The Red Raiders won the Friday night game in Tucson 9-5, but dropped Saturday’s game two 14-6 setting up Sunday’s rubber match.
Jackson Burns was on the mound for Texas Tech and despite giving up a two-run home run in the first inning he settled in for a pretty nice afternoon. He went a full five innings and would leave after the first batter of the sixth inning hit a big fly to tie the game at 6. Luckily for Burns, the Texas Tech offense had a big second inning which let him pitch with the lead or tied for most of his 70 pitches.
Burns only struck out two batters and gave up nine hits, but kept the free passes to a minimum and had the Red Raiders in a solid position when he exited the game. Jonny Lowe did also give up a home run in the 6th to give up the lead, but that was short lived for Arizona.
The top of the 2nd inning saw Jesse Rusinek, Robin Villeneuve, and Linkin Garcia knock in runs while Connor Shouse added an RBI walk as the Red Raiders took a 5-2 lead. Caden Ferraro would later walk with the bases loaded to take the lead back 6-5 in the top of the 6th. After those two home runs in the bottom of the 6th chased Burns and gave Arizona the lead back, Texas Tech’s offense took firm control of the game in the top of the 7th.
Robin Villeneuve started the action on the bases with a one out double before getting over to third base on an infield hit from Kyeler Thompson that was ruled a fielder’s choice as they failed to tag Villeneuve out at 3rd. He’d come home on a wild pitch to tie the game. After a Tracer Lopez walk, Shouse stepped up to the plate and swung so hard he seemingly hurt his knee. After shaking it off, he ripped a major league home run to left field to give Texas Tech the 10-7 lead.
A walk, double and single would eventually bring in two more runs to give Texas Tech a 12-7 lead.
Logan Bevis would enter in the bottom of the 7th and get two quick outs before pitching around two base runners to keep the Wildcats off the board. Texas Tech’s offense would go 1,2,3 in the top of the 8th with all three batters striking out.
The bottom of the 8th inning was an adventure with Logan Bevis returning to the mound for another inning of work. A foul out and a walk would send Tim Tadlock back to the mound to call on freshman right fielder Rusinek to finish the inning.
Rusinek didn’t look as sharp as he did on Friday night. He allowed a single before getting the second out of the inning by fielding a ground bare handed and tossing it to first. Rusinek then lost a long battle to Arizona’s three-hole hitter Tony Lyra who loaded the bases with a walk.
No harm was done though as a sharply hit ball to first base was taken to the bag for the final out of the inning by Villeneuve.
The Red Raiders would head to the 9th inning with the 12-7 lead.
Rusinek stayed on the mound in the bottom of the ninth, quickly giving up a single and two doubles to cut the lead to 12-9. Tadlock would make another call to the bullpen to bring in Will Jordan. A strikeout and hit batter would put the game-tying run at the plate with one out.
A single would move everybody up 90 feet and bring up the game-winning run to the plate.
With the bases loaded, Jordan got a massive strikeout and then hit the next batter to bring in another run for Arizona to make it 12-10.
With two outs, a two run lead and the bases loaded, Jordan escaped the trouble with a shallow fly ball to right field.
A stressful inning, but another Big 12 series win for Texas Tech who moves to 4-2 in conference play and 15-8 overall.
Every single Red Raider starter logged at least a hit in the win. Connor Shouse led the way with four RBI, Linkin Garcia added three more, while Caden Ferraro added two of his own. The lineup added six extra base hits to their season totals and worked seven walks to wear down the Arizona pitchers.
Against Kansas, Texas Tech had a back and forth game to clinch a win in game two of the series. So through six Big 12 games it’s two series wins with two comfortable wins, two back and forth wins, and two bad losses.
Through six games I’m very confident in two things.
The first thing is that Texas Tech’s offense is legit. Both Kansas and Arizona have pitching staffs that are highly thought of and you mashed against both of them. More than that, the lineup is patient, doesn’t strikeout a lot and leads the Big 12 in both slugging and on base percentage.
Unfortunately, the second thing I’m confident of is that this pitching staff and defense will be giving that elite offense very little help. There are very few arms in my circle of trust and even though I think they have improved over previous seasons, there are still too many mental mistakes by the defense.
The Red Raiders have the third worst fielding percentage in the Big 12 and the worst ERA.
The combination is not sustainable to win every series, but it is probably enough to expect to win four out of every six Big 12 games. If you can avoid any sweeps, mash in the midweek and maybe even sweep a Big 12 series it might even be enough to get into the postseason.
The good news is that Texas Tech’s next two Big 12 opponents are also struggling on the mound and aren’t nearly as electric at the plate.
