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Saturday - April 18, 2009

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