Texas vs Texas A&M-CC (Recap added)

[joeywa]

If Barrera hits that anywhere else...and I mean anywhere...it's gone.

LF Lee looked like Kelly Leak in Bad News Bears tracking that thing.  CF was beat. 

 

[joeywa]

UTA 8

TCU 1

FINAL

 

[streettopeschel]

We're in a funk for sure right now. This is a very interesting series coming up this weekend.

 

[Johnstark23]

About the only thing I can think of positive right now is that the head coach at cc is Scott Malone. He played at Abilene Cooper and his dad, Andy, is one of the winningest coaches in Texas High School Baseball history. Coach Malone holds the distinction of being the first person to thoroughly cuss me out on a baseball field

 

[Matt Cotcher]

submitted Today, 11:15 PM in Texas Longhorns Baseball By Matt Cotcher   

 @mlcotcher
 
FINAL: Texas A&M Corpus Christi 6 – Texas 4

Fresh off being swept in Lincoln, NE by the Cornhuskers, the Longhorns returned home to face an A&M Corpus Christi club that has struggled this season. However the Islanders didn’t prove to be the cure for what ails Texas, beating the Horns at home, 6-4, in 10 innings. The Texas losing skid now stands at four games.

True freshman Kyle Johnston made his first career start for Texas, pitching a strong three frames, only allowing one earned run on one hit and one walk, while striking out three. The bullpen, a source of strength for Texas this season, proceeded to give up two more runs in the next three innings and three runs in the 10th frame. Allowing the game-winning run in extra innings and two insurance runs, Connor Mayes was saddled with the loss, his first of the year.

Texas batters struck out six times in the first six innings, while failing to score and only mustering three hits. Bret Boswell’s 7th inning RBI single broke the scoring drought for Texas, and Joe Baker had an RBI double in the 9th frame. Baker was the only Longhorn batter with multiple hits.

In keeping with their four blunders in the series against Nebraska, the Texas defense committed two errors on Tuesday night. The Texas offense has only scored a total of seven runs during the four consecutive losses.

POST GAME

Augie Garrido

On what he told the team: Basically what I told the team is that this is very painful and we'll sort through this and come back out with a plan that includes getting better and learning from what happened here.

On what caused the loss: It was pretty easy to see the difference in their performance through the first six innings versus the last four innings. I think that's where you see the separation. You saw what was in there that wasn't coming out in the early innings. They got some timely hitting with the home run and three runs in the top of the tenth inning. In the seventh inning, there was a huge change and as coaches we see that as them really competing because the end of the game is near and they were behind. So they turned it up. We didn't get anything going the first six innings.

On the lineup changes in Tuesday’s game: [brooks] Marlow has been comfortable for us at leadoff – he led off for us in that run at the end of last year – and tried to get him back to a familiar place. C.J [Hinojosa] can't control the bat and the two hole may get to him stop over swinging and get some bunts down so that was the thought behind that. Ben [Johnson] has been our most consistent hitter. Hopefully one of those two guys plus the nine hitter will get on.


Michael Cantu

On Tuesday’s game: It's tough and never fun losing. We just have to keep grinding and rolling. This is baseball. Anything can happen. There are a lot of games left and we just have to string together better at bats and bring a lot of energy from start to finish. I think that was our big thing.

On how this team can turn things around: We just need to bring more energy. It's there, we just need to pull it together and keep grinding. We have a big three-game series against Oklahoma State and that's all we can think about right now. 

 

[joeywa]

About the only thing I can think of positive right now is that the head coach at cc is Scott Malone. He played at Abilene Cooper and his dad, Andy, is one of the winningest coaches in Texas High School Baseball history. Coach Malone holds the distinction of being the first person to thoroughly cuss me out on a baseball field

Smart money says the verbal beating was deserved. Haha.

 

[dillohorn]

Do the Horns take batting practice?

 

[Worster1]

Loss to Coastal aggie was sobering. Horn bats were cold as dillo alluded to, bullpen suckage and errors doomed the effort last night. There will be a lot of naval gazing and Augie ass chewings the next couple of days.  Not time to panic or start yelling doomed, but there is good reason to be concerned.

After the loss I suspect the Horns will drop out of the Top 25.  They will limp into Stillwater this weekend with a disappointing 17-12 record and a 4 loss skid.  Okie Lite is a middle of the road team in the conference so they can certainly put up a good effort especially against a team like this that is struggling in several parts of the game. 

We may need an intervention from Matt Foley, motivational speaker to get this team energized and motivated.  Otherwise things could start getting ugly in conference play and this team could find itself living in a van down by the river bottoms of the conference standings.

 

[streettopeschel]

So, has Opening Day been pushed back to Friday?

 

[armadillo slim]

You....of all people.....are not one to be claiming that umpires are always right.  SMH. 

you can SYH all you want.  Cantu cannot take that pitch, poor umpiring notwithstanding.  he's the damn catcher.  he knows the ump has been missing calls all night.  you cannot stand up at the plate and expect that the ump is suddenly become enlightened and have a well defined strike zone.  this is one of cantu's problems.  this isn't the first time this has happened to him.

all that said, i'm over it.  as street notes, there's a very important and interesting series coming up this weekend.  somehow, someway, Texas needs to find their bats and figure out a way to scratch out a series win.  that's going to be very tough because their psyche is most likely shot right now.  

Friday's game is the key to how the series and maybe even the rest of the season goes.  Win that one and i think we'll have a turnaround.  Lose it, and i think the spiral downward continues.  We need a turnaround game.

Looking back on this game, and borrowing some Aggie style logic, we can actually call this game something of a win.  It's not a W in the win column, but change just a thing or two and this game is 7-4 or 7-5 the other way. 

They won this game because somehow they WILLED themselves a win and played lights out in the field, but sooner or later some of those balls they caught are going to fall in.

Gurwitz' line drive miracle snare at second should have scored a run.  Twenty feet to the left and Barrera's long shot goes over the fence scoring two.  Two or three other miracle catches could have produced a run or two.    The ump's missed third strike leads to a pop up play error and two or three runs.  Yeah, i know it was scored a hit, but that's a mental error that shouldn't have happened.  The best right fielder in the country should have called for that ball.

We started hitting the ball a little better, we just couldn't find a hole.  Wee Willie Keeler's dictum "keep your eye clear and hit'em where they ain't" will eventually happen for this team as long as they don't let screwy games like this F@#K with their minds to the point of permanence. 

This team needs a road series win this weekend and the odds and momentum are stacked against them.  But that's the good thing about momentum.  It can turn on a dime in baseball.  Balls that look the size of a pea can start looking like grapefruit in the blink of an eye.  

But their dobbers are down right now, so my fear is a series loss and even a sweep is more likely than a series win, but..........

It's Easter weekend.  It's the season of renewal and expecting a rebirth is appropriate.  Equating the two is probably inappropriate, but i think acknowledging that at least puts me in the line for forgiveness 

 

[armadillo slim]

one more question.  why isn't Ty Marlow being used as a pinch hitter every now and then?  Ty Marlow is a pretty good hitter, or at least he used to be.  

 

[JimR]

Looking back on this game, and borrowing some Aggie style logic, we can actually call this game something of a win.  It's not a W in the win column, but change just a thing or two and this game is 7-4 or 7-5 the other way. 

Oh, Slim. If only this could be the way it works.

 

[streettopeschel]

these 'feels like a win' or 'Augie will be able to use this loss to teach' are starting to stack up. here's hoping we get a couple of old fashioned 'we scored more than they did' wins this weekend.

 

[Matt Cotcher]

Okie Lite is a middle of the road team in the conference so they can certainly put up a good effort especially against a team like this that is struggling in several parts of the game. 

Oklahoma State is one of the best clubs in the Big 12, IMO. At 4-2 with a series win over TCU, the Cowboys have the inside track to the regular season title.

 

[Matt Cotcher]

Cantu cannot take that pitch, poor umpiring notwithstanding.  he's the damn catcher.  he knows the ump has been missing calls all night.  you cannot stand up at the plate and expect that the ump is suddenly become enlightened and have a well defined strike zone.  this is one of cantu's problems.  

I've made the parallel before, but Cantu, again, reminded me of Jordan Danks last night. Danks trusted his eye for balls/strikes too much. He went through three years at UT without adapting to the "in-game strike zone" being called by blue.

Somebody need to sit down with Cantu and some video before it gets any more difficult to make the change.

 

[armadillo slim]

Looking back on this game, and borrowing some Aggie style logic, we can actually call this game something of a win.  It's not a W in the win column, but change just a thing or two and this game is 7-4 or 7-5 the other way. 

Oh, Slim. If only this could be the way it works.

yeah, i admitted it wasn't a W, but unfortunately, that's all he's got to build on.  it ain't much for sure, but its all he's got.  

what else do you use if you can't find any positives at all?  you can't say, "boys, we've reached the bottom of the well.  here's some shovels, now keep on digging."  

i'd love to find a couple of those "we scored more than them" wins this weekend too, but we ain't gonna find them if we keep digging that well.

 

[Johnstark23]

Smart money says the verbal beating was deserved. Haha.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

 

[armadillo slim]

I've made the parallel before, but Cantu, again, reminded me of Jordan Danks last night. Danks trusted his eye for balls/strikes too much. He went through three years at UT without adapting to the "in-game strike zone" being called by blue.

Somebody need to sit down with Cantu and some video before it gets any more difficult to make the change.

Danks is the exact guy i had in mind when i commented on Cantu.  He drove me crazy with his caught looking strikeouts.  These umps are not perfect.  Some of them aren't even close.  You have to have an attack mentality at the plate with two strikes and I realize that's easy to say and difficult to do, but its reality.  

Richards was bad all game and Cantu knew it.  He had a passive at bat, not an aggressive at bat.  

 

[joeywa]

I'm not bailing on this team, as there's time to get this going, and we're currently in 1st place in the conference. 

I'm not the coach, so I have zero say in this, but I will tell you that there are a few changes I'd make going into practice today for this weekend, just to see what it does.

McGuire to SS (CJ to bench)

Clemens to 1B (Cantu & Tres flip between DH/C)

Stell to CF (Gurwitz to bench)

I do this and see what the different look gives us.  I would have liked to see this happen in the Tuesday game, but this may be the time to shuffle things up a bit.

Then again, we're all HOF managers when we're sitting in our recliners. 

Just my 2-cents.

 

[Worster1]

Oklahoma State is one of the best clubs in the Big 12, IMO. At 4-2 with a series win over TCU, the Cowboys have the inside track to the regular season title.

Thanks Matt, I will defer to your judgment re: Okie Lite.  This just means the Horns will have a taller mountain to climb this weekend.  Yikes!