The Texas baseball team can’t seem to catch a break lately. The Longhorns dropped their first conference series to rival Oklahoma followed by a 5-0 shut-out at home by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday. UT has now lost five of its last six games.
Freshman right-handed pitcher Nolan Kingham started against the Islanders but lasted just two-thirds of an inning. Kingham got the hook after walking two and serving up a two-run home run in his brief outing, which dropped his record to 1-3 this season.
Texas head coach Augie Garrido was careful not to diminish the Islanders’ performance, but made no secret of his displeasure with the way his team played.
“We didn’t show up,” Garrido said. “They jumped out with a two-run home run in the first inning and got the momentum from that. As the game went on, we had several opportunities with runners in scoring position and didn’t produce a run. We had the lead-off hitter on and got him to second with one out for two successive innings in a row and struck out four times during that stretch. Later on, we had the bases loaded after a base- running mistake that contributed to an out and failed to score. So we put it all together. Don’t take too much away from what they did; the pitcher did pitch well. He certainly kept us off balance. We were very ineffective.”
Against the Sooners, the long ball once again plagued Texas pitchers. UT fell, 6-1, Friday in Game 1, thanks to three OU home runs off sophomore right-handed starting pitcher Morgan Cooper. The Texas hitters couldn’t do much against the Oklahoma pitching, especially OU starter Chris Andritsos. All six of UT’s hits came from three batters: junior third baseman Tres Barrera, freshman shortstop Kody Clemens and sophomore designated hitter Bret Boswell. Texas managed to plate its lone run in the third inning when Kody Clemens hit a single up the middle and Barrera smacked an RBI double, but the bats went silent from that point as the Sooners continued to roll.
The tide turned in UT’s favor Saturday when the Longhorns rode a four-run first inning to a 4-3 victory over the Sooners. With two on and one out, Barrera doubled to score one run. Sophomore right fielder Patrick Mathis followed with a two-run double that put Texas up, 3-0. Freshman center fielder Tyler Rand hit a single, and Mathis scored on a throwing error when Rand stole second. Oklahoma answered with a couple runs in the second and one in the fourth to make it a one-run game. The Longhorns added an insurance run in the sixth inning on Mathis’ second RBI double of the night to seal the victory. Senior lefty starter Ty Culbreth pitched his sixth-straight quality start with four strikeouts and three runs on eight hits. The four Texas relief pitchers shut out the Sooners, allowing only one hit over three innings. Oklahoma out-hit Texas, 9-5, but Texas succeeded in taking advantage of opportunities.
“We had our opportunities to win the game,” Oklahoma head coach Pete Hughes said. “We let up five hits and got beat. The ability to throw strikes and not walk them — it tells you how crucial it is in those numbers right there.”
Luck wasn’t on the Longhorns’ side Sunday as Texas suffered a 4-3 walk-off loss. A home run put the Sooners up, 1-0, in the first inning, but Rand gave the Longhorns a 2-1 lead with a couple RBIs in the third and fifth innings. A sac fly in the sixth extended the UT lead to 3-1. The Sooners answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning to tie the game, 3-3. Sophomore right-handed closer Connor Mayes came in to pitch for UT in the bottom of the ninth and gave up a lead-off walk. A sac bunt advanced the OU runner, and a double put two runners in scoring position for the Sooners. Mayes intentionally walked the next hitter to load the bases with one out, but to no avail. Junior center fielder Ben Hollas hit a single to right to walk off with the 4-3 OU victory.
“Our goal going in (was) to win the series,” Hughes said. “It was a great team effort the entire weekend. You look at a kid like Ben Hollas, who hasn’t been playing a lot lately, but he’s never wavered from the team-first mentality in his preparation. That puts you in a good position to win a game for your team.”
The Longhorns head to Manhattan, Kansas, this weekend for a three-game series with Kansas State.
Following the loss to A&M-CC, Kacy Clemens said the Longhorns are past the point of changing their performance through motivational speeches. Now, he said, the players must put what they have been taught into action.
“Yeah, everything’s been said,” Clemens said. “This is already way too many times to be sitting in the locker room thinking about what we need to do. We already know what we need to do, we just need to get out there and do it.”
Blanche Schaefer 