Texas Shuts Out Texas State 2-0
Texas came into Tuesday night after having dropped 2 of 3 to Baylor in Waco the weekend before where pitching didn’t come easy. So Blair Henley (3-3 3.99 ERA) and Texas bullpen came into the game looking to flip the script.
Henley came in and was lights out to get the win. Henley shut out the Bobcats over 5 innings, getting 3 strike outs with 73 pitches. Despite a shaky outing in Waco where they gave up one game and barely held on for another, the Longhorns bullpen came in to finish up the job with Connor Mayes, Chase Shugart, Tyler Schimpf, and Beau Ridgeway pitching an inning each, shutting out Texas State, and only allowing 2 hits.
This is only Texas State’s 2nd time being shut out this year and is Texas’ 6th shutout this year.
Despite the wonderful numbers, the Longhorns real success was finding their way out of two bases loaded, no out jams without surrendering a run. Pierce praised his pitching staff and gave them credit for finding their way out of the jams, “What I liked seeing about that is I thought we elevated out pitches and continued to make quality pitches against them… We made very quality pitches to have the opportunity to get out of it.â€
When I asked David Pierce what was the difference between the bullpen this game and last weekend he simply replied, “There was really nothing different. We were at home. They hit two fly balls in the 9th, and we ran them down.â€
The Texas State Bobcat pitching staff also pitched well despite getting the loss only allowing 2 earned runs and forcing Texas to hit into 15 ground outs whilst stranding 11 base runners.
However, Texas State couldn’t stop Freshman Ryan Reynolds (3-4 RBI, 2B x2), who went on a bit of a hot streak late March into mid-April, but slowed down on his trip to Baylor. Looks like he’s back on track and all it took was some cage time with Coach Pierce according to him, “After a slow weekend, I got with the coaches, and Coach Pierce came up and told me not to swing as hard as I can. He actually came into the cages with us to show us how to do it. Just take 75-80% on our swings and not try to muscle it. Just let it happen.†Ryan Reynolds is now hitting .291 with 10 RBIs and 3 HRs, since March 22nd. Without the Baylor series he hitting .356 with 10 RBIs and 3 HRs.
The other RBI came from Kody Clemens (1-4 RBI) on a base hit right up the middle to score Zane Gurwitz (1-3) in the bottom of the 3rd. Kody is now sitting pretty with 16 RBIs over 27 games.
With their 25th win of the season, Texas has now matched their win total from the 2016 season with 15 more games in the regular season.
The Longhorns will take on the University of New Orleans this Friday at 7:00 PM CST.
BONUS STORY
Some of y’all with eagle eyes may have noticed a nice cut right next to the eye of Ryan Reynolds. When I asked him what happened this is the story we were told:
“Me and David [Hamilton] go out before the game to hit in the outside cages. Walk in there and there is a bird flying around. We figure, alright, we’ll go get it, let it go. Sucker is hard to catch. Ran for five minutes trying to catch him. There is two divider nets, and I didn’t see, but they were zip-tied together. I was running after the bird, and the next thing I know I was looking straight up at the sun. I feel something kind of running down [my cheek]. It’s blood. I got clotheslined by the net. David was laughing, and of course, everyone came out and was laughing.â€
(So you didn’t catch the bird?)
“Nope. Austin Todd came and got the bird in 2 seconds.â€
