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Tuesday - March 8, 2011

Game 12: UT-San Antonio at Texas

Oh, my goodness...what a game! It was oh-so-very good. And, then oh-so-very aggravating. And, then oh-so-very exciting. Whew. I'm exhausted. Oh, and the Horns won 8-5 in 11 innings. Game-winning shot? 2-out 3-run walk-off home run by Tant Shepherd into the UTSA bullpen. Sweet. The box:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	R	H	E
UT-San Antonio	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	5	6	2
Texas	0	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	8	8	3

For some reason I seem to be really sleepy tonight. So, I'm gonna sign off for the moment. I'll be back with a complete game report either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. Zzzzzz...

CONTINUED (late on March 10th...sorry it took so long to get back to this)...

Cole Green started for the Horns. I think they were hoping to just get him to relax and play ball without the pressure of a series weighing on him. It worked. He went 4 innings and really had a stellar outing. He faced one batter above the minimum (which adds up to 13). He struck out 9 of those guys...including 8 of the last 9 he faced. He struck out the side in the 3rd and 4th innings. It was truly beautiful.

And, then they reverted to pitch-by-committee for the rest of the game. I really don't like them doing this in midweek games. I know the goal is to get everyone some work...or see how people are doing...or...shrug...something that must make sense to the coaches (otherwise, why do it?)...but, it just doesn't seem to work. Things went to hell in the 8th when the Horns, ahead 5-0, gave up 5 unearned runs. It was brutal. And, it meant that the team had to resort to letting Corey Knebel (who's really starting to show some closer fire for the Horns) throw 30-40 more pitches than I imagine they would've liked so they wouldn't end up with another mid-week loss. So frustrating.

Oh, well.

I already mentioned Tant Shepherd's homer. But, it was Jordan Etier who got the first homer of the year for the Horns. He led off the 3rd with a lovely shot just over the lf fence near the 375 sign. It was cool. Here's how the Horns scored their runs:

• 2nd inning: With 1 out, Jonathan Walsh reached on an infield single that bounced over the pitcher's head. He moved to 2b when Jacob Felts drew a full-count walk. With Shepherd at the plate, Walsh and Felts executed a lovely double steal. Sadly, Shepherd struck out a couple of pitches later. But (!), Kevin Lusson then singled through the left side, scoring both runners. Felts actually missed the plate as he tried to slide in and beat the throw from lf. The catcher didn't realize it, though, because he saw that Lusson was trying to stretch his single into a double and gunned a throw to 2b that easily caught Lusson for the final out. But, not before Felts managed to tag home plate and score. Whew.
• 3rd inning: Etier led things off with that homerun I mentioned. Brandon Loy and Mark Payton then reached on back-to-back throwing errors by the UTSA pitcher. Both players bunted balls fielded by the pitcher. Both throws to 1b sailed way over the first baseman's head. Loy moved to 2b on the first error and scored on the 2nd. Payton ended up at 2b on the second error. He tagged and moved up to 3b on a Cohl Walla fly-out to cf. Erich Weiss then reached on a 5-pitch walk. Walsh did the same to load the bases. Felts grounded out to 1b (unassisted), scoring Payton. And, Shepherd ended the inning with his second strikeout of the day.
• 11th inning: Walsh reached on an 2-out single through the right side. He stole 2b and then Felts drew a 4-pitch walk. The last pitch of the walk was wild (!) and Walsh advanced to 3b on the wild pitch. With Shepherd at the plate, Felts stole 2b. Two pitches later, Shepherd hit his game-winning 3-run homerun into the visitor bullpen down the lf line. Purty, purty, purty.

Prior to that game-winning homerun, Shepherd had gone 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts and a hit-by-pitch. The pitch sequence on his final at-bat: swinging strike, foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, ball, ball, homerun!!! A very, very nice at-bat...especially considering how much he'd struggled at the plate earlier in the game.

Check out the highlights from the game for video of both homeruns and a few other things that went down.

Hook 'em, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 10:13 PM