Series Details

Dates: Friday, April 7th – Sunday, April 9th
Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (26-6, 4-2)
Bad Guys: Baylor Bears (19-9, 2-4)
Location: Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park | Lubbock, Texas
Game Notes: Preview | PDF
TV/Stream: TexasTech.TV (Fri. & Sat.); FSSW+ (Sun).
Radio/Stream: Broadcast Affiliates
Live Stats: StatBroadcast

Red Raiders. Bears. All weekend long. #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/J38LMBppie

— Texas Tech Baseball (@TTU_Baseball) April 6, 2017

WATCH AND LISTEN TO THE VIDEO. You probably won’t regret it.

Texas Tech started conference play with two road series, at Texas and at Oklahoma, and are finally at home to take on the Baylor Bears, who are much improved over last year. The bad news for Texas Tech is that the Red Raiders are without Davis Martin for at least the next two weeks, and will hopefully be ready for the Oklahoma State series. I also think that Tanner Gardner might not play much as well, head coach Tim Tadlock said during his press conference that it took 2 hits for Gardner to score from second, so that’s an indication that he’s just not getting along as well as he could, but he is hitting in the cage. Cody Farhat has been fantastic in center field in place of Gardner and there really hasn’t been much, if any, of a drop-off offensively.

Gingery has been lights out and I really wish I could watch him pitch on a regular basis. To be this deep in the season and have an ERA under 1 is ridiculous. Texas Tech will need to get some good innings out of Gonzalez on Friday night and I’d love for him to go deep into the game.

News, News, News, News

 LAJ’s Nicholas Talbot previews the weekend series with Baylor and head coach Tim Tadlock talked about the Bears:

“I got to see (Baylor) in Houston they are playing awfully good baseball,” Tadlock said. “(Nick) Lewis, (Montana) Parsons, and the Sunday guy, a lefty guy, (Cody Bradford) are all pretty good and their catcher (Shea Langeliers) is a guy who committed, who I though maybe we should have moved in there on. … He makes their team a lot better.

Gonzalez is making his second-straight Friday night start after staff ace and righty Davis Martin went down with tendinitis in his throwing arm. Last week against Oklahoma, Gonzalez picked up his sixth start of the season — he was the mid-week starter — and threw four inning and allowed three runs on four hits in a 6-2 loss to the Sooners.

“I just talked to him about the difference between Big 12 and mid-week,” Tech second baseman Michael Davis said. “Guys aren’t just trying to get hits, they are going to be patient and try to wait you out. They don’t want you to go six or seven innings.”

 WacoTrib’s Brice Cherry writes about how Baylor wants to take the “next pitch” mentality into Lubbock this weekend:

The Baylor coach believes that some of his players have been carrying the past with them to the batter’s box or onto the mound in recent games. As a result, they’re beating themselves rather than just playing the game, Rodriguez said.

“As a coach, you can feel it,” said Rodriguez, whose Bears are 4-8 in their past 12 games after a 15-2 start to the season. “You can tell there’s something going on. I hate using cliches like guys are pressing, they’re trying to do too much, but I do think some guys are trying to make up for past at-bats or past outings.

“So that’s one part for me that I want to make sure we don’t do, just focus on, ‘OK, that happened, and now we need to focus on what’s going on right now.’”

Stats

Key Texas Tech Hitters:

Key Baylor Hitters:

Team Stats:

Probable Starters:

Game 1: Friday, April 7th @ 6:30 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: John Henry Gonzalez (2-2, 3.91)
Baylor Starting Pitcher: RHP Nick Lewis (3-2, 3.00)
Final Score & Box Score: Texas Tech 13, Baylor 2 (Recap | Box Score)

A terrific outing from relief pitcher Caleb Kilian, a true freshman who went 3 innings after starter John Henry Gonzalez could only go 2 innings, while allowing both of the runs. Kilian didn’t allow a hit or a walk and struck out 4 in those 3 innings. Erikson Lanning then went an additional 3 innings of no-hit ball with Jake McDonald getting the last inning and only allowing a hit and striking out 2.

The offense pounded out 14 hits and all 13 runs. Grant Little went 3 for 6 with 2 RBI while leading off. Orlando Garcia hit a 3-run home run in the 3rd inning and went 1 for 3 for the day. Tanner Gardner went 2 for 2 with 2 runs scored and an RBI. Hunter Hargrove and Josh Jung both went 2 for 3, Hargrove had 3 RBI.

Game 2: Saturday, April 8th @ 2:00 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: LHP Steven Gingery (6-0, 0.92)
Baylor Starting Pitcher: RHP Devon Perez (2-2, 2.96)
Final Score & Box Score: Texas Tech 5, Baylor 3 (Recap | Box Score)

Baylor scored first, just 1 run in the 4th inning and then Orlando Garcia answered with a home run in the bottom half of the inning to tie things up. Then Baylor scored another run in the 6th and then Texas Tech immediately scored another run, a sacrifice fly from Michale Berglund to score Josh Jung. Baylor scored another run in the 7th and Texas Tech answered again, this time with 3 additional runs, a Baylor throwing error led to a run, and with the bases juiced, 2 more walks led to 2 more runs.

Steven Gingery was human today, only going 5.1inning and allowing 3 hits, 2 runs, only 1 earned, walking 1 and striking out 3. The bullpen pulled it together as Parker Mushinski got out of a jam in the 6th inning. Jacob Patterson couldn’t get out of the 7th before giving up a run but then John McMillon and Jose Quezada pitched the final 2.1 frames, allowed just 3 hits, and Quezada struck out 2.

Orlando Garcia went 1 for 3 with 2 RBI, one of those RBI being one of the 7th inning walks, and Ryan Long also gets credit for an RBI despite not registering a hit becuase he walked after Garcia. Michael Davis went 3 for 4 and Cody Farhat continues to be on a tear, going 2 for 4 and scoring a run.

Game 3: Sunday, April 9th @ 2:00 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: RHP Ryan Shetter (2-0, 3.50)
Baylor Starting Pitcher: LHP Cody Bradford (4-2, 2.96)
Final Score & Box Score: Baylor 10, Texas Tech 9 (Recap | Box Score)

Texas Tech was up 9-3 in the top of the 9th inning and Baylor would score 6 runs to come all the way back to win the third game. The problem was that Josh Jung was sent in to pitch the 9th, having never pitched before (at least not to my recollection) and he promptly gave up some home runs and it’s a bad look. After the game, head coach Tim Tadlock said that they don’t like losing this sort of game, but they did get some information that they’ll need moving forward and I suppose that’s true.

I know there’s a lot of discussion the use of the bullpen and I think that’s probably Texas Tech’s achilles heel this year. There are a ton of guys that pitch well out of the bullpen so Tadlock’s options are limited. You can go look at the stats yourself and the guys that are pitching are really the only options. I don’t think this is about managing anything, it’s trying to figure out which one of these guys are going to give you the best outing because none of the bullpen is really lights out.

Offensively, there were 15 hits, 2 home runs from Orlando Garcia, who had hit a home run in 3 consecutive games. Hunter Hargrove also got all of a pitch to take one out of the park.