« Game 40: Kansas State at Texas | Main | Game 42: Texas State at Texas »

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