the next official batter...with Maitland completely missing his plate appearance. At least, that's how I read the rules.
• Maitland (now batting in Kyle Lusson's spot) was hit by a pitch.
• Kevin Lusson (again batting from the right side) singled to lf, scoring Etier and moving Maitland to 2b.
• Loy singled to left-center, scoring Maitland and Lusson.
• Clark drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Texas State sent Mitchell Pitts to the mound, replacing Morrow.
• Rowe grounded out to 3b.
• Texas up 12-2.
• 9th inning, TSTU
• Kubitza struck out looking. He was very unhappy with the call.
• Clint Vest (pinch-hitting for Martinson) flew out to rf. Another spectacular defensive play by the Horns. Kyle Lusson and Rowe both went for the ball and got to it at the same time. Rowe stayed on his feet and ran in front of Lusson. Lusson dove and made the catch. I thought Rowe made the catch until Lusson jumped up with his glove in the air. Wow. Collision narrowly avoided. Yikes.
• Sibley drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Atwood struck out swinging.
• Texas wins 12-2.

All-in-all, a great game for the Horns. I hope they keep it up this weekend.

One quick comment about the "batting out of order" thing. The TexasSports.com report didn't really address the problem in the play-by-play but the line-up looks weird:

Torres, Michael dh
Tucker, Travis 2b
- Etier, Jordan ph/2b
Belt, Brandon 1b
Keyes, Kevin rf
- Maitland, Tim pr/lf
- Lusson, Kyle rf
Shepherd, Tant lf
Lusson, Kevin 3b
Loy, Brandon ss
Clark, Preston c
Rowe, Connor cf

Note how Maitland and Kyle Lusson both managed to have replaced Keyes in the line-up. And, Shepherd apparently never exited the game.

In the Texas State report, the line-up changes are correct (with Maitland taking Keyes' spot and Lusson taking Shepherd's). But, the play-by-play goes like so:

Texas State 8th - Maitland, T. to lf. Lusson, Ky. to rf for Shepherd, T. [...]

Texas Longhorns 8th - [...] Lusson, Ky. to rf for Maitland, T.. Maitland, T. to lf for Lusson, Ky.. [...]

Huh? All so confusing for people trying to keep track of the mess. I completely forgot to try and listen to the post-game show on the radio so have no idea if Keith Moreland asked Coach Garrido about it or not. Sigh...

Anyway, here's the line (from GameTracker):

Texas hosts Baylor on Friday night before the series moves to Waco for the 2nd and 3rd games. Note that start times have changed. The Friday game here in Austin is now slated to start at 8 o'clock to accommodate ESPNU. Yes, the game will be televised. Since they're starting so late on Friday, they've also changed the start times for the Saturday and Sunday games. Saturday's game is being pushed back from 4:00 to 6:30 and Sunday's game from 1:00 to 1:30.

Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 10:20 PM | Permalink

Sunday - April 26, 2009

Game 41: Kansas State at Texas

Hmmmm. At the end of yesterday's game report, I said I was sure the news for today's game would be much better. Alas, that is not the case. The news is not worse. I mean, the Horns did avoid being swept. They did not lose the game. So, the news is a little bit better. But, they didn't win the game, either. The game ended in a 6-6 tie. The Big 12 has a curfew rule in place for "get away day" games. The teams agree before the start of the game on a specified time beyond which a new inning cannot start. This is due to travel restrictions. The teams have to stop in time for the visiting team to make their flight home. Today's game had a 4:45 curfew. It was after 4:45 when the 10th inning came to an end. And, so the teams stopped playing with the score tied at 6. I haven't looked into it so don't know how ties get factored into things when we get to the end of the season and it's time to seed everyone for the tournament. Is a tie essentially the same as a loss since it's not a win? Or is the game just dropped entirely from the calculation? If I had the energy, I'd try to find an answer for you. But, that ain't gonna happen tonight. Maybe some kind soul will send me some email with the rule. If so, I'll be sure to pass it on.

Ah well. The weather was pretty nice today. It was about 80 °F for the duration. With a very stiff wind blowing across the field from the rf corner to the lf corner...with a tiny bit of a tilt toward the north.

Today's starting line-ups:

Kansas State	Texas
1 Adam Muenster, dh 2 Carter Jurica, 2b 3 Nick Martini, lf 4 Justin Bloxom, 1b 5 Jason King, 3b 6 Drew Biery, ss 7 Jordan Cruz, rf 8 Rob Vaughn, c 9 Dane Yelovich, cf - Todd Vogel, p	1 Michael Torres, 3b 2 Travis Tucker, 2b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Kevin Keyes, rf 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Lusson, dh 7 Brandon Loy, ss 8 Preston Clark, c 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p

The Wildcats, not surprisingly, stuck with what got 'em to the brink of a sweep. Texas, meanwhile, tried switching things up a bit. Again. And (!), all the starters were sporting high socks, which made me optimistic. Although, sad, because I did not take my camera to the game with me today. So, once again, I have no photographic evidence of this phenomenon. (Although, you can find some in the TexasSports.com photo gallery for today's game.) The substitutes, as they came onto the field, all stuck with the long pants. The mojo was apparently not quite with the high socks brigade today. Shucks.

Full game report? Yes? No? I'm really tired. In fact, when I got home, I sat down in my recliner and promptly fell asleep. I dozed off-and-on for a couple of hours. Hmmmm. Okay. full report. But, just 'cause you've been such good kids, of late.

• 1st inning, KSU
• Brandon Workman on the mound.
• Muenster grounded out to the pitcher. Great play by Workman.
• Jurica singled to rf.
• Martini grounded out to 3b. Hit & run. If Jurica hadn't been on the run, the Horns might've had a shot at a double play. Instead, Jurica advanced to 2b safely on the play.
• Bloxom drew a full-count walk.
• Jurica and Bloxom advanced to 3b and 2b on a wild pitch (first pitch) to King.
• King struck out swinging.
• 1st inning, UT
• Todd Vogel on the mound.
• Torres grounded out to 1b (unassisted).
• Tucker singled through the left side.
• Belt flew out to cf.
• Keyes drew a 4-pitch walk, moving Tucker to 2b.
• shepherd flew out to cf.
• 2nd inning, KSU
• Biery homered over the KSU bullpen in lf (1-1 pitch).
• Cruz tried to bunt down the 3b line but was thrown out by the pitcher.
• Vaughn drew an 11-pitch walk. Yes. 11 pitches. Wow.
• Yelovich moved Vaughn to 2b on a 5-3 sac bunt. Torres made a nice bare-handed grab and throw to get Yelovich out at 1b.
• Muenster, trying to play like Vaughn, but with better results for Texas, struck out swinging. An 8-pitch affair.
• Texas down 0-1.
• 2nd inning, UT
• Kevin Lusson grounded out to 2b.
• Loy singled past 2b. I was surprised that the official scorer did not charge 2b with an error.
• Clark flew out to cf.
• Rowe singled to lf, moving Loy to 2b.
• Torres singled to rf, scoring Loy and moving Rowe to 3b. Torres thought the throw was going home so tried to advance to 2b. Alas, the ball was cut off and he was thrown out pretty easily at 2b (9-3-6, I think). Too bad.
• Game tied 1-1.
• 3rd inning, KSU
• Jurica drew a 5-pitch walk and stole 2b with Martini at the plate. On the stolen base, Texas called a pitch-out but Clark dropped the ball and made no throw to 2b.
• Martini singled to left-center, scoring Jurica.
• Bloxom flew out to cf.
• With King at the plate, Martini stole 2b (6th pitch, a ball).
• King struck out swinging (7 pitches). The Wildcats made Workman throw a lot of pitches.
• Biery grounded out to 3b.
• Texas down 1-2.
• 3rd inning, UT
• Tucker doubled to the rf corner.
• Belt lined out to 2b.
• Keyes did likewise. 3-0 pitch. Ouch.
• Shepherd grounded out to ss.
• 4th inning, KSU
• Cruz grounded out to 2b.
• Vaughn drew a 4-count walk. That's a lot better than an 11-pitch walk, right?
• Yelovitch grounded out to 2b. He blooped a ball over the pitcher and Tucker's only play, by the time he caught up to the ball was at 1b. Vaughn moved to 2b on the play. Skip Johnson made a visit to the mound, by the way, after the first pitch (a ball) to Yelovitch.
• Muenster tripled to right-center, scoring Vaughn.
• Jurica drew a 7-pitch walk.
• Texas sent Taylor Jungmann to the mound, replacing Workman.
• Martini struck out looking.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 4th inning, UT
• Kevin Lusson grounded out to ss (full count, 8 pitches).
• Loy flew out to cf.
• Clark grounded out to 3b. The third baseman was in perfect position to grab a hard-hit ball that was only fair by about 8 inches. Nice play.
• 5th inning, KSU
• 3-up/3-down: Bloxom grounded out to 2b, King and Biery struck out swinging.
• 5th inning, UT
• The Wildcats sent Ryan Daniel to the mound, replacing Vogel.
• Rowe flew out to rf.
• Torres singled up the middle.
• Tucker hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
• 6th inning, KSU
• Cruz drew a 4-pitch walk.
• Vaughn struck out swinging. He squared to bunt on the first pitch and swung away. Spooky. He squared on the 2nd pitch, too, and watched a called strike.
• Yelovich singled past 3b into lf, moving Cruz to 2b.
• Muenster singled to ss to load the bases. Loy fielded the slow grounder and then had no play at any base.
• With Jurica at the plate, Clark tried to pick Cruz off at 3b. He made a bad throw, though, and Torres made a nice diving catch to avoid an error.
• Jurica then grounded out to 3b, scoring Cruz. The ball bounced off Torres but he stuck with it and got the batter out at 1b.
• Note that Cruz, with that lead-off walk, scored. KSU got the lead-off batter aboard 5 times. Four of them scored. Three of those 4 reached on walks. Bah.
• Martini grounded out to ss.
• Texas down 1-4.
• 6th inning, UT
• Belt doubled to lf and then moved up to 3b on a wild pitch to Keyes (5th pitch).
• Keyes singled to right-center, scoring Belt.
• Shepherd lined out to cf.
• Kevin Lusson reached on a 4-pitch walk, miving Keyes to 2b.
• KSU sent Evan Marshall to the mound, replacing Daniel.
• Loy reached on a bunt single down the 3b line (!) to load the bases.
• Clark reached on an error by ss. He hit what looked like a fairly routine double play ball to 2b. The second baseman fielded inside the baseline and flipped back to the ss, covering 2b. But, the shortstop missed the ball and it rolled about 15 feet away from him. Keyes and Lusson scored on the error. Lusson safe at 2b.
• Moldenhauer, pinch-hitting for Rowe, drew a 7-pitch walk to reload the bases. Texas sent Kyle Lusson in to pinch-run for Moldenhauer.
• Torres hit a sac fly to cf, scoring Loy and moving Clark to 3b.
• Tucker grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 5-4.
• 7th inning, KSU
• Texas kept Kyle Lusson in the game in cf.
• Bloxom singled to lf. Shepherd took a great angle on the ball to cut it off and keep Bloxom from getting to 2b.
• King grounded out to ss, moving Bloxom to 2b.
• Skip Johnson made a visit to the mound.
• Biery struck out swinging.
• Cruz drew a 4-pitch walk.
• Vaughn was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Best I could tell, the pitch might have brushed his sleeve.
• Yelovich struck out swinging.
• 7th inning, UT
• 3-up/3-down: Belt flew out to lf, Keyes struck out swinging, and Shepherd struck out looking.
• 8th inning, KSU
• Texas sent Tim Maitland into lf, taking Shepherd's spot in the line-up.
• Texas also sent Austin Dicharry to the mound, replacing Jungmann.
• Muenster drew a 4-pitch walk.
• The first pitch to Jurica was another ball. Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound (1-0 count), replacing Dicharry.
• Jurica singled to rf, moving Muenster to 2b.
• Martini moved the runners over with a sac bunt (1-4) down the 3b line.
• Bloxom drew a 5-pitch walk to load the bases.
• King struck out swinging.
• Biery singled to rf, scoring Muenster and Jurica.
• Cruz grounded out to the pitcher.
• Texas down 5-6.
• 8th inning, UT
• Kevin Lusson drew a 7-pitch walk. Morgan Mickan was sent in to pinch-run for him.
• KSU sent Matt Applegate to the mound, replacing Marshall.
• Loy reached on his second 1st-pitch bunt in a row (!), moving Mickan to 2b.
• Clark couldn't get a bunt down and ended up striking out (swinging).
• Kyle Lusson struck out swinging.
• KSU sent Thomas Rooke to the mound, replacing Applegate.
• Torres lined out to cf.
• 9th inning, KSU
• Vaughn grounded out to 2b.
• Yelovich struck out looking (full count).
• Muenster reached on a throwing error by 3b and moved to 2b on the high throw.
• Muenster stole 3b with Jurica at the plate.
• Jurica struck out looking.
• 9th inning, UT
• Tucker struck out looking.
• Belt doubled to right-center.
• KSU sent Josh Crockett to the mound, replacing Rooke.
• Keyes grounded out to ss, moving Belt to 3b.
• Rupp, pinch-hitting for Maitland, doubled to lf, scoring Belt.
• Texas sent Jordan Etier to pinch-run for Rupp.
• Hernandez, pinch-hitting for Mickan, was intentionally walked.
• Loy singled to cf, moving Etier to 3b and Hernandez to 2b. The outfield was pulled in on the play and Texas sent Etier around 3b in an attempt to score. Yelovich (in cf) made a great throw home to get Etier for the 3rd out of the inning. Frankly, I didn't think the catcher got the tag down. But, I saw a replay on the news (KVUE) and the catcher did get the tag down. Etier was out by about 2 inches. Wow.
• Game tied 6-6.
• 10th inning, KSU
• Martini flew out to cf.
• Texas sent Chance Ruffin (!) to the mound, replacing Wood.
• Bloxom flew out to lf.
• King grounded out to 2b. On the play, Tucker booted the ball a bit to his right. But he stuck with it and threw King out at 1b in plenty of time.
• 10th inning, UT
• After a full-team meeting in the dugout, Clark popped out to ss.
• Kyle Lusson tried to catch the KSU defense napping and bunted down the 3b line. The ball didn't get far enough down the line, though, and he was thrown out (2-3).
• Torres struck out swinging.
• Game called on account of time restrictions and ends in a 6-6 tie.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

I mentioned the KSU batters pushing the pitch count on Workman. He threw 88 pitches (by my count) to the 20 batters he faced. He threw 5 or more pitches to 9 of 'em. In contrast, only 3 of the first 20 Texas batters saw 5 or more pitches. I don't know if that means anything or not. It was just something that struck me as the game was going on.

Also, note that Tucker got a double to start the 3rd. Remember how the 2nd inning ended? There's no way to know, of course, if he would've had the chance to hit a double with runners at the corners, but wouldn't it have been fun to find out? My seats are far from the action so I freely admit that I can't know what's really going on. But, it looks like the guys are pushing at this point. Torres, trying to do too much, tried to stretch his single into a double. If he'd been more confident that his teammate would pick him up, maybe he would've stopped. This is actually one of the themes that Coach Garrido has been pushing in the radio interviews. That the players need to count on each other. This weekend, I have to say that that confidence seemed to be missing from time to time. A couple of weeks ago, they really looked like they were having fun. Now? They look a bit desperate. They need to get that confidence back.

And, I really feel for Brandon Workman. He's struggled of late and hasn't won a game since the Missouri series in mid-March. Is he putting too much pressure on himself? I dunno. I hope he has a good game soon, though.

Posted by Joanna at 10:28 PM | Permalink

Saturday - April 25, 2009

Game 40: Kansas State at Texas

Ugh. Texas lost (4-5) to Kansas State this afternoon. In 12 innings. The Horns put 15 hits on the board. Which is one of the things I've been wanting. More hits. Alas, those 15 hits did not produce more runs today. Sigh...

But, before we get into all that, Burt Hooton's number (20) was retired before the game started. Here are a couple of photos, first one of Coach Gus congratulating him and then of him talking with his former coach and several teammates backing him up:

Back to the game. Texas scored 2 in the 1st. KSU tied it up in the 2nd. And, the score stayed that way 'til the 11th. When KSU scored 2. Texas tied it in the bottom. Whew. But, KSU scored another in the 12th and Texas could not match that one. Bah.

Today's starting line-ups:

Kansas State	Texas
1 Adam Muenster, dh 2 Carter Jurica, 2b 3 Nick Martini, lf 4 Justin Bloxom, 1b 5 Jason King, 3b 6 Drew Biery, ss 7 Jordan Cruz, rf 8 Rob Vaughn, c 9 Dane Yelovich, cf - Lance Hoge, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Tant Shepherd, lf 4 Kevin Keyes, rf 5 Preston Clark, dh 6 Cameron Rupp, c 7 Brandon Belt, 1b 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p

With a lefty on the mound for the Wildcats, the Horns shuffled the order up a bit. It worked like a charm in the 1st as they quickly scored 2:

• Tucker singled past the ss and moved to 2b on a sac bunt (1-3) by Torres down the 1b line.
• Shepherd flew out to rf.
• Keyes singled to lf, scoring Tucker.
• Clark singled to rf, moving Keyes to 2b.
• Rupp reached on an error by 3b (throw to 1b in the dirt). Keyes scored (unearned) and Clark moved to 2b.
• Belt drew a 7-pitch full-count walk to load the bases.
• Loy grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice.

Kansas State responded with 2 of their own in the top of the 2nd:

• King singled to lf and stole 2b on the 5th pitch to Biery. The throw from Rupp on the stolen base attempt was off-line (toward 1b) and Tucker made a great play to dive and keep the ball from going into the outfield.
• Biery struck out swinging.
• Cruz hit the first pitch he saw over the Texas bullpen. Game tied.
• Vaughn and Yelovich struck out swinging. Yep, Green struck out the side while giving up 2 earned runs. Ouch.

And, no more scoring 'til the 11th. For the 3rd through 10th, KSU got 6 hits (all singles) and ended up stranding 6 (4 in scoring position). For the 2nd through 10th, UT got 7 hits (6 singles, 1 double) and ended up stranding 7 (4 in scoring position). And, then the 11th came along:

• KSU
• Taylor Jungmann to the mound for Austin Wood.
• Bloxom (0-fer through 10) struck out swinging.
• King (who'd gone: single, single, K (swinging), intentional walk) singled to rf.
• Biery (0-fer through 10 with 2 Ks) struck out looking.
• Cruz (who'd gone: 2-run homer, pop out to 1b, single, K (swinging)) homered over the KSU bullpen to tie the game.
• Vaughn struck out swinging.
• UT
• Thomas Rooke (who'd come on in the 10th) on the mound.
• Belt (who'd gone walk, ground out to 2b, single, K (swinging)) hit a homer to lf in front of the scoreboard. We all thought it was gonna be a pretty routine fly ball to cf (in the gap) but the ball kept going and going and going until it squeaked over the wall. Very cool.
• Loy (who'd gone fielder's choice, single, single, double) hit another double off the base of the wall in lf.
• Kyle Lusson (who entered the game in the top of the 7th and did the sac bunt thing in the 9th) struck out looking.
• Tucker (who'd gone single, fly out to cf, single, fielder's choice, intentional walk) flew out to rf.
• Torres singled to lf, scoring Loy!
• KSU changed pitchers (sending Matt Applegate to the mound) and he struck Tant Shepherd.

In the top of the 12th, Muenster reached on a 1-out walk and moved to 3b on a single by Jurica. He then scored on a single by Martini. Bloxom and King both flew out to cf to end the KSU half of the inning. In the bottom of the 12th, David Hernandez (3rd dh of the game for Texas) reached on a 1-out single to cf. Rupp popped out to 2b. Tim Maitland (pinch-running for Hernandez) moved to 2b on a single to cf by Belt. Alas, Loy hit into a 6-4 fielder's choice to end the game. So painful.

Applegate got the win for KSU and Jungmann took the loss for UT (dropping his record to 4-3).

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

So? Pictures? Anyone wanna see some pictures? Okay...here you go. First, Cole Green on the mound in the 1st:

Travis Tucker, hitting a single in the 1st:

Kevin Keyes, hitting a single (and driving home the first run of the game) in the 1st:

Cameron Rupp, taking a lead off 1b in the 1st:

Travis Tucker, about to make that error-saving catch in the 2nd:

Brandon Belt, in the 1st (after reaching on a single to rf):

Austin Dicharry on the mound, in the 7th:

Austin Wood on the mound, in the 9th:

Coach Harmon and Brandon Loy discuss matters in the 9th:

Taylor Jungmann on the mound in the 11th:

And, finally...Brandon Belt gets some props after his homer in the 11th:

And, now...3 hours after I started this report, I'm done. And, am reminded why I don't take my camera to all the games. Whew.

'Back tomorrow with news of the 3rd game of the series. I'm sure the news will be much better.

Posted by Joanna at 11:13 PM | Permalink

Game 39: Kansas State at Texas

Good morning! Sorry I didn't get this posted last night but I was dog tired. On advice of counsel, I went to bed when I got home. Heh. Alas, the news is not good. Texas lost to Kansas State 2-4. What happened? The Horns faced a buzz saw named A.J. Morris. With the win, he went to 10-0 on the season. Going into the game, he'd made 10 appearances, winning 9 of them. ERA going in? 1.31. Opponent batting average? .184. He'd walked 18 and struck out 69 in 68.2 innings pitched on the year. Last night was his second complete game of the season. Amazingly, he threw 149 pitches by my count. He did a great job. So sad.

Starting line-ups:

Kansas State	Texas
1 Adam Muenster, dh 2 Carter Jurica, 2b 3 Nick Martini, lf 4 Justin Bloxom, 1b 5 Jason King, 3b 6 Drew Biery, ss 7 Jordan Cruz, rf 8 Rob Vaughn, c 9 Dane Yelovich, cf - A.J. Morris, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Tant Shepherd, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Cameron Rupp, c 7 Kevin Lusson, dh 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Kyle Lusson, cf - Chance Ruffin, p

Note that Kyle Lusson got his 10th start of the year. And, little brother Kevin Lusson got his 3rd.

Chance Ruffin got the nod for the Horns and struggled a bit. He left with the game tied 2-2 in the 7th. Austin Dicharry faced 2, getting one out and walking one. Austin Wood finished off the 7th, striking out the final batter of the inning. He gave up a run in each of the final two innings, though, to take the loss and dropped his record to 4-1.

And, the game went like so:

• 1st inning, KSU
• Chance Ruffin on the mound for Texas.
• Muenster doubled to right-center.
• Jurica grounded out to ss.
• Martini singled to 1b, moving Muenster to 3b. Belt made a great dive and stop to keep the ball in the infield. If Ruffin had moved to cover 1b immediately, Martini would've probably grounded out. But, it looked like Ruffin (along with most of us in the stands) thought the ball was going to get through (it was very well hit and Belt really did make a fantastic grab). By the time he realized it wouldn't, it was too late. When Belt saw that Ruffin was too far away, he started racing for the bag but had no chance. Ruffin did beat Belt to the bag and Belt tried to throw to him. But, the batter was there too. And, the throw was late...not to mention dropped. Mental lapse. No error on the board, though.
• Ruffin buckled down and struck out Bloxom and King. Both went down looking.
• 1st inning, Texas
• A.J. Morris on the mound for KSU.
• Tucker reached on an error by ss (who misplayed a grounder behind 2b) and moved to 2b on a wild pitch with Torres at the plate.
• Torres reached on a bunt single down the 1b line, moving Tucker to 3b. On the play, the first baseman fielded while 2b covered the bag. I think KSU actually had a play but the first baseman hesitated as he threw the ball to first. It looked like he had a tough time getting the ball out of his glove (stuck in his glove's webbing?) and Torres beat the toss easily.
• Belt up. Suicide squeeze! He bunted down the 1b line. The pitcher fielded and thought about going home but then turned and threw to 1b. I think he might've had a play. Whew. Torres moved to 2b on the play, Tucker scored.
• Shepherd flew out to deep rf. Torres tagged up and moved to 3b.
• Keyes drew a full-count walk.
• Rupp went down swinging.
• Texas up 1-0.
• 2nd inning, KSU
• Biery drew a full-count walk.
• Cruz flew out to cf.
• Vaughn singled threw the left side, moving Biery to 2b.
• Yelovich reached on a 4-ball walk. Skip Johnson made a trip to the mound after the 2nd ball. After the walk, the bullpen got busy.
• Muenster lined into a 4-6 double play. Nice. The pitchers in the bullpen sat back down.
• 2nd inning, Texas
• Sadly, 1-2-3: Kevin Lusson grounded out to 3b, Loy grounded out to 2b, and Kyle Lusson grounded out to ss.
• 3rd inning, KSU
• Jurica grounded out to 1b (pitcher covered the bag). The ball was headed to Belt's left, hit the ground with a lot of counter-clockwise spin and darted back to Belt's right. He made a very nice play to grab the ball. That was more spin on a such a sharply-hit ball than I'd seen in a long time.
• Martini hit a ground-rule double down the lf line that was just fair before bouncing onto the berm down the line.
• Bloxom flew out to lf.
• King struck out swinging.
• 3rd inning, Texas
• Tucker grounded out to 3b.
• Torres singled off the mound up the middle.
• Belt flew out to lf right at the wall. The KSU outfield was playing quite shallow all game. And, it looked like this ball would get over the left fielder but he got back just in time.
• Which reminds me that I never mentioned the weather. It was 77 °F at the start of the game and dropped a few degrees over the course of the game. The wind was blowing hard from the rf corner to the lf corner at the start of the game but died down to almost nothing by the end of the game.
• Shepherd grounded out to 3b. The third baseman (King) made a really nice grab and throw. Sigh.
• 4th inning, KSU
• 3-up/3-down: Biery went down swinging, Cruz grounded out to 1b (unassisted), and Vaughn grounded out to 2b.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Keyes reached on a hard single that hit the KSU pitcher on the leg and ricocheted into rf. The trainer and coach went out to check on Morris. He stepped a bit gingerly but then threw a couple of test pitches and stayed in the game. That turned out to be our best shot and getting Morris off the field, folks. Alas...
• Rupp moved Keyes to 2b with a 1-3 sac bunt down the 1b line.
• Kevin Lusson singled to the cf/rf gap, scoring Keyes.
• Loy flew out to rf.
• With Kyle Lusson at the plate, Kevin Lusson stole 2b (his first sb as a Longhorn).
• Kyle Lusson went on to fly out to rf, though.
• Texas up 2-0.
• 5th inning, KSU
• 3-up/3-down again! Yelovich struck out swinging (full count), Muenster grounded out to ss, and Jurica flew out to rf.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Tucker drew a full-count 4-pitch walk. Sadly, he was then caught stealing (2-6) on the first pitch to Torres.
• Torres doubled down the rf line.
• Torres stole 3b on the first pitch to Belt.
• With the infield pulled in, Belt grounded out to 1b (unassisted). No chance for Torres to score.
• Shepherd struck out swinging.
• 6th inning, KSU
• Martini flew out to cf.
• Bloxom homered over the fence in the cf/rf gap...just right of the 405 sign.
• King homered into the KSU bullpen.
• Which prompted a visit to the mound by Skip Johnson.
• Biery flew out to rf.
• Cruz flew out to lf (foul). Shepherd made a nice play to catch the ball just over the wall at the berm.
• Game tied 2-2.
• 6th inning, Texas
• 1-2-3: Keyes grounded out to 3b, Rupp flew out to cf, and Kevin Lusson grounded out to 2b. Damn.
• 7th inning, KSU
• Vaughn singled up the middle.
• Yelovich bunted a couple of balls foul. He squared to bunt again (!) and watched a called strike. You don't see that sort of thing often, eh?
• Texas changed pitchers, sending Austin Dicharry in for Ruffin.
• Muenster struck out swinging (full-count).
• Vaughn stole 2b on the 5th pitch to Jurica.
• Jurica ended up fouling off a 6th pitch before drawing a full-count walk.
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound, replacing Dicharry.
• Martini struck out looking.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Loy lined out to rf.
• Kyle Lusson went down swinging (full count).
• Tucker reached on a bloop single to rf.
• Torres grounded out to 2b.
• 8th inning, KSU
• Bloxom flew out to lf.
• King singled to rf and stole 2b on the first pitch to Biery.
• Biery singled through the right side, scoring King. On the throw home, Biery moved up to 2b.
• Cruz singled through the left side, moving Biery to 3b.
• Vaughn struck out swinging. His back swing hit Rupp hard on the helmet. Rupp went down and stayed down (on his knees holding his head on the ground) for about a minute or so. He ended up getting up and staying in the game. Wow.
• KSU decided to test Rupp on the next pitch. Cruz stole 2b. Rupp looked to the runner at 3b and made no throw.
• Yelovich grounded out to 3b. Nice play by Torres.
• Texas down 2-3.
• 8th inning, Texas
• 1-2-3.
• Belt lined out to lf.
• Shepherd struck out looking (full count).
• Keyes struck out swinging. He appeared to disagree with the ump on the first pitch (called strike). So, Coach Garrido took an offensive time-out to talk to him. He watched another called strike, then a ball, then fouled one off, before striking out swinging.
• 9th inning, KSU
• Muenster struck out looking.
• Jurica did likewise.
• Martini singled up the middle and then stole 2b (on the 4th pitch to Bloxom).
• Bloxom hit a triple to the gap in right-center, scoring Martini.
• King struck out swinging.
• Texas down 2-4.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Rupp flew out to rf.
• Kevin Lusson singled to lf and was replaced by pinch-runner Morgan Mickan.
• It was about this time that Bob asked me if our right-handed batters had any hits on the night. Answer? Two. Keyes hit that single off the pitcher's leg in the 4th and Tucker hit a blooper in the 7th. Otherwise, it was all on the lefties last night.
• Loy reached on a 6-5 fielder's choice.
• Moldenhauer (lefty) pinch-hit for Kyle Lusson and singled to rf, moving Loy to 2b. Tim Maitland went in to run for Moldenhauer.
• Tucker, sadly, lined out to ss. 6 more inches and it would've been a run scoring single. Bah.
• Texas loses 2-4.

I repeat: great game for Morris. Texas had some chances but just couldn't get past Morris.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Hopefully, the Horns will do better this afternoon. They'll be retiring Burt Hooton's jersey number (20) before the game. I'll take my camera and be back with a game report later this evening. Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 8:42 AM | Permalink

Tuesday - April 21, 2009

Game 38: Rice at Texas

Eh. Today's game wasn't much fun. The Horns lost to Rice 4-7. It was just one of those days. It seemed like every ball the Horns hit went right to a Rice fielder. And too many of the balls Rice hit were just 2 or 3 inches away from the outstretched glove of a Texas fielder. Rice hit two or three balls down the line that were fair by 3 or 4 inches. Texas hit two or three balls down the line that were foul by 3 or 4 inches. The Rice center fielder (Steven Sultzbaugh) made a fantastic diving catch in the 7th to rob Tant Shepherd of a single. When Connor Rowe had a similar chance in the top of the 8th, the ball nicked off the tip of his glove and fell for an rbi-single. Frustration City.

Anyway...starting line-ups for today's game:

Rice	Texas
1 Brock Holt, 2b 2 Jimmy Comerota, 1b 3 Rick Hague, ss 4 Anthony Rendon, 3b 5 Diego Seastrunk, dh 6 Ryan Lewis, rf 7 Michael Fuda, lf 8 Craig Manuel, c 9 Steven Sultzbaugh, cf - Abel Gonzalez, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Tant Shepherd, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Cameron Rupp, dh 7 Preston Clark, c 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p

I missed the first inning. I did listen on the radio, though. I guess that first inning for Texas at the plate set the stage for the rest of the game. Tucker and Torres reached on back-to-back 4-pitch walks. With a 1-1 count, both runners took off. Belt, swung away and hit a hard liner to lf. Tucker was doubled off (7-4) quite easily. Keith Moreland said he was sure Belt had missed the sign...that there was no way he would've done that with the runners taking off they way they did if he'd seen the sign correctly. Shepherd then struck out looking. And, so it went.

It was "Johnny All-Staff" on the mound today (as Moreland likes to say). Cole Green got the start and had a great 1-2-3 first inning. He got into trouble in the 2nd and gave up two runs, though, to take the loss and drop his record to 3-1 on the year. He pitched the first 2 innings. Kendal Carrillo gave up 3 runs (1 unearned) in 2.1 innings. Andrew McKirahan went 1.1 and gave up a run. Stayton Thomas also gave up a run in 1.2 innings. Chance Ruffin threw the final 1.2 without yielding any runs.

The team did have their moments. Keyes and Clark hit a couple of beautiful doubles in the 2nd. The crowd loved it when Belt and Shepherd scored on wild pitches in the 5th. But sadly, for the most part, the Horns just couldn't get enough things to go their way today. Too many walks (12) and too few hits (5 in the game, none in the final 3 innings). Which is a terrible shame.

The next three days are going to be killer at work so I'm not gonna spend any more time on this game report tonight. I'll just point you to the official report and the box with play-by-play on the TexasSports.com page.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

By the way, I pulled up GameTracker to grab the line and saw that Nebraska and Creighton were playing in the 12th at Creighton. Nebraska went on to win 4-3. Both teams scored single runs in the 5th and did not score again 'til the 12th. Wow.

And, now we look forward to getting back to conference play as Kansas State comes to town this weekend. I may miss the early part of the first KSU game (did I mention it's a busy week at work this week?) but will be there for the Saturday and Sunday games. And, I'll have my camera with me for at least one of 'em. Go, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 11:06 PM | Permalink

Monday - April 20, 2009

Austin Wood award

Austin Wood was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week today based on his work this past week. He did have a good week. Congratulations, Austin!

Posted by Joanna at 9:44 PM | Permalink

Sunday - April 19, 2009

Game 37: Oklahoma at Texas

Sweep! The Horns completed a sweep of the Sooners today, winning 8-5 in 8 innings. Due to travel plans, no inning could start after 4:15. We were told this at 4:15 as Texas went to the plate in the bottom of the 8th. Which left me very confused. Why play the bottom of the 8th if we knew there was no way there would be a 9th...and the Horns were ahead? Bizarro world. Oh well.

Starting line-ups for today's game:

Oklahoma	Texas
1 Jamie Johnson, cf 2 Casey Johnson, lf 3 Bryant Hernandez, ss 4 Aaron Baker, 1b 5 Garret Buechele, 3b 6 Cameron Seitzer 7 Matt Harughty, 2b 8 Tyler Ogle, c 9 Chris Ellison, rf - Garrett Richards, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Tant Shepherd, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Cameron Rupp, c 7 Kevin Lusson, dh 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p

Did you see that? Kevin Lusson with his second start of the year. Sadly, his 1.000 average was unable to hold up. Oh well. All good things must come to an end. Heh. I guess that's life.

Full game report today:

• 1st inning, OU
• Brandon Workman on the mound for the Horns.
• J. Johnson singled up the middle (hard hit ball on the ground through Workman's legs) and then stole 2b with C. Johnson at the plate.
• C. Johnson struck out swinging.
• Hernandez struck out swinging. Rupp dropped the ball and had to throw down to 1b to complete the inning.
• Skip Johnson made a trip to the mound at this point. Dunno why.
• Baker popped out to ss. The hard wind blowing in from lf, blew the ball from lf in a lot.
• 1st inning, UT
• Garrett Richards on the mound for OU.
• Tucker walked on 4 pitches.
• Torres watched two more balls which prompted a visit to the mound.
• Torres went on to ground out to ss (full count), moving Tucker to 2b.
• Belt grounded out to the pitcher, moving Tucker to 3b.
• Shepherd drew a full-count walk.
• Keyes flew out to cf.
• 2nd inning, OU
• Buechele grounded out to the catcher. He hit a little bloop pop-up that landed about 15 feet in front of the plate. Rupp almost snagged it in the air but it landed and he just picked it up and threw the batter out.
• Seitzer walked on 5 pitches.
• Harughty struck out swinging.
• Ogle singled to cf, moving Seitzer to 2b.
• Ellison walked (full count) to load the bases.
• J. Johnson singled up the middle, scoring Seitzer and Ogle. Ellison moved to 3b on the play. Before the single, Johnson popped up between home and 3b in foul territory. Torres, who was playing pretty far back, rushed in and almost caught the ball but it bounced off his glove. No error was charged immediately but once Johnson hit that single and extended the inning, Torres was retro-actively charged with an error. So, that means the runs scored went unearned.
• J. Johnson moved to 2b on a wild pitch with C. Johnson at the plate. Ellison stayed at 3b.
• C. Johnson struck out swinging.
• Texas down 0-2.
• I couldn't see it but could feel Ruby wondering why she'd come. She did remind me when I saw her before the game that I'd promised a win the next time she could make it out to Disch-Falk. C'mon, guys, don't turn me into a liar!
• 2nd inning, UT
• Rupp hit a high fly ball to lf. Remember that wind? Normally, it would've been a routine out. The wind pushed it back into no-man's land between the left fielder and shortstop. Rupp was running hard and easily made it to 2b. Double.
• Lusson drew a full-count walk. Still batting 1.000!
• Loy hit a sac bunt to the pitcher down the 3b line, moving Rupp to 3b and Lusson to 2b.
• Rowe struck out swinging (3 pitches...ouch).
• Tucker struck out looking (also 3 pitches...double ouch).
• 3rd inning, OU
• Hernandez hit what surely would've been a homerun to lf if not for that blessed wind. Instead, it held up and whirled around just enough so that Shepherd was able to make an amazing circus type catch for an out. He was running to the wall (back to the ball) somehow looking over his shoulder and veered at just the last moment to make the catch. Fun for us...probably not so much for him. UPDATE. Statesman photographer Larry Kolvoord got a beautiful shot of Shepherd twisting around at the last second to make the catch.
• Baker struck out swinging.
• Buechele singled to lf.
• Seitzer struckk out swinging.
• 3rd inning, UT
• OU sent Kaleb Herren into rf (taking C. Johnson's spot in the line-up) and moved Ellison from rf to lf.
• Torres lined out to ss.
• Belt singled through the left side and then stole 2b with Shepherd at the plate.
• Shepherd drew a 7-pitch walk.
• Keyes struck out swinging.
• Rupp drew a full-count walk to load the bases. When I noticed that Kevin Lusson was due up, I started rooting for Rupp to draw a walk to load the bases so Kevin could walk in a run. I just had a feeling.
• Lusson drew a 4-pitch walk to drive belt home. And, keep the bases loaded.
• Loy, likewise, drew a 4-pitch walk to drive in the tying run.
• Which prompted a pitching change. The Sooners sent J.R. Robinson to the mound for Richards. Richards, by the way, opened the game with 6 straight balls. He threw 10 in-a-row to finish his time on the mound. Yikes.
• Rowe singled to rf, scoring Rupp and Lusson. Loy moved to 2b.
• With Tucker at the plate, Loy was caught off 2b and was picked off (2-6-5) for the 3rd out.
• Texas up 4-2.
• 4th inning, OU
• Harughty flew out to lf.
• Ogle doubled to the cf/rf gap. First pitch.
• Ellison hit a blast over the Wendy's sign in right. First pitch. Ouch!
• J. Johnson singled up the middle. Second pitch.
• So, Texas sent Taylor Jungmann to the mound, replacing Workman.
• Herren singled just past a diving Tucker into rf, moving Johnson to 3b.
• Hernandez hit a sac fly to cf, scoring Johnson.
• Baker hit a single up the middle, moving Herren to 3b.
• Buechele grounded out to ss.
• Texas down 4-5.
• I know, Ruby. I know.
• 4th inning, UT
• Tucker hit a ball to rf that appeared to be hooking foul but it landed just fair and then bounced over the retaining fence along the rf line for a ground-rule double. I'm pretty sure it's the first ground-rule double of the year on the new surface. It's definitely the first one that's been hit while I've been in the stands.
• Which brings up something I noticed a few weeks ago but don't think I've written about here. Ground-rule doubles were a pretty common occurrence with the old turf. People would hit high fly balls that would bounce 8 or 10 feet shy of the fence and then bounce off the rubber surface and over the fence. It happened all the time. A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that we hadn't seen any ground-rule doubles so I started paying more attention and the balls just don't bounce off the new field-turf the way the did off the astro-turf. So, no more ground-rule doubles over the outfield fence. Also, no more high fly balls that bounce over the outfielders. But, apparently, we can still get the odd duck to bounce over the 3- or 4-foot retaining walls down the lines...if they've got enough spin on 'em.
• Coach Garrido took a quick offensive time out to talk things over with Torres.
• Torres was hit by a pitch. I don't imagine that scenario came into the conversation with Coach Garrido, do you?
• Belt tried to advance the runners with a bunt but it died close to the plate, giving the catcher plenty of time to field and throw Tucker out at 3b. Torres moved to 2b on the play.
• Which prompted a pitching change: Chase Anderson to the mound for Robinson.
• With Shepherd at the plate, Torres and Belt completed a nice double steal. The catcher surprised me by throwing to 2b instead of trying to get the lead runner out at 3b. Shrug.
• Shepherd struck out swinging. On the play, the ball got away from the catcher and Shepherd took off for 1b. The ball didn't get far enough away from the catcher to allow the runners to advance but the catcher threw to 3b, trying to catch Torres. Which allowed Shepherd to reach 1b safely. Double shrug. Bases loaded.
• Keyes hit a sac fly to rf, scoring Torres. I was a bit disappointed that Belt did not make an effort to tag and advance to 3b. Ah well.
• Rupp drew a full-count walk to re-load the bases.
• Lusson flew out to cf, plummeting his average down to .667. So sad.
• Game tied 5-5.
• 5th inning, OU
• 3-up/3-down: Seitzer struck out swinging; Harughty grounded out to ss; and Ogle struck out swinging.
• 5th inning, UT
• OU sent J.T. Wise in at catcher, replacing Ogle.
• Loy singled to rf.
• Rowe reached on a fielder's choice. On the play, he was trying to bunt Loy over to 2b. The pitcher fielded and tried to throw Loy out at 2b but his throw was a hair late. Runners at 1b and 2b. Nobody out.
• Tucker tried to bunt but popped out to the catcher in foul territory. Ouch.
• Torres tripled to the cf/rf gap, scoring Loy and Rowe.
• Belt hit a sac fly to lf, scoring Torres. OU appealed and the ruling did not go their way. Which sent Galloway out to argue things with the home plate umpire. Yawn.
• Shepherd hit a triple to the rf corner. On the play, the right fielder, trying to slide as he corralled the ball, hit the retaining fence down the rf line pretty hard. 'Looked like it might've hurt quite a bit.
• OU changed pitchers again, sending Michael Rocha to the mound for Anderson.
• Keyes flew out to rf.
• Texas up 8-5.
• Happy now, Ruby? I bet not. Too much of a worrier. Heh.
• 6th inning, OU
• Ellison singled (full count) into cf.
• J. Johnson lined out to 3b. Ellison was off with the pitch and was easily thrown out at 1b for a double play. Nice.
• Herren grounded out to 3b.
• 6th inning, UT
• Rupp singled to rf.
• Lusson flew out to rf, taking his average down to .500. Sigh...
• Loy grounded into a 4-6-3 double play. Not nearly as nice when they get the double play. I'll give you that.
• 7th inning, OU
• Hernandez singled through the left side.
• Baker popped out to the catcher (foul). That ball went a lonnnnnng way up in the air. Wow.
• Buechele grounded into a 5-4-3 double play! Beautiful. I'm telling you, it's so much better when the Horns turn the trick.
• 7th inning, UT
• New pitcher for the Sooners: Ryan Duke to the mound, replacing Rocha.
• Rowe was hit in the helmet area by a pitch. That did not look good.
• Tucker tried, unsuccessfully, to get a bunt down and and then reached on an infield single to 3b, moving Rowe to 2b. Tucker, by the way, was also almost hit on the noggin by Duke one of the times he squared to bunt. That was a little scary.
• Torres reached on a full-count walk to load the bases.
• The infield pulled waaaaay in.
• Sadly, Belt hit into a 1-2-3 double play. So very very sad.
• Shepherd lined out to cf to end the inning.
• 8th inning, OU
• Ross Hubbard, pinch-hitting for Seitzer, singled up the middle.
• OU sent Tyson Seng in to pinch-run for Hubbard.
• Harughty popped out to ss in shallow lf.
• With a 1-1 count to Wise, Skip Johnson made a visit to the mound.
• Wise went on to strike out swinging. Talk about pretty. That was pretty.
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound, replacing Jungmann. At the same time, they sent Kyle Lusson in at rf and Tim Maitland in at lf. Lusson took Shepherd's spot in the line-up and Maitland took Keyes' spot.
• Ellison grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice for the 3rd out.
• 8th inning, UT
• As OU took the field, the radio guys announced that there was a 4:15 curfew on the game...that no inning could start after 4:15 due to OU's travel plans. It was 4:15 as we were given this news. Very mysteriously, Texas went ahead and batted. Which, as I said earlier, was just bizarre. Why????
• Maitland grounded out to the pitcher.
• Rupp grounded out to 2b.
• I think it was at this point that the public address announcer informed the rest of the crowd about the 4:15 curfew. So, now everyone knew the game was over.
• Kevin Lusson grounded out to ss. Dragging his average down to a paltry .400. Poor guy. Heh heh. Okay, I'll let it go.
• Game officially over.
• Texas wins 8-5.
• And, Sunny Galloway again corners the home plate ump and doesn't bother to go shake hands with the Texas coaching staff. What a guy.

Tommy Nicholson, by the way, was back out coaching 1b for today's game.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Sorry I didn't take any photos this weekend. I didn't want to mess with the rain yesterday. 'Turns out I had nothing to worry about. And, today? I didn't even think about taking my camera.

Rice comes to town on Tuesday. They lost to Marshall this afternoon. I do hope the guys can make it 2 in-a-row for 'em. Wouldn't that be nice? You know it would. Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 11:42 PM | Permalink

Saturday - April 18, 2009

Game 36: Oklahoma at Texas

Texas beat Oklahoma 6-2 to complete a sweep of today's double header. Very nice. Happily, the 2nd game of the day wasn't nearly as eventful as the 1st. Heh.

By the way, Texas did hold a ceremony between the two games to officially retire #21 again, this time in Greg Swindell's name. He was there with two of his daughters and Coach Gus. He gave a nice (but a wee bit long) talk. It was nice to see and hear him.

I failed to mention the weather in my post about the first game. The temperature got up to 82 °F in the first game, was at 80 at the start of the second game, and got down to about 77 by the end of the second game. There was almost no wind. The sun came out about half-way through the first game and, really, it would've been hard to have better weather.

Starting line-ups for today's second game:

Oklahoma	Texas
1 Jamie Johnson, cf 2 Matt Harughty, 2b 3 Bryant Hernandez, ss 4 Aaron Baker, 1b 5 Garret Buechele, 3b 6 Cameron Seitzer 7 J.T. Wise, c 8 Casey Johnson, lf 9 Chris Ellison, rf - Stephen Porlier, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, dh 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Tant Shepherd, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Cameron Rupp, dh 7 Brandon Loy, ss 8 Preston Clark, c 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p

Again, I don't think I have the energy to do a full write-up. So...here are some highlights:

• Cole Green started and went 4.1 innings. He gave up 1 earned run on 3 hits (including 1 double) with 2 strikeouts, 2 walks, and 1 hit batter. He faced 19 and threw 82 pitches by my count. No decision.
• Austin Dicharry threw 2.2 for the win to improve his record to 5-1. He also gave up 1 earned run on 3 hits (all singles). He threw 5 strikeouts and walked 1. He faced 11 batters and threw 47 pitches by my count.
• Austin Wood, rather surprisingly, closed out the game, throwing the final 2 innings without giving up any additional runs. He gave up 1 hit (a double) and threw 4 strikeouts (no walks). He faced 7 batters and threw 32 pitches by my count. No save but he did up his career game appearances number to 99. He's now 4th in line behind Randy Boone (106 appearances), J. Brent Cox (106), and Houston Street (105). I'm thinking he'll be all alone in first place very very soon.
• OU scored single runs in the 5th and 6th:
• 5th: C. Johnson doubled to cf, moved to 3b on a ground out to 2b, and scored on a single to right-center by J. Johnson.
• 6th: Baker reached on a perfect bunt down the 3b line, moved to 2b on a ground out to 3b, stayed at 2b when the next batter struck out, and then scored on a single hit hard past the short stop into cf.
• Texas scored 1 in the 1st:
• Torres reached on a 1-out double to rf.
• Belt fought off a bazillion pitches and then flew out to lf in foul territory.
• Torres stole 3b with Shepherd at the plate and then scored when Shepherd singled into cf.
• Keyes singled up the middle, moving Shepherd to 3b, but they were stranded at 1b and 3b when Rupp flew out to rf (again in foul territory).
• Texas scored 2 in the 2nd:
• Clark reached on a 1-out single off the pitcher and then moved to 2b on a wild pitch with Rowe at the plate.
• Rowe singled to lf, scoring Clark.
• Alas, Rowe was then caught stealing with Tucker at the plate.
• Tucker reached on an error by 3b. He hit a hard grounder to 3b and the ball trickled into foul territory. I think I would've probably ruled it an infield hit but the official scorer put E5 up on the board before in no time at all. Ah well.
• Tucker stole 2b with Torres at the plate.
• Torres singled to the rf corner, scoring Tucker.
• Which prompted a pitching change for OU. The starter only went 1.2 innings. Wow.
• Belt flew out to cf, ending the inning.
• Texas scored 1 in the 3rd:
• Shepherd singled to the shortstop and moved to 2b on a sac bunt by Keyes to the pitcher down the 1b line.
• Shepherd moved to 3b on a wild pitch with Rupp at the plate and then scored when Rupp singled to cf.
• Loy reached on a 4-6 fielder's choice and Clark grounded out to 3b to end the inning.
• Texas scored 2 in the 5th:
• Belt singled into lf.
• Shepherd and Keyes followed with fly outs to lf and cf, respectively.
• Rupp watched 5 pitches to work the count full and took the 6th pitch for a long ride over the lf fence. Purrrrrrty.
• Loy walked and stole 2b but was stranded there when Clark flew out to cf.
• Texas, sadly, went 3-up/3-down in the 4th, 7th, and 8th. Torres reached on a 2-out infield single in the 6th but was stranded at 2b (where he'd moved on a wild pitch).

And, that was about it. One other thing I forgot to note in my game report for the first game of today's double-header: Skip Johnson coached 1b in both games. I have no idea where Tommy Nicholson was.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Today's wins move Texas to the top spot in the Big 12 standings. Game 3 tomorrow at 1. Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 11:08 PM | Permalink

Game 35: Oklahoma at Texas

Texas beat Oklahoma 7-3 in the opener of today's double header. Nice.

Starting line-ups for today's first game:

Oklahoma	Texas
1 Jamie Johnson, cf 2 Matt Harughty, 2b 3 Bryant Hernandez, ss 4 Aaron Baker, 1b 5 J.T. Wise, c 6 Casey Johnson, lf 7 Garret Buechele, 3b 8 Cameron Seitzer 9 Chris Ellison, rf - Andrew Doyle, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, dh 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 Cameron Rupp, c 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Chance Ruffin, p

No time to do a full write-up since I'm doing game reports for two games today. Sorry about that. There are definitely some highlights that need to be touched on, though.

Chance Ruffin got the start and win, improving his record to 6-2, as he threw 6.1 innings. He gave up 3 runs (all earned) on 7 hits (including 2 doubles and 1 homerun). He struck out 10, walked 0, and hit 1 batter. He faced 27 and threw 99 pitches by my count. Austin Wood came on in relief and earned his 9th save of the year. Wood threw the final 2.2 innings, faced 11 batters, and failed to give up any runs or hits. He threw 3 strikeouts, walked 2, and hit 1. By my count, he threw 44 pitches.

Some highlights:

• Texas scored 5 in the 2nd:
• Moldenhauer grounded out to 2b.
• Shepherd drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Keyes was hit by the first pitch to him on his left knee. 'Looked like a fast ball. Ouch.
• Rupp singled to rf, scoring Shepherd from 2b and moving Keyes to 3b.
• With Loy at the plate, the infield pulled in, expecting a bunt. Instead, Loy hit a double to the warning track in lf to score Keyes and Rupp. The OU left fielder almost caught the ball as he frantically ran back toward the wall. Close but no cigar. Whew.
• Rowe reached on an error by the shortstop (who threw high to 1b, pulling the first baseman off the bag). Loy had to stay at 2b.
• Tucker fouled off a pitch and was then hit on his left elbow (knocking loose the guard shield he wears to protect his left elbow when he bats), loading the bases.
• Torres flew out to 3b on a soft pop-up.
• With Belt at the plate, the pitcher threw a wild pitch that went all the way to the wall. Loy scored, Rupp moved to 3b, and Tucker moved to 2b. The catcher tried to throw Loy out but threw over the pitcher. Rupp, who'd rounded 3b, charged home and beat the throw back to the pitcher from the shortstop (Rupp scored on the E2).
• Belt flew out to rf to end the inning. Texas up 5-0.
• OU scored 2 in the top of the 4th when Baker hit a 1-out 2-run homer over the rf fence. He'd yanked the previous pitch over the fence but it went foul. I think Ruffin might've had a little bit of "bet you can't do that twice" in him and was proven wrong. Ouch.
• Texas scored 1 in the 6th. Shepherd singled to cf, moved to 2b on a wild pitch, advanced to 3b when Keyes singled through the left side, and scored as Rupp hit into a 6-4-3 double play.
• The top of the 7th proved eventful (and somewhat confusing) as OU scored their final run:
• C. Johnson struck out looking (3 pitches).
• Buechele doubled to left center.
• Insert long puzzling delay as Coach Garrido complained to the home plate ump about something. The ump went to the OU dugout to talk to the coaches. Rupp started toward the OU dugout and pointed at something and the 3b ump told him to go back to the plate. The 3b ump then disappeared for a long time as the 1b and home umps talked things over with both coaching staffs. Eventually the game resumed. The next time Buechele went to the plate, Craig Way and Bill Little explained that Texas complained that Buechele had too much pine tar on his bat. When OU proffered a bat to the home plate ump to inspect, Rupp complained that it was not the same bat. I'm guessing that the 3b ump was looking for the missing bat while he'd disappeared from view but don't know. At any rate, nothing came of the complaint that we could see and the incident was not mentioned in the post-game show.
• Seitzer doubled to nearly the same spot as Buechele, scoring Buechele.
• OU sent Seng to pinch-run for Seitzer.
• Ellison singled to cf, moving Seng to 3b.
• Austin Wood went to the mound, replacing Ruffin.
• Wood hit J. Johnson with a 1-2 pitch to load the bases, moving Ellison to 2b.
• Insert more confusion. Harughty hit a ground ball toward ss. On the play Ellison ran into Loy and also blocked Torres shot at fielding the ball. The 3b ump immediately called runner's interference. Sunny Galloway (OU head coach) ran out on the field and started arguing the call very vehemently. The 3b ump listened for a bit and then started walking away. Galloway then took hold of the umps left elbow to stop him. Tsk tsk tsk. He was ejected. I believe that will also result in an automatic 3-game suspension for Galloway come Monday; you are not supposed to touch the officials. More arguing...from both coaching staffs. The umps officially ruled runner's interference but then completely screwed up on what to do with the base-runners. They left Ellison at 3b and somehow declared Seng out. I guess. At any rate, Seng's score was erased, the bases remained loaded (Harughty at 1b, J. Johnson at 2b, and Ellison at 3b), 2 outs were put up on the board. That's the second time this year that the umps have screwed up this sort of thing at Disch-Falk.
• Hernandez hit into a 6-4 fielder's choice to end the game. On the play, Harughty slid into Tucker at 2b and knocked him down. Loy started protesting and amidst more confusion (but, thankfully, no fighting) an OU player was ejected. I think it was J. Johnson but am not sure. He and Wise were both replaced in the field in the bottom of the inning so it might've been Wise. Wise was not one of the baserunners at the time all of the chaos was going on so I don't think it was him. But...??
• All that and OU only scored one. Amazing.
• Texas scored 1 more in the bottom of the 8th:
• Belt lined out to rf.
• Moldenhauer was hit by a pitch.
• Morgan Mickan went in to pinch-run for Moldenhauer.
• Shepherd singled to rf, moving Mickan to 2b.
• Tim Maitland was sent in to pinch-run for Shepherd.
• Keyes singled to lf, scoring Mickan and moving Maitland to 2b.
• OU sent Chase Anderson to the mound, replacing Doyle.
• Maitland and Keyes completed a double-steal as Rupp struck out swinging.
• Loy was hit by a pitch (on his helmet) to load the bases.
• Rowe fought off a few pitches but struck out looking.
• Sigh... It coulda been more!
• OU did get a couple on in the top of the 9th (via walks) but to no avail.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Game 2 report coming soon...

Posted by Joanna at 10:13 PM | Permalink

Friday - April 17, 2009

Another bad-weather postponement

Today's opener against OU has been postponed. Due to the rainy weather. The teams are now scheduled to play two tomorrow beginning at 2 o'clock. I'm guessing they'll both be 9-inning games but the press release does not explicitly say that.

Also: the ceremony to retire Greg Swindell's number will take place during the break between games.

Posted by Joanna at 3:45 PM | Permalink

Wednesday - April 15, 2009

Game 34: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Texas

Texas won again tonight. They beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 8-1. The weather was nice bit it was windy (pretty steady wind blowing across from the rf corner to the lf corner) which gave the air a wee bit of a chill.

UPDATE. I just read the official write-up on the game on the TexasSports.com page and was rather amused to note that the unidentified writer was clearly wishing he/she was out on the lake...or perhaps the ocean...as he/she wrote the story. Heh.

Starting line-ups for today's game:

Islanders	Longhorns
1 Ernie Olivarez, 2b 2 Weston Montgomery, rf 3 Stephen Flora, c 4 Martin Parra, 3b 5 Brycen Bell, ss 6 Jeramie Marek, lf 7 Jeremy Narvaez, dh 8 Justin Greiner, 1b 9 Jonathan Reyes, cf - Brett Carnline, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, dh 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Tant Shepherd, lf 5 Kevin Keyes, rf 6 Brandon Loy, ss 7 Kevin Lusson, 3b 8 Preston Clark, c 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p

Looky there. Kevin Lusson making his official debut. He got his first at-bats...and is batting 1.000 on the year! Excellent. He also committed his first error...to send his fielding percentage plummeting to .750. Poor guy. Heh. Oh. One more thing: he was sporting high socks. You know I liked that. And, speaking of the high-socks thing: the Horns have all gone back to their default mode (mostly long pants) as far as I can see. All of the Islanders were sporting high socks in both games. Which, again, I appreciated.

Anyway.

Also of note in today's game: Kevin Keyes wore jersey #42 today in honor of the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's MLB debut.

And, the game went like so:

• 1st inning, Islanders
• Brandon Workman on the mound for Texas.
• Olivarez grounded out to 3b. Talk about into the fire for Kevin Lusson. Heh. He did just fine.
• Montgomery struck out swinging.
• Flora grounded out to the pitcher. On the play, he blooped a ball over Workman's head about about 5 or 10 feet beyond the mound. Walker did a nice job to round the ball up and throw to 1b for the out.
• 3-up/3-down.
• 1st inning, Longhorns
• Brett Carnline on the mound for TAMU-CC.
• Tucker grounded out to 2b.
• Torres grounded out to 1b (unassisted).
• Belt doubled to rf. He hit a high ball that, sadly, was probably kept in the park by the wind. It landed and died at the base of the wall.
• Shepherd grounded out to 3b.
• 2nd inning, Islanders
• Parra grounded out to 3b. I wondered if every inning would start with a ground out to Kevin Lusson.
• Bell grounded out to 1b (unassisted).
• Marek hit a rocket over the lf wall into the visitor bullpen. Ouch.
• Narvaez struck out looking.
• Texas down 0-1.
• 2nd inning, Longhorns
• Keyes reached on an infield single. On the play, the pitcher almost fielded the ball. But, he missed it and just ended up slowing the ball down enough that the middle infielders had no play. Nice.
• Loy moved Keyes to 2b with a sac bunt to the pitcher. Did you know that as of April 12th, Loy is ranked 11th nationally in sac bunts per game and 7th in total number of sac bunts? He's a very good bunter.
• Keyes tole 3b on the 3rd pitch to Kevin Lusson.
• Lusson, in his first plate appearance in Burnt Orange, drew a full-count walk.
• Clark grounded out to the pitcher, moving Lusson to 2b. They were doing the safety-squeeze bunt thing and Keyes started down the line but had to turn back when the bunt went to the pitcher instead of past him.
• Rowe struck out looking. Darn.
• 3rd inning, Islanders
• Greiner struck out looking (3 pitches).
• Reyes grounded out to 3b. Not the first batter of the inning this time; the second, instead. Lusson fielded and then threw high to Belt at 1b. Belt jumped, just caught the ball, and got back down to the bag before the batter. Whew.
• Two pitches later, Olivarez reached on an error by 3b. Lusson, apparently thinking about his poor throw on the previous play, made a worse one that pulled Belt completely off the bag by about 8 feet toward rf. Luckily, Belt did stop the ball to keep the runner at 1b.
• Montgomery popped out to 2b in shallow rf.
• 3rd inning, Longhorns
• Tucker grounded out to 2b.
• Torres grounded out to ss.
• Belt singled into lf.
• shepherd grounded out to 3b.
• 4th inning, Islanders
• Texas sent Stayton Thomas to the mound, replacing Workman.
• Workman went 3 innings and faced 11 batters. He gave up 1 earned run on 1 hit (homerun). He struck out 3. No walks. By my count, he threw 35 pitches (26 strikes, 9 balls).
• Flora popped out to 2b.
• Parra walked (full count).
• Bell flew out to cf.
• Parra stole 2b and then 3b on the 3rd and 5th pitches to Marek.
• Marek struck out looking.
• 4th inning, Longhorns
• Keyes singled up the middle.
• Loy moved Keyes to 2b with another sac bunt...this time to 3b.
• With Kevin Lusson at the plate, Keyes advanced to 3b on a balk.
• Lusson singled to rf, scoring Keyes. On the play, Lusson tried to stretch the single into a double and was thrown out on a bang-bang play (9-4-6). It was close.
• Clark reached on a 5-pitch walk.
• Rowe grounded out to 3b.
• Game tied 1-1.
• 5th inning, Islanders
• Narvaez doubled down the lf line.
• Greiner moved Narvaez to 3b with a sac bunt to the pitcher.
• Reyes flew out to cf. Narvaez tagged and tried to score but Rowe made a perfect throw to the catcher, beating Narvaez by 3 or 4 feet. Beautiful double play.
• 5th inning, Longhorns
• Tucker tripled to rf. The right fielder made a mistake and dove for the ball. He did not catch it and then had to scramble back toward the wall. He threw in and the relay throw to 3b was closer than we would've liked. The throw was timely but off-line. The third baseman made did a great job of catching the ball and keeping Tucker at 3b.
• Visit to the mound by an Islanders coach.
• Torres grounded out to 2b. Tucker could not advance on the play.
• Belt hit a sac fly to lf, scoring Tucker.
• Shepherd was hit by a pitch (low on his left let?...hard to see...it didn't even look like he was hit from our vantage point).
• Keyes singled (his 3rd hit of the day!) to move Shepherd to 3b.
• Loy singled (slow grounder to 2b which he beat out), scoring Shepherd and moving Keyes to 2b.
• Which prompted a pitching change: Matt Hudec to the mound, replacing Carnline.
• With Kevin Lusson at the plate, Keyes stole 3b. Again.
• Lusson worked the count full, fouled off a couple of pitches, and then drew a walk to load the bases.
• Clark fouled off 3 pitches. The third was wide of the plate...and the catcher. Keyes scored, Loy moved to 3b, and Lusson moved to 2b on the wild pitch.
• Clark then struck out swinging.
• Texas up 4-1.
• 6th inning, Islanders
• Olivarez grounded out to ss.
• Montgomery struck out swinging (3 pitches).
• Flora grounded out to ss. Very nice play by Loy.
• 3-up/3-down.
• 6th inning, Longhorns
• The Islanders sent Jake Liedka to the mound, replacing Hudec.
• Rowe flew out to cf.
• Tucker grounded out to 2b.
• Torres flew out to lf.
• Only 3-up/3-down inning thrown against the Horns.
• 7th inning, Islanders
• Texas sent Kendal Carrillo to the mound, replacing Thomas.
• Thomas went 3 innings and faced 10 batters. He didn't allow any runs. He gave up 1 hit (a double), walked 1, and struck out 2. By my count, he threw 36 pitches (20 strikes, 16 balls).
• Parra struck out looking.
• Bell singled to left-center and stole 2b with Marek at the plate.
• Marek struck out looking. On a late pitch to Marek, Clark jumped up and made a pick-off throw to 1b. He immediately bent over as if in pain. The ump gave him a lot of time to shake things off (he walked around, cleaned off the plate, and walked around a bit more). Texas did not send a trainer out to look at Clark.
• Narvaez struck out swinging.
• Clark walked off the field very slowly and did get a once-over in the dugout.
• 7th inning, Longhorns
• Belt hit a 1-1 pitch over the lf fence (it cleared right at the 375 sign).
• TAMU-CC changed pitchers: Brant Sparkman to the mound for Liedka.
• Shepherd hit a 0-1 pitch over the lf fence (it cleared in front of the scoreboard). Cool.
• Keyes reached on a 5-pitch walk.
• Tim Maitland was sent in to pinch-run for Keyes.
• Maitland was, sadly, caught stealing (2-4) with Loy at the plate.
• Loy struck out swinging.
• Kevin Lusson doubled to right-center. Look at that? 4 plate appearances. 2 walks. 1 single. 1 double. 1 run batted in. And, shortly, 1 run scored. In his Longhorn debut. Nice.
• Clark surprised me by heading to the plate when it was his turn to bat. And, then he doubled to rf, scoring Lusson.
• Which prompted another pitching change: Brett Gips to the mound, replacing Sparkman.
• Rowe singled to lf, scoring Clark. Clark ran hard and scored pretty easily. 'Guess whatever happened on the throw to 1b in the top of the inning was not too bad. At any rate, for the second time in the game, a Texas batter tried to stretch a single into a double. Rowe was the one running this time. He was thrown out on another bang-bang play (7-5-4, I think). I guess Rowe thought the third baseman would not cut-off the throw in from lf.
• Texas up 8-1.
• 8th inning, Islanders
• Texas kept Maitland in the game in lf and moved Kyle Lusson in at rf (taking Shepherd's spot in the line-up).
• Texas sent Taylor Jungmann to the mound, replacing Carrillo.
• Carrillo threw 1 inning and faced 4. He gave up one single and struck out the other three batters he faced. By my count, he threw 22 pitches (13 strikes, 9 balls).
• Greiner struck out looking.
• Jacob Perez (pinch-hitting for Reyes) grounded out to 2b.
• Olivarez popped out to 3b (foul). Belt made a nice play to stay with the ball that looked like it was headed into the stands. It landed just in the field of play at the east corner of the Texas dugout.
• 3-up/3-down.
• 8th inning, Longhorns
• The Islanders made some defensive changes: they sent Jacob Perales into rf (presumably taking Montgomery's spot in the line-up); sent Matt Rocha in at ss (taking, I guess, Bell's spot in the line-up); and sent Famiglietti in at cf (taking...again, just guessing...Perez's spot in the line-up).
• Tucker singled up the middle.
• Torres hit into a very pretty 5-4-3 double play. Sadly.
• Belt singled to cf.
• Kyle Lusson flew out to rf.
• 9th inning, Islanders
• Texas sent Sam Stafford to the mound for his second appearance of the year, replacing Jungmann.
• Jungmann pitched 1 inning and faced 3 batters with 1 strikeout. By my count, he threw 10 pitches (8 strikes, 2 balls).
• Omar Garcia (pinch-hitting for Perales, I think) singled through the right side.
• Flora drew a 4-pitch walk, moving Garcia to 2b.
• The first pitch to Parra was another ball, prompting a visit to the mound.
• Parra went on to strike out swinging (full count).
• Rocha hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game!
• Stafford threw 1 inning and faced 4. He gave up 1 hit, 1 walk, and threw 1 strikeout. By my count, he threw 14 pitches (8 strikes, 6 balls).
• Texas wins 8-1.

Stayton Thomas earned his first victory of the year. Cool. The bats looked a bit cool early in the game but the Horns seemed to be doing that thing where just about every ball they hit was right at someone. After Rowe made that spectacular throw from cf (in the 5th), everything seemed to turn around. The Horns put together 3 multiple-hit innings after that play. Nice.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

The Horns host the Sooners this weekend. They're scheduled to play at 6 on Friday, at 2 on Saturday, and at 1 on Sunday. Weather-wise, things are not looking good for Friday evening, though. The Horns are planning on having the official retirement ceremony for Greg Swindell's number on Friday beginning at 5:40. I'm not sure what they'll do if the game gets rained out. Well, that's not quite true. I'm sure they'll try to play 2 on Saturday but have no idea what time they'll try to start. Watch the TexasSports.com page for definitive news.

Posted by Joanna at 11:15 PM | Permalink

Tuesday - April 14, 2009

Game 33: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Texas

Texas won the opener of their 2-game series against the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders this evening 5-2. The weather was very nice and there was a pretty good crowd on hand.

Starting line-ups for today's game:

Islanders	Longhorns
1 Jacob Perales, rf 2 Weston Montgomery, 2b 3 Martin Parra, 3b 4 Stephen Flora, dh 5 Trey Hernandez, 1b 6 Brycen Bell, ss 7 Jeramie Marek, lf 8 Justin Greiner, c 9 Jonathan Reyes, cf - Justin Grota, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 Cameron Rupp, c 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Austin Dicharry, p

Austin Dicharry was declared the pitcher of record before the game started so was eligible for the win despite pitching only 3 innings. The Texas pitchers went like so:

• Austin Dicharry (innings 1-3): no runs, 1 hit (a single in the 2nd), 4 strikeouts, and 1 walk. He faced 12 batters and threw 49 pitches (28 strikes, 21 balls) by my count. The defense committed one error behind him. Dicharry got the win to improve to 4-1 on the season.
• Kendal Carillo (innings 3-6): 1 run (earned), 3 hits (1 double, 2 singles), 1 strikeout, and no walks. He faced 12 batters and threw 47 pitches (32 strikes, 15 balls) by my count. The run came in the 4th inning: he gave up a lead-off double (to Flora, a player from Austin who went 3-for-4 with a single, a double, and a homerun on the night...good night for him, eh?) who moved to 3b on a ground out to ss and then scored on a ground out to 3b.
• Stayton Thomas (inning 7): no runs, 1 hit (a single), no strikeouts, no walks, and 1 hit batter. He faced 4 batters and threw 9 pitches (8 strikes and that pitch that hit the batter) by my count. Stayton also did one of those things you never ever see. With batters at the corners and 1 out, he faked a throw to 3b, turned and threw to 1b to pick the runner at 1b off. The runner at 1b had a big lead and broke a bit toward 2b when Thomas made his move. He tried to get back to the bag but stumbled and was out by a foot or two. Cool.
• Chance Ruffin (inning 8): 1 run (earned), 1 hit (homerun, mentioned earlier), 2 strikeouts, and no walks. He faced 4 batters and threw 16 pitches (13 strikes, 3 balls) by my count. Flora hit a 2-out 1-1 pitch into the Islanders bullpen. It was a rocket.
• Austin Wood (inning 9): no runs, 1 hit (a single), 2 strikeouts, and no walks. He faced 4 batters and threw 21 pitches (16 strikes, 5 balls) by my count. He gave up a lead-off single to Bell. The pitch sequence: ball, called strike, swinging strike, foul ball, foul ball, ball, foul ball, foul ball, bloop single over Loy's head at ss. Wood earned his 8th save on the year.

Defensively, the team looked very strong tonight. Belt committed the lone error in the 1st when a ground ball went off his chest and bounced toward 2b. The standout defensive plays that I noted in my scorebook:

• In the 2nd, Tucker had to range far to his right to stop a grounder and throw the batter out at 1b. That could've easily been a single to cf.
• In the 3rd, Belt made a nice stab at a liner headed into rf to rob Montgomery of a hit.
• In the 6th, Rowe made a fantastic catch on a ball hit to shallow cf. He had to charge hard toward the infield to make the catch. And, he did.
• In the 8th, Keyes made a nice run to catch a ball in foul territory that was just over the wall down the rf line. He reached 2 or 3 feet over the wall to make the catch and did not bang himself up against the wall. Nicely timed.

On the offensive side of things, the team really spread things around. They managed 9 hits by 8 players. The starting line-up managed the following:

• Tucker: 1-for-5 with a double and 2 runs batted in.
• Torres: 1-for-4 with a double.
• Belt: 1-for-4 wit a single, a stolen base, and 1 run scored.
• Moldenhauer: 1-for-2 with a double and 1 run batted in.
• Shepherd: 1-for-4 with a double, a stolen base, and 1 run scored.
• Keyes: 2-for-4 with 2 singles, 1 run batted in, a stolen base, and 1 run scored.
• Rupp: 1-for-3 with a homerun and 2 runs scored. He was also hit by a pitch. I was amused to note the dugout completely ignore him for about 45 seconds after he hit that homerun. Then they mobbed him with congratulations. Funny.
• Loy: 1-for-2 with a single, a sac bunt, a walk, and a stolen base.
• Rowe: 0-for-4. He did reach on a fielder's choice and an error.

Texas scored their runs like so:

• 1st inning, 1 run: Belt reached on a 2-out single and stole 2b. Moldenhauer doubled to the 405 sign in right-center to score Belt.
• 2nd inning, 2 runs: Keyes singled up the middle and stole 2b. Rupp was hit by a pitch. Loy advanced the runners with a sac bunt to the pitcher. Rowe (going for the safety squeeze) bunted down the 1b line. The pitcher fielded and threw home. Keyes and Rupp quickly scampered back to 3b and 2b. Bases loaded on the fielder's choice. Still 1 out. Tucker doubled to cf, scoring Keyes and Rupp, and moving Rowe to 3b. Alas, Torres popped out to 3b (a sky-high fly ball that fell about 5 feet in front of the plate...yowsa) and Belt, after fighting off several pitches, flew out to cf.
• 3rd inning, 1 run: Shepherd hit a 1-out double to left-center and then stole 3b. That was the 3rd stolen base of the day for the Horns...all on the first pitch. (Loy did steal one more, later in the game...that one on the 3rd pitch, though.) Keyes singled to lf, scoring Shepherd. Rupp then grounded out to 3b and Loy flew out to rf.
• 8th inning, 1 run: Rupp hit that 1-out solo shot I mentioned earlier.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

And, that about does it for this evening. Same teams tomorrow night. Same time, same place. Be there or be square.

PS: This game report dedicated to the lovely Kinsey who entered this world yesterday...making her parents and grandparents very happy. At least, that was her grandpa's story in the stands this evening. I'm sure I'll be hearing more and seeing pictures at the ballpark soon. That's what we need, right? More Longhorn baseball fans. Welcome to the world...and to Texas, Kinsey. Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 10:37 PM | Permalink

Saturday - April 11, 2009

Game 32: Texas at Nebraska

I was able to watch the free video stream provided by the Huskers again today. Thanks, Huskers!

Starting line-ups for today's game:

Texas	Nebraska
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 Cameron Rupp, c 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p	1 Boomer Collins, cf 2 Jeff Tezak, 2b 3 Cody Asche, 3b 4 Tyler Farst, 1b 5 Adam Bailey, rf 6 Cade Thompson, lf 7 Kale Kiser, dh 8 Ben Kline, ss 9 Cory Burleson, c - Casey Hauptman, p

With a righty back on the mound, Russell Moldenhauer back in at dh. The Huskers, by the way, all sport high socks. You people know I like that! I listened to the pre-game show on the radio and after Craig Way described the "old school" Nebraska uniforms, he asked Keith Moreland what he though of it. Keith did not seem to think much of it. Heh.

And, here's how the game went...

• 1st inning, Texas
• Casey Hauptman on the mound for Nebraska.
• Travis Tucker reached on an infield hit off the ss that ricocheted into shallow cf.
• Torres fouled a couple of bunt attempts on the right side and then reached on a fielder's choice to the shortstop (unassisted).
• Belt singled into rf, moving Torres to 2b.
• With Moldenhauer at the plate, the runners completed a double steal on the first pitch.
• Moldenhauer grounded out to 1b (pitcher covering), scoring Torres. The ball was chopped and remained on the infield grass. The first baseman thought about throwing home but then turned and fell as he threw to the pitcher. He almost didn't get the out recorded at all.
• Shepherd grounded out to ss.
• Texas up 1-0.
• 1st inning, Nebraska
• Cole Green on the mound for Texas.
• Collins grounded out to 3b.
• Tezak grounded out to 1b (p covered the bag).
• Asche grounded out to ss.
• 3-up/3-down. I like it.
• 2nd inning, Texas
• Keyes drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Rupp (who hit is first two homeruns of the year yesterday) squared to bunt on the first pitch, took a ball, then swung away at the second pitch. He went back to the bunt and took another ball. Then he did not square and watched another ball. He then popped out to 2b in shallow rf.
• Keyes stole 2b on the first pitch (a ball) to Loy.
• Loy grounded out to 2b, moving Keyes to 3b.
• Insert mound visit.
• Rowe homered over the lf wall! Woo hoo!!
• Tucker worked the count full, fouled off a pitch, and then singled through the right side.
• Tucker stole 2b (4th stolen base of the game for Texas) on the second pitch to Torres.
• Which prompted a pitching change. Mike Nesseth went to the mound (with a 2-0 count to Torres), replacing Hauptman.
• Torres grounded out to 1b (unassisted).
• Texas up 3-0.
• 2nd inning, Nebraska
• Farst grounded out to ss.
• Bailey lined out to 2b. Nice play as Tucker ranged to his left to snag the ball.
• Thompson struck out looking!
• 3-up/3-down. Twice. In two innings. To start the game.
• 3rd inning, Texas
• Nebraska sent a third pitcher to the mound. Apparently, the Huskers were a bit worried that Nesseth was having some sort of problem with his shoulder. The new pitcher (Eric Rose, first lhp of the game) was given as much time as he needed to warm up.
• Belt tripled to lf. The wind apparently picked the ball up a bit and pushed the left fielder back up to the wall. He got his glove on the ball but was unable to hold onto it.
• Preston Clark (pinch-hitting for Moldenhauer) singled past the ss into the lf/cf gap, scoring Belt.
• Shepherd drew a 5-pitch walk, moving Clark to 2b. At least, I think it was 5 pitches. I didn't keep score.
• Keyes flew out to the wall in lf. Another 3 feet or so and it would've been a homer. Clark tagged up and moved to 3b.
• Rupp grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice, scoring Clark. The ss bobbled the ball but recovered in time to get the out at 2b. It should've been a double play. But, he did get an out so no error.
• Loy singled into rf. Rupp dug for 3b and was thrown out by the throw from right. Tommy Harmon immediately argued the play, saying Rupp had his foot on the bag before the tag, and was thrown out of the game. The 3b ump ejected Harmon less than 2 seconds after he started arguing the play. Yikes. 'Wonder what Harmon said?
• Texas up 5-0.
• 3rd inning, Nebraska
• Kiser struck out swinging (3 pitches).
• Kline grounded out (high chopper) to 1b (unassisted).
• Burleson grounded out to 3b.
• 3-up/3-down again. Yes!! And (!), only 5 or 6 pitches.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Erik Bird (rhp) to the mound for Nebraska.
• Rowe struck out swinging.
• Tucker grounded out sharply to the pitcher.
• Torres singled to 2b. The second baseman dove, made a catch, and almost threw Torres out.
• Belt grounded out to the pitcher.
• 4th inning, Nebraska
• Collns popped out (first pitch) to ss.
• Tezak reached on an error by the pitcher. Tezak hit a ground ball to 1b. Belt fielded and tossed to Green covering. I guess he took his eye off the ball to look for the bag and did not catch the toss. Dang.
• Asche drew a full-count walk, moving Tezak to 2b.
• Farst reached on a 6-4 fielder's choice (high bouncer to ss), moving Tezak to 3b.
• Bailey singled up the middle, scoring Tezak and moving Farst to 2b.
• Thompson lined out to 1b.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Skip Johnson, by the way, ended up coaching 3b after Coach Harmon was tossed in the 3rd.
• Clark struck out swinging.
• Shepherd reached on a throwing error by 3b. The ball got past the first baseman so Shepherd moved up to 2b. The third baseman fielded on the line, about 15 feet behind 3b so would probably have been a single if the first baseman had stopped the ball.
• Keyes struck out swinging.
• Rupp singled up the middle, scoring Shepherd. The center fielder missed the ball as he charged and tried to field. As it rolled to the wall, Rupp moved all the way up to 3b. I'm sure the center fielder was trying to scoop and attempt a play at home. Instead, E8.
• Loy struck out swinging.
• Texas up 6-1.
• 5th inning, Nebraska
• Kiser struck out swinging.
• Kline flew out to rf.
• Burleson struck out looking.
• Ahhhh...back to the 3-up/3-down happy place. I do like it.
• 6th inning, Texas
• Rowe singled through the left side.
• Tucker moved Rowe to 2b on a 1-3 sac bunt.
• Torres drew a full-count walk.
• Belt reached on a 3-6 fielder's choice, moving Tucker to 3b. The Huskers almost turned a double play but the throw back to 1b from the ss was a hair late.
• Clark reached on an infield single to 2b, scoring Tucker and moving Belt to 2b. The Nebraska coach went out to argue that Belt (who arrived at 2b just as the ball did) blocked the second baseman's ability to field the ball. To no avail.
• Shepherd struck out looking.
• Texas up 7-1.
• 6th inning, Nebraska
• Collins singled to cf.
• Tezak singled down the 3b line, moving Collins to 3b.
• Asche lined out to lf (sac fly), scoring Collins.
• Farst hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Nice play by Tucker and Loy.
• Texas up 7-2.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Nebraska sent Nate Kerkhoff (lhp) to the mound, replacing Bird.
• Keyes singled into cf.
• Rupp singled up the middle, moving Keyes (who was on the run with the pitch) to 3b.
• Loy hit a sac fly to rf, scoring Keyes.
• Rowe hit into a 5-4-3 double play.
• Texas up 8-2.
• 7th inning, Nebraska
• Bailey flew out to lf.
• Thompson singled down the lf line into the corner.
• Kiser grounded out to 1b (unassisted), moving Thompson to 3b.
• Kline grounded out to 3b. Belt was pulled off the bag a bit but tagged the batter at 1b. Initially, the 1b ump ruled the batter safe. Texas appealed to the home plate ump who talked to the 1b ump. They ruled the batter out. Nebraska then appealed to no avail.
• 8th inning, Texas
• Kash Kalkowski (rhp) to the mound for Nebraska, replacing Kerkhoff.
• The Nebraska head coach argued the ruling throughout the break, by the way, with all three umps.
• After the 2nd pitch to Tucker, the catcher threw a bit off-line and off the pitcher's glove. The ball got past the ss (I couldn't see if he was backing up the pitcher or not...he was not in the view of the camera) and into shallow cf. Wow. I can't remember the last time I saw that.
• Tucker drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Torres singled through the right side, moving Tucker (who was off with the pitch) to 3b.
• Torres stole 2b on the 1st pitch to Belt.
• The infield drew in with runners at 2b and 3b with no outs.
• Belt struck out swinging.
• With the infield still in and shifted quite a bit toward lf, Clark also struck out swinging. Argh.
• And, the infield moved back to their regular depth.
• Shepherd singled off the first baseman's glove, scoring Tucker and moving Torres to 3b. The first baseman fell down and took a long time getting back up. Oops. Never mind the single. It was ruled an error by the first baseman.
• Keyes flew out to lf.
• Texas up 9-2.
• 8th inning, Nebraska
• A couple of defensive changes for Texas: Kyle Lusson went into rf, apparently taking Shepherd's place in the line-up, and Tim Maitland went in at lf (replacing Keyes in the line-up).
• Burleson drew a full-count walk.
• Collins drew a 5-pitch walk, moving Burleson to 2b. Ouch.
• Skip Johnson made a trip to the mound but left Green in the game. Huh. Interesting.
• Tezak flew out to lf, down the line.
• Asche hit into a 4-6-3 double play. It looked a bit awkward. The toss from Tucker to Loy was a bit high and then the throw from Loy just beat the batter to 1b.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Rupp struck out looking.
• Loy reached on a 4-pitch walk.
• Rowe popped out to the catcher just a few feet off the plate.
• Tucker hit a bloop single into rf, moving Loy to 2b.
• Torres drew a 5-pitch walk to load the bases.
• Belt flew out to lf.
• 9th inning, Nebraska
• Cole Green still on the mound for the Horns. Cool.
• Farst struck out swinging.
• Bailey grounded out (chopper off the plate) to the pitcher.
• Thompson flew out to rf.
• 3-up/3-down one last time!
• Texas wins 9-2.

Complete game win for Cole Green. Excellent. He allowed 2 runs (1 unearned) on 4 hits while walking 5 and striking out 3. All on 110 pitches. I think I got that right as Craig spit the numbers out during the post-game show. Also: today's win marks the first time the Horns have swept the Huskers in a 3-game series.

Here's the line (from Nebraska's LiveStats):

The Horns now have a 10-game home stand. They host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday and Wednesday this week before the Sooners come to town for a 3-game series starting on Friday.

Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 4:23 PM | Permalink

Friday - April 10, 2009

Game 31: Texas at Nebraska

I monitored (on my computer monitor...heh) part of the 2nd game (through the free link on Nebraska's site) at work before heading home.

These were the starting line-ups:

Texas	Nebraska
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Tant Shepherd, lf 4 Kevin Keyes, rf 5 Cameron Rupp, dh 6 Preston Clark, c 7 Brandon Loy, ss 8 Brandon Belt, 1b 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p	1 Kyle Bubak, dh 2 Cody Asche, 3b 3 Adam Bailey, rf 4 Tyler Farst, 1b 5 Jeff Tezak, 2b 6 Nick Sullivan, lf 7 DJ Belfonte, cf 8 Ben Kline, ss 9 Cory Burleson, c - Jordan Roualdes, p

Texas jumped on top 2-0 in the 1st. Tucker walked and moved to 2b when Torres singled. With Shepherd at the plate, the runners moved up a base on a passed ball. Then, Shepherd doubled into left-center to score Tucker and Torres. Sadly, the next 3 Texas batters went down in order: Keyes grounded out to ss, Rupp struck out swinging, and Clark grounded out to ss.

The Huskers got a batter on (1-out single to cf, I think) but he was stranded at 1b in the bottom of the 1st.

Top of the 2nd: Loy was hit by a pitch. Belt reached on a bunt single, moving Loy to 2b. Rowe popped out to the catcher behind the plate on a bunt attempt. Tucker walked (5 pitches) to load the bases. Torres singled through the left side, scoring two and moving Tucker to 2b. The runners advanced on a double steal. Shepherd grounded out to 2b, scoring Tucker and moving Torres to 3b. Keyes struck out swinging. Texas up 5-0.

And, at that point, I headed home, and listened to the game on the radio for a bit. In the bottom of the 2nd, Workman did walk a couple of batters (the first with no outs and the 2nd with 2 outs) but they were stranded at 1b and 2b.

I got home in time to watch most of the 3rd. Here's how the rest of the game played out...

• 3rd inning, Texas
• Roualdes still on the mound for Nebraska.
• Rupp homered over the rf fence.
• Clark singled (!) to lf; his first hit in a couple of weeks. Yes!
• Nebraska sent Joe Broekemeier to p for Roualdes.
• Loy flew out to rf.
• Belt singled to rf and moved to 3b on an error by rf. Clark scored on the play.
• Rowe singled up the middle, scoring Belt.
• Tucker flew out to rf
• With Torres at the plate, Rowe moved to 2b on a wild pitch.
• Torres grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 8-0.
• 3rd inning, Nebraska
• Workman still on the mound for Texas.
• Bubak drew a full-count walk.
• Asche flew out to shallow cf...toward lf. Shepherd and Loy both made a move to catch the ball but Rowe called them off and made the play.
• Bailey struck out swinging. On the play, Bubak took off and was thrown out (2-6) for a double play. Nice. Keith Moreland had been saying in the previous inning, with Nebraska in a similar position, that he thought it was a bad idea for Nebraska to send the runner. At the time, the Huskers did not send the runner. 'Guess they decided to try it in the 3rd. But, as predicted by Keith, to no avail. I wasn't listening to the radio at this point so don't know what Keith said about it the second time around.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Shepherd doubled to the lf/cf gap to start things off.
• Keyes doubled down the lf line, scoring Shepherd.
• Rupp grounded out to 2b, moving Keyes to 3b.
• Clark hit a sac fly to the rf/cf gap (caught by cf), scoring Keyes.
• Rupp grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 10-0.
• 4th inning, Nebraska
• Farst worked the count full and then reached on an infield singled to ss. I thought it was going to be ruled an error by ss but nope...a hit. Loy made a nice play to stop the ball and then his throw was way offline toward the outfield. Belt had to move about 8 feet off the bag to catch the ball.
• Tezak singled through the right side, moving Farst to 2b.
• Sullivan struck out swinging.
• Belfonte singled through the right side, scoring Farst and moving Tezak to 2b.
• Kline singled into lf, loading the bases.
• Nebraska called an offensive time out. Skip Johnson decided to go ahead and make a visit to the mound.
• Burleson hit a sac fly to lf, scoring Tezak.
• Kale Kiser, pinch-hitting for Bubak, re-loaded the bases on an error by 3b. The ball hand-cuffed Torres a bit. He stopped the ball but was unable to get a handle on it. The ball did not get far enough away from him that anyone took an extra base, though. The batter should've been thrown out; thus the error.
• With that, Texas sent Keith Shinaberry to the mound, replacing Workman. Workman seemed to be struggling quite a bit today with his pitches divided pretty evening between balls and strikes.
• Asche doubled down the lf line and into the corner to score all three runners. Ouch.
• Nebraska announced Khiry Cooper as a pinch-hitter for Bailey. Which prompted Texas to send Kendal Carrillo to the mound, replacing Shinaberry.
• Cooper struck out swinging. Clark couldn't hold onto the ball so had to throw down to 1b to complete the out.
• Texas up 10-5.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Nebraska sent Nate Kerkhoff to the mound for Broekemeir. They kept Cooper in at cf and moved Belfonte to rf.
• Belt struck out swinging.
• Rowe lined out to 3b.
• Tucker drew a full-count walk.
• Torres hit into a 4-6 fielder's choice.
• 5th inning, Nebraska
• Farst grounded out to 1b (p covered 1b).
• Tezak reached on an infield single to ss. Loy made a great play (diving to his left behind 2b) to stop the ball but couldn't get the ball to 1b in time.
• Texas sent Andrew McKirahan to the mound, replacing Carrillo.
• Sullivan walked on 4 pitches. Ouch.
• Belfonte drew a full-count walk to load the bases. Double ouch.
• Which prompted another visit to the mound by Skip Johnson. And, another pitching change: Austin Dicharry to the mound for McKirahan.
• Kline reached on a fielder's choice (6-4), scoring Tezak. On the play, Tucker made a bad relay throw (in the dirt) to 1b (E4). Sullivan scored on the error and Kline moved to 2b.
• Burleson grounded out to 3b.
• Texas up 10-7.
• 6th inning, Texas
• Shepherd grounded out to ss.
• Keyes was hit by a pitch (just under his left knee).
• Rupp was called out on strikes. Keyes stole 2b on the called strike.
• Clark singled past ss into cf, scoring Keyes (who was off with the pitch).
• With Loy at the plate, the Huskers picked Clark off (1-3-6). What? Clark stealing? The count was 1-2 to Loy at the time.
• Texas up 11-7.
• 6th inning, Nebraska
• Kiser struck out looking.
• Asche struck out swinging.
• Cooper fell behind 0-2, worked the count full, fouled off a pitch, and then struck out swinging.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Loy singled over 3b into lf.
• Belt hit a 1-3 sac bunt to move Loy to 2b.
• Which prompted a visit to the mound...and then a pitching change: Michael Mariot went in for Kerkhoff.
• Rowe struck out swinging.
• Tucker flew out to rf.
• 7th inning, Nebraska
• Farst struck out (full count).
• Tezak hit a perfect bunt down the 3b line. Wow. It looked like it was going to go foul and then it rolled back to the edge of the grass and died about two-thirds of the way down the line. Wow.
• Sullivan struck out looking.
• Belfonte was hit (on his right knee) by a pitch, moving Tezak to 2b.
• Kline was hit by a pitch on his left (front elbow). Coach Garrido argued (and I agree with him) that Kline stuck his elbow out a bit to get hit. He started to pull his arm back, thought better of it, and stuck it back out over the plate. I was amused at the announcers on the video feed arguing that he tried to avoid the pitch. No way. Anyway, bases loaded.
• Burleson lined out (almost) to 2b. On the play, Tucker knocked the ball down, gathered it up, and threw the batter out at 1b.
• Whew.
• 8th inning, Texas
• Torres lined out to lf.
• Shepherd grounded out to 3b. Close play.
• Keyes walked (full count).
• Tim Maitland was sent in to pinch-run for Keyes.
• Rupp struck out looking.
• 8th inning, Nebraska
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound, replacing Dicharry. Maitland stayed in the game in lf. Kyle Lusson went into rf (taking Shepherd's spot in the order).
• Kiser reached on a high bouncer over the pitcher.
• Asche lined a single past 3b into lf, moving Kiser to 2b.
• Cooper reached on a 6-4 fielder's choice, moving Kiser to 3b.
• Farst struck out looking. Purty.
• Tezak grounded out to 2b.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Clark popped out to 2b in shallow rf.
• Loy walked (full count).
• Belt singled up the middle, moving Loy to 3b.
• Rowe struck out swinging.
• Tucker grounded out on a chopper to the pitcher.
• 9th inning, Nebraska
• Jake Mort (pinch-hitting for Sullivan) singled through the left side.
• With Boomer Collins (pinch-hitting for Belfonte) at the plate, Mort advanced to 2b on a passed ball.
• Collins lined out to cf. Nice play by Rowe!
• Kline flew out to cf.
• Burleson grounded out to the pitcher.
• Texas wins 11-7.

Entertaining fact: Carillo (like his teammate Shinaberry in the earlier game) came away with a win after pitching 0.2 innings and throwing 9 pitches. Yowsa!

Here's the line (from Nebraska's LiveStats):

One more tomorrow for the sweep. Go, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 10:39 PM | Permalink

Game 30: Texas at Nebraska

Sadly, I was working away and forgot about the game 'til almost 4:30. The 9th inning was just getting under way with Texas in the lead 7-4.

These were the starting line-ups:

Texas	Nebraska
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 Cameron Rupp, c 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Chance Ruffin, p	1 1 Kyle Bubak, 2b 2 Jake Mort, 3b 3 Adam Bailey, rf 4 Tyler Farst, 1b 5 Jeff Tezak, dh 6 Nick Sullivan, lf 7 DJ Belfonte, cf 8 Cody Neer, c 9 Ben Kline, ss - Sean Yost, p

So, not much of a report from me today. Looking at the LiveStats page, I see that Texas scored 3 in the 2nd: Shepherd hit a 1-out homer; Keyes walked; and Rupp hit a 2-run homer. 'Sounds like the bats are still in working order.

Texas scored 2 more in the top of the 4th: Shepherd singled but was picked off at 1b; Keyes tripled and scored on a throwing error by ss (from the post-game report on the radio, it sounded like the relay throw went into the dugout); and Rupp walked, moved to 3b on a single by Loy, then scored on a sac fly by Rowe.

Texas gave up 2 in the bottom of the 4th: Farst walked (4 pitches); Tezak walked (5 pitches); Sullivan reached on an error by 1b (which scored Farst and moved Tezak to 3b); and Belfonte singled (scoring Tezak). Texas then induced a double play and ground out to get out of the inning.

The Horns gave up 2 more in the bottom of the 5th: Bailey reached on a 2-out fielding error by 2b; Farst was hit by a pitch, moving Bailey to 2b; and Tezak singled and some sort of hell broke loose on an error by lf (both runners scored and Tezak reached 2b). At this point, Texas sent Shinaberry to the mound for Ruffin. And, he got the final batter of the inning to ground out to ss.

Texas scored a single run in the 6th: Keyes singled to cf, moved to 2b on a sac bunt by Rupp, and to 3b on a wild pitch; and after Loy struck out, Rowe singled to score Keyes.

And, the Horns scored one more in the top of the 7th: Torres singled to cf, stole 2b, and scored on a double by Belt. Yep, the bats are still swinging.

In the top of the 9th (the only inning I heard), Torres reached on a 1-out single blooped into shallow lf. He was erased on a fielder's choice (Belt batting). David Hernandez (pinch-hitting for Moldenhauer) grounded out to ss.

With the Horns up 7-4 going into the bottom of the 9th and Taylor Jungmann on the mound in relief, the Cornhuskers went:

• Asche (pinch-hitting) singled to rf.
• Kline struck out swinging.
• Bubak grounded out to the pitcher, moving Asche to 2b.
• Jungmann got ahead of Mort 0-2 but ended up walking him. Skip Johnson made a visit to the mound during the at-bat, by the way.
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound after the walk.
• Bailey singled to shallow left-center, scoring Asche and moving Mort to 3b.
• Cooper was sent in to pinch-run for Bailey.
• Farst popped out to ss behind 2b. Yes! And, whew!

So, Texas won 7-5. Craig Way said it was the first time Texas beat Nebraska in a series opener in Lincoln in 12 years. Nice. Keith Shinaberry, who went 0.2 innings in relief and threw a whopping 9 pitches, got the win! Heh. Austin Wood got his 7th save of the season. Sean Yost took the loss for the Huskers.

Here's the line (from Nebraska's LiveStats):

They start the 2nd game of the day at 6:00. Hook 'em, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 5:47 PM | Permalink

Thursday - April 9, 2009

No game today

I just saw on the TexasSports.com page that today's game has been postponed due to inclement weather. They say CBS Sports is still going to try to broadcast one of the games.

Posted by Joanna at 4:55 PM | Permalink

Tuesday - April 7, 2009

Game 29: TCU at Texas

TCU came to town today. I was just a wee bit worried about the visit. You see, TCU swept the New Mexico Lobos this weekend and went so far as to stomp them badly on Sunday, winning 19-3. The Lobos are ranked this year. The Lobos beat the Aggies twice in College Station a few weeks ago. So, you can see why I'd be a bit nervous, right? Silly me. Texas won handily, blanking the Horned Frogs 6-0. Nice. Best thing? The bats were still active. Two games in a row. After getting those 13 singles on Sunday, the Horns turned around and got 11 hits today (including 2 doubles and a beauty of a homerun by Kevin Keyes). I sure do hope it's a trend.

So, here are the starting line-ups:

TCU	Texas
1 Corey Steglich, cf 2 Taylor Featherston, 2b 3 Matt Carpenter, 3b 4 Chris Ellington, rf 5 Matt Vern, 1b 6 Bryan Holaday, c 7 Jason Coats, lf 8 Jimmie Pharr, dh 9 Ben Carruthers, ss - Greg Holle, p	1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Michael Torres, 3b 3 Brandon Belt, 1b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Tant Shepherd, lf 6 Cameron Rupp, c 7 Kevin Keyes, rf 8 Brandon Loy, ss 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p

Yes, indeedy...Brandon Belt back in the line-up. He seemed to be in fine form, too.

So, how'd things go? Like so...

• 1st inning, TCU
• Cole Green on the mound for Texas.
• Steglich grounded out to 2b.
• Featherston walked (full count)
• Carpenter hit into a very nice 3-6-3 double play. Yes, really. Belt fielded, threw to 2b (ss covering), and scampered back to 1b in plenty of time to take the throw back. Purty!
• 1st inning, Texas
• Greg Holle on the mound for TCU.
• Tucker grounded out to 3b.
• Torres grounded out to the pitcher
• Belt hit a double to lf. The ball alllllllmost cleared the fence at the TCU bullpen. But, it just stayed in the park and the TCU left-fielder just missed catching it.
• Moldenhauer's at-bat went like so: called strike, foul ball, ball, foul ball, ball, foul ball, ball, foul ball, foul ball, fly out to rf. Whew. 10 pitches. He was not about to let Holle off easily. Belt, by the way, also worked the count full and that double he hit was the 7th pitch of his at-bat.
• 2nd inning, TCU
• Ellington singled through the left side.
• Vern singled over Tucker into shallow rf, moving Ellington to 3b.
• Holaday struck out swinging. The strikeout pitch was wild, and the runners both took off. Happily for Texas, the pitched bounced off the wall behind the plate right back to Rupp. He turned and made a perfect throw to Green, covering the plate. Green got the tag down to turn a nice double play and prevent a run scoring. Vern safe at 2b on the play.
• With Coats at the plate, Vern stole 3b (on the 3rd pitch to Coats).
• Coats flew out to cf. Whew.
• 2nd inning, Texas
• Shepherd walked (5 pitches).
• Rupp moved Shepherd to 2b with a sac bunt to the pitcher. Coach Garrido, by the way, took an offensive time-out to talk things over with Rupp before he went to the plate.
• Keyes fought off several pitches before grounding out to 2b and moving Shepherd to 3b.
• Loy struck out looking. He looked at all three pitches, alas. Tsk tsk.
• 3rd inning, TCU
• Austin Dicharry to the mound for Texas.
• Pharr grounded out to ss.
• Carruthers singled to cf.
• Steglich singled (high bloop) into rf. Tucker almost caught the ball. It was close. Carruthers advanced to 2b.
• Featherston flew out to deep lf.
• Carpenter flew out to deep rf.
• 3rd inning, Texas
• Rowe led things off with a lovely double to lf.
• Tucker reached on a bunt single down the 3b line. On the play, the pitcher fielded...but nobody covered 1b. Mental lapse, I suppose. Rowe advanced to 3b. Tucker, by the way, stumbled and fell after he crossed the bag but waved off the trainer and seemed fine for the rest of the game. 'Hope he didn't hurt himself.
• Torres singled to lf, scoring Rowe and moving Tucker to 3b.
• TCU sent Taylor Cragin to the mound.
• Belt singled to rf, scoring Tucker and moving Torres to 3b.
• Moldenhauer lined out to 1b. The first baseman, took about 2 steps to step on the bag for an unassisted double play. Belt was only about 8 feet off the bag but the first baseman was closer when he caught the ball. Shucks.
• Shepherd flew out to shallow rf.
• Texas up 2-0.
• 4th inning, TCU
• Ellington popped out to ss.
• Vern struck out swinging. Rupp couldn't hang onto the ball and had to throw down to 1b to complete the out.
• Holaday: ditto. Swinging strikeout, throw down to 1b.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Rupp reached on an infield single off the shortstop.
• Keyes fouled off four pitches and watched 2 balls (not in that order) before hitting a homerun over the 405 sign in right-center...right at the folks sitting on the orange bus. Nice!
• Loy singled into cf.
• Loy was almost picked off 1b. He took off, the pitcher threw to 1b, 1b threw to ss, Loy started back to 1b, ss threw to 1b, Loy avoided the tag and made it back to 1b. TCU argued that Loy ran outside the base line but the umps disagreed. Whew.
• Rowe flew out to lf.
• Tucker singled to cf. Loy took a big turn around 2b, heading for 3b, but was sent back by Skip Johnson, coaching 3b. Loy hit the breaks and made it back to 2b safely. The throw back from cf to 3b was right on target so it was a good decision.
• Tucker singled to cf, moving Loy to 3b.
• TCU sent Tyler Lockwood to the mound.
• Torres singled o lf, scoring Loy and moving Tucker to 2b.
• Belt hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
• Texas up 5-0.
• 5th inning, TCU
• Coats worked the count full and then struck out looking.
• Pharr popped out to 2b.
• Carruthers doubled to the lf/cf gap.
• Steglich popped out to 2b in shallow rf.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Moldenhauer walked on 5 pitches.
• Shepherd grounded out to 1b (unassisted), moving Moldenhauer to 2b.
• Rupp grounded out to 3b, moving Moldenhauer to 3b.
• Keyes singled to lf, scoring Moldenhauer. Does Moldenhauer really have to have a name that takes so long to type? Really?
• Loy hit into a fielder's choice (ss fielded and stepped on 2b, to force Keyes).
• Texas up 6-0.
• 6th inning, TCU
• 3-up/3-down: Featherston grounded out to ss, Carpenter struck out swinging, and Ellington struck out swinging.
• 6th inning, Texas
• TCU sent Walker Kelly to the mound.
• Rowe worked the count full and then walked.
• Tucker got ahead 3-0, watched a called strike, fouled off 2, and then walked, moving Rowe to 2b. By the way, TCU did send a coach to the mound after the first ball to Rowe for a quick visit.
• Torres was told to bunt. The first pitch to him? Popped up. And, over the screen behind home plate! Yikes! The second pitch? Bunted nicely down the 3b line, moving Rowe to 3b and Tucker to 2b.
• Belt struck out swinging. The ball got away from the catcher but he managed to throw to 1b in plenty of time to complete the out.
• Texas announced David Hernandez as a pinch-hitter for Moldenhauer.
• TCU sent Eric Marshall to the mound in response.
• Pitch sequence to Hernandez: ball, called strike, ball, called strike, foul ball, foul ball, ball, called strike (and out).
• 7th inning, TCU
• Texas sent Stayton Thomas to the mound.
• Vern popped out to ss.
• Holaday doubled to lf.
• Coats grounded out to 2b. Holaday was not able to advance.
• Sadly, Thomas threw 3 balls to Pharr. Which prompted a visit to the mound. The fourth pitch was another ball, to walk Pharr.
• Texas sent Taylor Jungmann to the mound.
• Carruthers lined the first pitch he saw to 3b. Very nice.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Shepherd reached on an error by ss. The shortstop fielded in time but threw high to 1b.
• Rupp hit into a 6-4-3 double play. Yes, the third one turned by the Horned Frogs.
• Keyes grounded out to 2b.
• 8th inning, TCU
• Texas made their usual defensive substitutions: Kyle Lusson went into rf for Keyes and Tim Maitland went into lf for Shepherd.
• Steglich struck out looking.
• Featherston also struck out looking.
• Carpenter tripled to lf. On the play, Maitland charged hard in an attempt to catch the ball. He realized he wasn't going to be able to make the catch but pulled up too late. The ball got past him and rolled to the wall. Ouch.
• Ellington watched a couple of strikes and balls before fouling off 4 and eventually grounding out to 3b. Very nice play by Torres at 3b to field and throw the batter out.
• 8th inning, Texas
• 3-up/3-down: Loy grounded out to ss, Rowe struck out swinging, and Tucker popped out to ss.
• 9th inning, TCU
• Vern singled past a diving Loy into lf. Loy missed the ball by just a couple of inches.
• Holaday struck out looking.
• Texas turned their third double play of the day to end the game. 'Twas a thing of beauty. Coats hit a hard grounder that was headed into cf. Loy fielded behind 2b and realized he did not have time to turn so backhanded the ball toward Tucker. Tucker caught the ball with his bare hand, stepped on 2b, whirled, and threw to 1b to get the batter. It was a gorgeous play. Thanks, guys!
• Texas wins 6-0.

So, Austin Dicharry notched his 3rd win of the year. Holle took the loss for TCU. Texas pitchers combined to shut-out TCU on 8 hits (including 2 doubles and a triple), with 2 walks, 9 stikeouts, and no hit batters or wild pitches. Very nice.

Did you catch that part in the 4th where I mentioned Skip Johnson coaching 3b? As soon as the Horns went to bat in the bottom of the 1st, I noticed him out there without a jacket. I noticed the lack of a jacket before I noticed that the wrong person was out there. Skip Johnson always wears a wind-breaker (or, you know, a heavy coat if it's cold). Always. Except for when he doesn't. Which is, maybe, one game a year. No really. It's extremely unusual to see his number (47) during a game. So, that struck me first. Then, I was struck by the fact that it was the wrong guy out there. I wondered what was up. Mom listened to much of the game on the radio and they eventually reported that there'd been a death in Tommy Harmon's family, thus explaining his absence. My condolences to Coach Harmon and his family.

Here's the line (from GameTracker):

Nebraska is next up. They appear to be on the skids. They lost 0-15 at home tonight to Creighton. They were swept at home this weekend by Kansas State, by a combined score of 7-29. They've lost their last 6 games, are 4-8 in Big 12 play, and 16-15-1 overall. It's not pretty. They'll have a lot to prove. The first game on Thursday night will be aired on CBS College Sports (previously known as CSTV). Go, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 11:11 PM | Permalink

Sunday - April 5, 2009

Game 28: Texas at Oklahoma State

Rubber match. I watched the game on Fox Sports today. I hope you did the same! They said the game time temperature was 43 °F (wind chill about 33 °F) with 25-38 MPH winds out of the northwest as the game got underway. Yikes! I did listen to the pre-game show on the radio and Coach Garrido said you just have to play through it. He said the winning team will talk about the game after it's all over and the losing team will talk about the weather. Heh.

The starting line-ups:

Texas	Oklahoma State
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Brandon Loy, ss 3 Tant Shepherd, lf 4 Cameron Rupp, c 5 Preston Clark, 1b 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 David Hernandez, dh 8 Michael Torres, 3b 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Cole Green, p	1 Michael Dabbs, rf 2 Tyrone Hambly, ss 3 Neil Medchill, lf 4 Dean Green, 1b 5 Kevin David, dh 6 Tom Belza, 2b 7 Eric Walker, c 8 Randy McCurry, 3b 9 Rafael Thomas, cf - Tyler Lyons, p

The OSU starter is a lefty which moved David Hernandez back into today's line-up. Lyons' numbers: 6 starts, 4-2 record, 3.60 ERA, opponents are hitting .250 against him.

I contemplated not doing the full write-up today and then decided there wasn't much point in not doing it. So, here's how things played out:

• 1st inning, Texas
• Tyler Lyons (lhp) on the mound for OSU.
• Tucker singled to lf. Medchill in lf dove for the ball (being blown back toward the infield) but could not hold onto it.
• Loy popped a bunt attempt up to the pitcher.
• Shepherd hit a ground ball to 3b (should've been a pretty easy double-play). The third baseman threw wide of 2b and into rf. Tucker made it to 3b on the error. Runners at the corners. 1 out.
• Rupp singled through the right side, scoring Tucker (unearned) and moving Shepherd to 2b.
• Clark grounded out to the pitcher. Runners at 2b and 3b, 2 out.
• Keyes grounded out to 3b.
• Texas up 1-0.
• 1st inning, OSU
• Dabbs hit a rocket over the rf fence (2-0 count). Game tied.
• Hambly walked (full count).
• Which prompted a visit to the mound by Skip Johnson.
• Medchill homered (his 10th of the year) over the rf fence. Sigh.
• Green popped out to 1b in foul territory.
• David singled through the left side.
• Belza grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 2nd inning, Texas
• Hernandez popped out to 2b.
• Torres grounded out to ss.
• Rowe flew out to rf.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 2nd inning, OSU
• Walker flew out to cf.
• McCurry singled down the 3b line.
• Thomas hit into a 5-4-3 double play. Nice.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 3rd inning, Texas
• Tucker struck out swinging. Ouch.
• Loy flew out to rf.
• Shepherd walked (3-1 count).
• Rupp struck out swinging.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 3rd inning, OSU
• Dabbs grounded out to 3b (high chopper). The throw was a little off and Clark had to do the swing tag thing to complete the out.
• Hambly singled into rf.
• With Medchill at the plate (0-2 count), Texas went with a pitch-out and very nearly threw the ball away. Nice job by Rupp to catch the ball and keep Hambly at 1b.
• Medchill ended up drawing a full-count walk.
• And, Texas decided to change pitchers: Andrew McKirahan (lhp) to the mound or Cole Green.
• Green (left-handed batter) popped out...infield fly rule. The ball was headed into lf and then blew back inside the infield grass area where it fell in front of Loy (ss, who initially moved back and then was charging hard back toward the mound to try and catch the ball). The out gets credited to the ss.
• David struck out looking. Yes!
• Texas down 1-3.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Clark flew out to rf.
• Keyes singled (high bouncing chopper) up the middle.
• Hernandez reached on a 5-4 fielder's choice. OSU had a chance to turn a double play but the first baseman did not hold onto the ball. No error because you cannot assume the double play. It would've been close even if he'd held onto the ball.
• Torres hit a "bloop" single over ss, moving Hernandez to 3b.
• Which prompted a visit to the mound by Frank Anderson. Coach Garrido took advantage to talk to his batters at the same time.
• Rowe singled through the left side, scoring Hernandez and moving Torres to 2b.
• The first pitch to Tucker bounced and got away from the catcher. The runners advanced to 2b and 3b on the wild pitch.
• Torres broke for home, which caused the pitcher to balk, scoring Torres and moving Rowe to 3b. The pitcher didn't appear to go to his "set" position to pitch before the balk was called. The umpires discussed the matter after Frank Anderson vehemently argued the call and then upheld the balk ruling. During a subsequent break, one of the officials said the pitcher took an improper step off the rubber.
• Tucker singled to lf, scoring Rowe.
• With Loy at the plate, Tucker made a move to steal 2b. The pitcher again balked...no doubt about it this time. The pitcher did not take his foot off the rubber or step toward 1b before throwing the ball to 1b for the pick-off throw. Tucker safe at 2b.
• Loy singled through the left side, scoring Tucker! I thought there would be a play at home but the throw bounced a couple of times and was late.
• Shepherd singled to cf (ball went just under the second baseman's glove), moving Loy to 3b.
• Rupp fouled off a bunch of pitches and eventually grounded out to ss.
• Texas up 5-3.
• 4th inning, OSU
• Belza grounded out to 2b.
• Walker reached on a high single that fell between lf, cf, and ss. Thanks, wind.
• Walker moved to 2b on a wild pitch with McCurry at the plate.
• McCurry struck out swinging.
• Thomas worked the count full and then struck out swinging.
• Texas up 5-3.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Aside: the TV guys reported that Brett Anderson (Frank Anderson's son) made the Oakland A's roster this season. I remembered that he was drafted out of high school but couldn't remember if it was in 2006 or 2007 so checked and found he was drafted in the 2nd round of the MLB draft in 2006.
• Clark flew out to rf.
• Keyes grounded out to ss.
• Hernandez grounded out to 3b. Nice play by McCurry at 3b.
• Texas up 5-3.
• 5th inning, OSU
• Dabbs hit another homer over the rf fence. 'Glad there was nobody on base.
• After the 1st pitch (a ball) to Hambly, Skip Johnson made a trip to the mound.
• Hambly grounded out to 3b.
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound (replacing McKirahan).
• The TV guys announced at this point that due to travel plans, no inning would start after 4 o'clock. It was about 2:50 when they made the annoucement.
• Medchill grounded out to 1b (3-1, p covering 1b).
• Green grounded out to the pitcher.
• Texas up 5-4.
• 6th inning, Texas
• Torres struck out swinging (foul tip).
• Rowe flew out to lf.
• Tucker singled through the left side...just past the ss.
• Loy also singled through the left side, moving Tucker to 2b.
• Shepherd grounded out to ss.
• Texas up 5-4.
• 6th inning, OSU
• David flew out to cf.
• Belza flew out to rf.
• Walker flew out to cf. Rowe and Keyes almost ran into each other as they both went for the ball. Yikes.
• Texas up 5-4.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Lyons had thrown 121 pitches through the 6th.
• Rupp drew a 5-pitch walk.
• Clark hit a sac bunt (1-3) down the 1b line, moving Rupp to 2b.
• Keyes singled through the left side, moving Rupp to 3b.
• Frank Anderson made a visit to the mound.
• Hernandez reached on a fielder's choice. Lyons fielded and tried to throw the runner out at home. The ball got past the catcher, though (E1), and the run scored. Keyes ended up at 3b and Hernandez at 2b.
• Torres grounded out to 1b. On the play, the infield was pulled in to cover a bunt attempt. Torres did not bunt the ball but he did chop it and the first baseman fielded as though it were a bunt, and threw Torres out at 1b (second baseman covering). Runners still at 2b and 3b.
• OSU sent Brad Propst (rhp) to the mound for Lyons.
• Russell Moldenhauer (pinch-hitting for Rowe) singled to lf, scoring Keyes and Hernandez.
• Texas sent Kyle Lusson in to pinch-run for Moldenhauer.
• Tucker grounded out to the pitcher (bunt attempt).
• Texas up 8-4.
• 7th inning, OSU
• Texas kept Kyle Lusson in the game in cf.
• McCurry lined out to ss.
• Thomas singled past Austin Wood's head into cf.
• Dabbs singled through the right side, moving Thomas to 3b.
• Hambly struck out swinging.
• With Medchill at the plate, the home plate ump called a balk on Woods. Thomas scored and Dabbs moved to 2b.
• Medchill flew out to cf.
• Texas up 8-5.
• 8th inning, Texas
• It was 3:39 as the 8th inning got underway.
• McCurry went to the mound for the Cowboys, replacing Propst. Belza moved to ss, Hambly moved to 3b, and Duren went in at 2b (taking David's spot in the line-up). No more dh for OSU.
• Loy grounded out to 2b.
• Shepherd flew out to lf.
• Rupp grounded out (high chopper) to the pitcher.
• Texas up 8-5.
• 8th inning, OSU
• Texas sent Tim Maitland in at cf (taking Keyes' spot in the line-up) and moved Lusson to rf.
• Green struck out looking.
• Duren also struck out looking.
• Belza struck out swinging.
• Purty.
• Texas up 8-5. Time on the clock? 3:51. They will play the 9th.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Clark popped out to 2b in very shallow rf.
• Maitland struck out swinging (foul tip).
• Hernandez singled over the shortstop into shallow lf.
• Torres hit into a 4-6 fielder's choice.
• Texas up 8-5.
• 9th inning, OSU
• Mark Ginther (pinch-hitting for Walker) struck out swinging!
• McCurry struck out swinging! (After working the count full.)
• Thomas struck out swinging!!!
• Final 6 outs for Texas: all strikeouts!
• Texas wins 8-5.

Excellent. The Horns managed to string together several hits today and ended up tying their season-high with 13 hits. The Horns also had 13 hits in their Feb. 24th game against UT-Arlington (W 4-3), their March 1st game against Penn State (W 9-0), and their March 6th game against Stanford (W 6-2). Again I say: excellent. Andrew McKirahan got his first win of the season and Austin Wood got his 5th save.

UPDATE (9:30 pm): Interestingly, the Texas page lists the winner as Austin Wood with no save. The OSU page still lists Andrew McKirahan as the winner with Wood getting a save. Weird, eh?

Here's the line (from OSU's LiveStats):

The Horns host TCU on Tuesday at 6 o'clock before making another road trip to Nebraska on Easter weekend. Note that the Horns will be playing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in that series.

Posted by Joanna at 4:20 PM | Permalink

Saturday - April 4, 2009

Game 27: Texas at Oklahoma State

Again, I listened to the game on the radio. Craig Way and Keith Moreland doing the broadcast. They'll be back in Austin tomorrow for the football scrimmage and a non-UT guy's gonna be doing the radio broadcast. Luckily, tomorrow's game will be on TV (Fox Sports) so we shouldn't miss them too much.

The starting line-ups:

Texas	Oklahoma State
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Brandon Loy, ss 3 Michael Torres, 3b 4 Russell Moldenhauer, dh 5 Cameron Rupp, c 6 Tant Shepherd, lf 7 Kevin Keyes, rf 8 Preston Clark, 1b 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Brandon Workman, p	1 Michael Dabbs, cf 2 Tyrone Hambly, ss 3 Neil Medchill, lf 4 Dean Green, 1b 5 Randy McCurry, 3b 6 Tom Belza, 2b 7 Doug Kroll, rf 8 Eric Walker, c 9 Rafael Thomas, dh - Tyler Blandford, p

Russell Moldenhauer back in...David Hernandez back out. I guess that means today's starter is a right-handed pitcher. Craig and Keith did comment that OSU played a game last week wherein a different pitcher threw each inning and that we might see that again today. Odd. OSU did win that game, though. Shrug.

And, here's how things played out:

• 1st inning, Texas
• Tyler Blandford (rhp) on the mound for OSU.
• Tucker singled to rf.
• Loy bunted a couple of balls foul between several throws from the pitcher to 1b (trying to keep Tucker close). Loy hit a slow-roller to 2b as Tucker took off with the pitch. Loy out (4-2) and Tucker safe at 2b.
• Torres flew out to cf at the warning track. Tucker tagged and moved up to 3b.
• Keith made a pointed comment about the home plate umpire (Curtis Alexander) having a very tight strike zone that tends to float around. He did not seem at all impressed. Heh.
• Moldenhauer flew out to lf for the 3rd out.
• 1st inning, OSU
• Brandon Workman (rhp) on the mound for Texas.
• Keith, as they waited during the warm-up pitches, made his case again for the possibility that the Big 12 regular-season champion could easily have a 17-10 record in conference games by the end of the season. Parity, he says.
• Dabbs grounded out to 3b. Torres threw a bit high. Clark made a nice adjustment and got the sweep tag down.
• Hambly popped out behind the plate to the catcher.
• Medchill drew a full-count walk. Craig and Keith both commented that Rupp, Workman, and everyone else in the park except the home plate ump thought the 3rd ball called was, in fact, a third strike. Another comment about Alexander's strike zone and the fact that you just have to live with it and hope it doesn't vary too much as the game goes along.
• Green lined out to cf.
• 2nd inning, Texas
• OSU did not change pitchers...Blandford still on the mound.
• Rupp walked on 4 pitches.
• Shepherd hit a sac bunt (3-4) down the 1b line to move Rupp to 2b.
• Keyes struck out swinging.
• With Clark at the plate, Rupp moved to 3b on a passed ball that got away from the catcher.
• Clark flew out to lf.
• Shucks. 2 innings in-a-row with runners at 3b and no runs scored. Maybe next time.
• 2nd inning, OSU
• McCurry grounded out to 3b. Great play by Torres to knock the ball down and gun McCurry out at 1b.
• Belza flew out to cf.
• Kroll struck out swinging (3 pitches).
• 3rd inning, Texas
• Rowe flew out to lf. Sigh. Is it too much to ask for 3 dingers in 2 games? Ah well...there's still time. Heh.
• Tucker grounded out (bunt attempt) to the pitcher. He was trying to hit it down the 3b line but didn't quite get it there.
• Loy struck out swinging.
• 3rd inning, OSU
• Walker grounded out to 1b (unassisted).
• Thomas grounded out to ss (1st pitch).
• Dabbs singled down the 3b line. First OSU hit of the day. And why? Because Keith couldn't help but comment on the fact that he was expecting a hitting exhibition today (what with the strong wind to lf) and instead the game had been dominated by the pitchers. Thanks, Keith.
• Hambly hit a ball into rf that fell in front of Keyes, who made a hard charge but could not get to the ball.
• Runners at the corners. 2 out.
• Skip Johnson made a visit to the mound.
• Medchill grounded out to the pitcher.
• Whew.
• 4th inning, Texas
• Torres grounded out to 2b.
• Moldenhauer grounded out to 1b.
• Rupp drew a full-count walk.
• Shepherd doubled off the wall in cf, scoring Rupp. 'Sounded like Rupp barely beat the relay throw to the plate. Whew.
• Keyes grounded out to 2b.
• Texas up 1-0.
• 4th inning, OSU
• Green (called a "Human Rain Delay" by Keith...for taking so long to get into the box) hit a homerun over the rf wall.
• McCurry flew out to cf.
• Belza hit a double to the lf/cf gap.
• Which prompted another trip to the mound by Skip Johnson. During the mound conference, Keith pointed out that the wind was still blowing hard but that now it was blowing more to straight-away cf. Earlier in the game it was blowing more toward lf.
• Kroll struck out looking (full count).
• Walker hit a 2-run homer over the lf fence. Ouch. Here are the homers Keith was expecting at the start of the game.
• Thomas was hit by the first pitch he saw.
• Pitching change. Keith Shinaberry (lhp) went to the mound, replacing Workman.
• Dabbs (left-handed hitter) grounded out to the pitcher.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Clark grounded out to 3b. The throw to 1b was low but the first baseman made a nice pick to make the out.
• Rowe struck out swinging.
• Tucker reached on a 4-pitch walk.
• Loy walked (also on 4 pitches). I like it.
• Frank Anderson made a visit to the mound. Garrido took advantage and visited with Torres.
• First two pitches after the visit to Torres were called strikes. Next pitch in the dirt. Then a couple of foul balls. Then a ball. 2-2 count. Torres then popped out to 2b. Sigh.
• Texas down 1-3.
• 5th inning, OSU
• Shinaberry stayed in the game for the Horns.
• Hambly doubled into the lf/cf gap.
• Medchill lined out to ss. Hambly stayed at 2b...no chance of doubling him off.
• Green singled up the middle, scoring Hambly.
• Which prompted a pitching change. Taylor Jungmann (rhp) to the mound, replacing Shinaberry.
• McCurry struck out swinging.
• Belza walked on 4 pitches.
• Kroll popped out to 2b.
• Texas down 1-4.
• 6th inning, Texas
• Moldenhauer was hit by a 2-0 pitch to get aboard.
• Rupp hit into a 5-4-3 double play. Ouch.
• Shepherd lined out to lf.
• Texas down 1-4.
• 6th inning, OSU
• Keith again started talking about how he really expected more runs at this point in the game...what with the gale-force winds. Why doesn't he say these things when the Horns are batting? Tsk tsk.
• Walter lined out to cf.
• Thomas lined a full-count walk.
• Dabbs flew out to cf.
• Hambly hit into a 6-4 fielder's choice.
• Texas down 1-4.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Keyes struck out swinging.
• Clark grounded out to 3b.
• Rowe grounded out to the pitcher (1st pitch).
• Texas down 1-4.
• 7th inning, OSU
• Medchill doubled off the wall in cf. Again, immediately after Keith commented on the stiff wind. Thanks again, Keith.
• Green grounded out to ss. Medchill still at 2b.
• McCurry struck out swinging.
• Texas intentionally walked Belza to get to right-hander Kroll.
• Kroll struck out swinging. The ball got away from Rupp who threw to 1b but the throw was low. The runner from 2b was running on the pitch and scored on the error. Scored as a passed ball with an error charged to 1b for not digging the throw out. Sigh. I don't know how the batter could run on the play since there was a runner at 1b. I've seen that before but it never makes any sense to me.
• Runners at 1b and 2b, 2 out.
• Walker walked to load the bases.
• Which prompted a visit to the mound.
• Thomas hit a high chopper over 3b, scoring Kroll and Belza. Hmmmm...Belza scored? Wasn't he intentionally walked? Yeah. 'Gotta love intentional walks, doncha?
• Runners at 1b and 2b, 2 out.
• Dabbs struck out looking.
• Texas down 1-7. Bah.
• 8th inning, Texas
• Tucker struck out looking (full count).
• Loy walked.
• Which prompted a pitching change. McCurry (rhp) went from 3b to the mound. OSU sent Hambly from ss to 3b, Belza from 2b to ss, and Duren in at 2b (replacing Thomas in the line-up and removing the dh from the game for OSU).
• Torres singled through the left side, moving Loy to 2b.
• Moldenhauer struck out swinging.
• Rupp struck out swinging (on 3 pitches).
Texas down 1-7.
• 8th inning, OSU
• Hambly struck out swinging.
• Medchill flew out to cf (1st pitch).
• Green grounded out to 2b. Nice play by Tucker.
• Texas down 1-7.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Shepherd walked. Tim Maitland went in to pinch-run for Shepherd.
• Keyes singled down the lf line, moving Maitland to 3b.
• Anderson made a very quick trip to the mound with a 2-1 count to Clark.
• Clark struck out swinging.
• Rowe struck out swinging.
• Tucker was hit by a pitch (2-1 count, I think) to load the bases.
• Loy grounded out to 1b (unassisted) to end the game.
• Texas loses 1-7. Ugh.

It just sounded ugly, people. Texas struggled at the plate again only getting single hits in the 1st, 4th, 8th, and 9th; no multiple-hit innings. Brandon Workman took the loss, Tyler Blandford got the win. And, that's all I have to say today. Wish I had more but I don't. It was not a fun game.

Here's the line (from OSU's LiveStats):

Posted by Joanna at 5:08 PM | Permalink

Friday - April 3, 2009

Game 26: Texas at Oklahoma State

I listened to the beginning of the game from my office. Craig Way and Keith Moreland on KVET. Craig said the wind was blowing hard toward lf and that the temperature had been in the lower sixties earlier in the afternoon. Keith commented that they'd gotten lucky with the weather and that it looked like they'd be able to get all their games in this weekend.

Quick note: Craig reported that Brandon Belt is doing better but did not make the trip to Okalahoma.

The starting line-ups:

Texas	Oklahoma State
1 Travis Tucker, 2b 2 Brandon Loy, ss 3 Tant Shepherd, lf 4 Cameron Rupp, c 5 Preston Clark, 1b 6 Kevin Keyes, rf 7 David Hernandez, dh 8 Michael Torres, 3b 9 Connor Rowe, cf - Chance Ruffin, p	1 Michael Dabbs, cf 2 Kevin David, c 3 Neil Medchill, lf 4 Dean Green, 1b 5 Tyrone Hambly, 3b 6 Tom Belza, ss 7 Doug Kroll, rf 8 Davis Duren, 2b 9 Mark Ginther, dh - Andrew Oliver, p

And, here's how things played out:

• 1st inning, Texas
• Andrew Oliver (lefty) on the mound for the Cowboys.
• I actually missed the Texas half of the inning but saw on the OSU LiveStats page that the Horns went 3-up/3-down. Tucker popped out to ss, Loy flew out to cf, and Shepherd went down swinging.
• 1st inning, OSU
• Chance Ruffin on the mound for Texas.
• Dabbs struck out singing (Rupp held onto the 3rd strike foul tip).
• David grounded out to 3b.
• Medchill struck out swinging. Yes!
• 2nd inning, Texas
• Rupp struck out swinging.
• Clark worked the count full and then popped out to 2b.
• Keyes doubled to the right-center alley.
• Hernandez walked on 5 pitches.
• Torres hit a 3-run homer over the lf fence!
• Rowe also homered to lf!!!
• Frank Anderson made a trip to the mound.
• Tucker singled through the left side.
• Loy hit a double to the left-center gap, scoring Tucker.
• Shepherd reached on a 4-pitch.
• Rupp grounded out to 1b.
• Texas up 5-0.
• And, with that, I headed home...to continue this report when I got there.
• 'Got home in time for the bottom of the 4th. While I was in transit, OSU got a 1-out single but the runner was stranded at 1b in the bottom of the 2nd. Texas went down in order in the top of the 3rd. Dabbs reached on a 2-out triple in the bottom of the 3rd but, again, was stranded. Sadly, Texas went down in order again in the top of the 4th.
• 4th inning, OSU
• Medchill singled to cf to start things off.
• Green fouled off several pitches, worked the count full, fouled off a few more, and eventually walked. Ruffin almost picked Medchill off after the count reached full but Medchill just beat the throw back to 1b.
• Hambly bunted down the 1b line. Clark fielded and threw Green out at 2b. Runners at the corners with 1 out.
• Belza flew out to cf (sac), scoring Medchill. Hambly still at 1b.
• Kroll hit into a 5-4 fielder's choice to end the inning.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 5th inning, Texas
• Loy reached on an infield single (chopper) down the 1b line. Keith commented that Green (1b) made a mistake by trying to field the ball. If he'd stayed at 1b to let the pitcher field, the Cowyboys might have had a play. As it was, when the pitcher fielded, Loy was past him and nobody covering 1b.
• Shepherd tried to bunt the first pitch down the 1b line. Green (1b) fielded and tagged Shepherd out. But, the home plate umpire ruled the ball foul. Frank Anderson not happy with the call. Shepherd ended up flying out to cf. Better result for OSU. Shucks.
• Rupp worked the count full and eventually drew a walk, moving Loy to 2b.
• Clark popped out to 1b (in foul territory).
• Keyes flew out to rf.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 5th inning, OSU
• Duren hit a slow roller down the 3b line. Torres made a great play to charge, scoop, and throw the batter out!
• Ginther popped out to the catcher behind the plate.
• Dabbs grounded out to 3b.
• I wasn't counting pitches but that seemed like 6 or fewer pitches. Nice.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 6th inning, Texas
• Hernandez popped out to 1b in foul territory.
• Torres singled to cf.
• Rowe grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. Bah.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 6th inning, OSU
• David grounded out to ss.
• Medchill popped out to ss in foul territory..nice run and play by Loy!!
• Green grounded out to 3b. Torres at 3b made a great play to knock the ball down and throw the batter out at 1b.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 7th inning, Texas
• Tucker grounded out to 2b.
• Loy popped out to shallow cf.
• Shepherd flew out to shallow rf.
• Texas up 5-1.
• 7th inning, OSU
• Hambly flew out to cf.
• Belza flew out to lf. Keith commented that the wind had died down quite a bit since the sun had gone down and that the ball might've been out of the park earlier in the game.
• Kroll singled to lf. Shepherd misjudged the ball and it got past him to the wall, allowing Kroll to reach 2b (E7).
• Randy McCurry (pinch-hitting for Duren) singled through the left side, scoring Kroll.
• Ginther hit into a 5-4 fielder's choice. Criag thought the ball was going to get past Torres at 3b but it didn't. Torres fielded and threw the lead runner out to end the inning!
• Texas up 5-2.
• 8th inning, Texas
• McCurry stayed in the game and went in at 3b. Belza moved to 2b and Hambly moved to ss.
• Rupp walked on 4 pitches.
• Which prompted a pitching change. Jeff Breedlove (righty) went to the mound for Oliver.
• Clark hit a sac bunt (1-3) to move Rupp to 2b.
• Keyes grounded out to 2b, moving Rupp to 3b.
• Hernandez singled into cf, scoring Rupp!
• Which prompted another pitching change. Thomas Keeling (lefty) to the mound for Breedlove.
• With Torres at the plate, Hernandez advanced to 2b on a wild pitch.
• The count went full on the next pitch (ball) and then Torres was called out on strikes.
• Texas up 6-2.
• 8th inning, OSU
• Two defensive changes for Texas: Tim Maitland went into lf (for Shepherd) and Kyle Lusson went into rf (for Keyes).
• Dabbs reached on a 4-pitch walk.
• Skip Johnson made a trip to the mound.
• David flew out to lf.
• Medchill singled into rf, moving Dabbs to 3b.
• Texas sent Austin Wood to the mound, replacing Ruffin.
• Green hit into a 4-6-3 double play!!
• Texas up 6-2.
• 9th inning, Texas
• Rowe hit another solo shot over the lf fence!!!!! Way cool.
• Tucker popped out to 1b.
• Loy struck out swinging.
• Lusson (first at-bat of the night) fouled off a couple of pitches, watched a ball, and then struck out looking.
• Texas up 7-2.
• 9th inning, OSU
• Hambly grounded out on a slow roller to 2b.
• Belza singled into rf.
• Kroll grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the game!
• Texas wins 7-2.

Fantastic. How 'bout Connor Rowe hitting 2 solo shots? Very cool. And, how 'bout the fact that the Horns go down in order in 4 innings (and send only 3 to the plate in another that ended with a double play) but still manage to score 7 runs? I was very happy to see 'em come back and score those insurance runs in the 8th and 9th. Excellent. Chance Ruffin gets the win and goes to 5-2 on the year. And, Austin Wood earned his 5th save of the season.

Here's the line (from OSU's LiveStats):

Posted by Joanna at 9:30 PM | Permalink

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