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Saturday - March 13, 2010
Game 14: Iowa at Texas
Texas beat Iowa 3-1 in the opener of today's double-header. Cole Green got the complete-game victory and even managed to hit a single! So much fun. Kevin Lusson homered in the 2nd and the Horns put single runs across in the 4th and 5th. Nice game.
Quick post from the field. Full report to come this evening. Watch for an update here.
UPDATE. The first game of today's double-header went 7 innings. The Horns played with the lineup in both games today. Jonathan Walsh got his first start of the year behind the plate in the first game. It looked like he might've been a wee bit excited at the beginning (he had a couple of bad throws to 2b) but settled down nicely (caught a batter stealing on his 3rd throw to 2b).
As I mentioned in my brief update from the field, Cole Green pitched a complete game. By my count, he threw 106 pitches (67 strikes), faced 27 batters, hit 2 (yikes!), walked 1, struck out 9, gave up 4 hits, and the one run (unearned). He also ended up getting a plate appearance in which he hit a single through the right side. He almost hit a double down the lf line on the previous pitch but he was about a foot foul. Pretty cool. He's now had 3 plate appearances in his Texas career and is batting 1.000 with two singles and a sac bunt. Ha! Gotta love it.
Texas made me a bit unhappy, though, when they...once again...gave up a run in the first inning. Green struck out the side. But. It went like so...
- Kurtis Muller (cf) struck out swinging (2-1 count).
- Mike McQuillan (2b) singled up the middle (0-1 count). The ball went between Green's legs! Yikes.
- With Ryan Durant (rf) at the plate, McQuillan stole 2b. Walsh's throw was very high.
- Durant struck out looking (full count).
- With Dallas Burke (dh) at the plate, McQuillan easily stole 3b.
- Burke then reached on an error by 3b, scoring McQuillan. On the play, Kevin Lusson fielded the ball and then appeared to get his cleat stuck in the turf as he was trying to transfer the ball to his throwing hand. No throw. E5. Kinda bizarre.
- With Sean Flanagan (1b) at the plate, Burke stole 2b. The throw from Walsh was way over the 2b head and off-line. It sailed into cf and Burke made it to 3b on the second error of the inning. Ouch.
- Flanagan went on to strike out swinging (2-1 count). Whew.
The Hawkeyes got a runner to 3b in the 2nd (single, sac bunt, groundout advance) but stranded him there. The got 2 aboard in the 3rd via hit batsmen but the first was caught stealing (!) and the second was forced out at 2nd on a double play. They went down in order in the 4th and 5th. With 2 out (via strikeouts) in the 6th, they threatened again...this time, hitting back-to-back singles, but the next batter struck out. The second batter of the 7th drew the only walk of the day but the next two batters went down swinging. Sweet.
Offensively, the Horns continued to struggle at the plate but got timely hitting when they needed it. They stranded the lead-off batter at 3b in the 1st (tsk tsk). Kevin Lusson hit a solo homerun into the street over the rf fence in the 2nd to tie the game. They went down in order in the 3rd. And, scored the go-ahead run in the 4th:
- Kevin Keyes doubled to the lf/cf gap to lead things off.
- Paul Montalbano grounded out to 2b, moving Keyes to 3b.
- Kevin Lusson drew a full-count walk to put runners at the corners.
- Cohl Walla reached on an infield single to ss, scoring Keyes and moving Lusson to 2b. I think the play was initially ruled an error but was changed to a hit (high throw from ss seemed to pull the first baseman off the bag but they ended up going with an infield hit).
- Jonathan Walsh flew out to lf.
- Jordan Etier struck out swinging.
Texas scored a second run in the 5th:
- Tant Shepherd was hit by a pitch.
- Brandon Loy tried to bunt Shepherd to 2b but ended up drawing a 4-pitch walk.
- Cameron Rupp hit a nice sac bunt on the 3b side to advance the runners to 2b and 3b.
- Kevin Keyes grounded out to ss (very hard-hit ball), scoring Shepherd. Loy had to hold up at 2b.
- Paul Montalbano flew out to shallow lf.
Rupp, who started at dh, moved to c for the top of the 6th. Since he'd been the dh, that necessitated the move of Cole Green into the lineup (taking Walsh's #8 spot). Green came up to bat in the bottom of the 6th with Kevin Lusson at 1b (who'd reached on an error when the ss dropped a sky-high pop-up that, I guess, he lost in the sun) and one out. He watched a strike and a then ripped a ball just barely foul down the lf line, almost got hit by the 3rd pitch, and then hit a beauty of a single through the right side, moving Lusson to 2b. That single chased the starter out of the game. Heh. Etier then flew out and Shepherd hit into a fielder's choice to end the inning.
The line...
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| Texas | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | - | 3 | 5 | 2 |
I didn't time the break between games but think it was about 30 minutes. The report on the second game coming up shortly...
Posted by Joanna at 2:54 PM