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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