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Sunday - May 22, 2011

Game 53: Texas A&M at Texas

Yes, I know...late again. I admit it. I just didn't want to face reality. And, frankly, you get what you pay for around these parts. Sigh...

So, here's what happened in Game 3 of the Texas/Texas A&M series:

Yeah.

The Horns got one runner (yes...count him, one) into scoring position. One. During the whole game. Get this...he was the very first batter of the game. Brandon Loy reached on a fielding error by the third baseman who was in place to catch an infield pop-up and it bounced off the heal of his glove onto the field. Loy made it to 2b on the error. Mark Payton then reached on a beauty of a bunt single down the 3b line, moving Loy to 3b. Tant Shepherd (who...I can't believe I'm typing this...went 0-fer the series!) struck out swinging. And, Erich Weiss (who went 0-fer on the day) grounded into a 3-6-3 double play to end the only chance Texas really had to score. Ross Stripling threw a really nice game for the Aggies. By my count, he threw 107 pitches (71 for strikes). He faced 30 Texas batters. He struck out 6 and gave up 4 hits. He didn't walk any. He didn't hit any. It was a miserable day at the plate for Texas hitters.

The first three pitchers for Texas combined for 8 innings that were nearly as impressive. Sam Stafford, Nathan Thornhill, and Hoby Milner combined to face 31 batters. They didn't allow any runs, struck out 7, walked 3, and gave up 5 hits. Alas, Corey Knebel (who's had one of the best, if not the best, freshman seasons ever by a Texas pitcher) did not have a good night as he went in for the 9th. He struck out the first batter he faced and then gave up a single past the ss, a bunt single down the 3b line, and then a bloop single down the line into shallow lf (Loy almost got to it but...alas...) to load the bases. What??? With everyone pulled in, Knebel gave up a triple that soared just over Paul Montalbano's outreached glove and rolled to the wall (a play that normally would have been a line-drive out to cf, had not the outfield been pulled in...and, yes, Montalbano did initially misjudge the ball and take a couple of steps in before realizing it was hit harder than he first guessed). Knebel did bear down to get a strikeout and a ground out to end things but the damage was already done. In the bottom of the 9th, the Horns went 1-2-3...as they'd done in the 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th innings. Ugh.

I was very disappointed that the Horns could not pull off the sweep. But, sweeps are hard. Especially when you come up against a pitcher who's throwing a career game. And, Texas has not been a team that sweeps other teams this year. They only swept two 3-game series this year...as opposed to six (!) last year.

I really don't know what to expect from this team in post-season play. They have shown flashes of brilliance this year. But...so far...they just don't seem to have what it takes to slam the door shut.

They did earn the #1 seed in the Big 12 tournament. They ended up tied with the Aggies for the regular season crown but by virtue of the series head-to-head win, they earned the top spot. The tournament has returned to the 2-bracket double-elimination format this year (as opposed to the round-robin pool format they'd used the last few years). The winners of each bracket then meet for a winner-take-all game on the final day of the tournament. The Horns are set to play Missouri (who they did sweep in Austin the first weekend of April) at 12:30 pm on Wednesday. Subsequent game times and opponents will depend on how things go as the tournament plays out.

Hook 'em, Horns!

Posted by Joanna at 11:31 PM