Texas vs Texas Tech - Recap & post-game added

[joeywa]

the last pitch ending the game was about a foot outside, but i'll take it!

After some of the crap strikes I've seen called on Texas over the course of the season, (seemingly every game,) a little gift was probably long overdue.

 

[Matt Cotcher]

 
submitted Today, 02:30 PM in Texas Longhorns Baseball By Matt Cotcher   

 @mlcotcher
 
FINAL: Texas 2 – Texas Tech 1

The Texas Longhorns opened play in the 2015 Big 12 baseball tournament with a 2-1 victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The Longhorns led throughout the game, and rode a complete game effort from starting pitcher Parker French to the narrow win.

In addition to French, the other star performer for the Longhorns was centerfielder Zane Gurwitz. An RBI double by Gurwitz, in the top of the second inning, put Texas on the board 1-0. Later, Gurwitz scored the Horns’ other run on after an errant throw by Tech’s Bryant Burleson. Gurwitz also hauled in a deep fly ball in left-centerfield at the warning track that represented one of Texas Tech’s top scoring opportunities.

With Gurwitz accounting for two runs, French proved to be more than Tech could handle. Texas’ senior starter scattered eight hits and one walk, while striking out six batters on the day. French’s complete game effort was the Longhorns’ first of the season, and it was also the first in French’s collegiate career.

With the win, the Horns advance into the winner’s bracket in the tournament. On Thursday, Texas will play the winner of today’s game between TCU and Baylor. Thursday’s game is scheduled to start at 4:00PM (Central).

POST-GAME

Augie Garrido

Opening Statement: "Our game was driven by Parker French from the defensive side, and then some good defense behind him. We made one mistake with a passed ball that led to a run. Besides that, we played real well defensively. Zane made a good catch look easy in center field that would have been runs had he not caught it. Then on the offensive side, it was about two-out hitting and two-strike hitting. So with the offense we got some timely hitting. And then the really good throw from the left fielder to hit Kacy at home plate was another fine defensive play that kept them from scoring. A lot of it was about the pitching. Zane's performance today offensively and defensively added a lot to the victory."

On whether last year’s postseason helps at this point: "The main thing about that is that we put a lot of faith in the fact of that it was going to be one of our major assets. That the experiences last year would create the kind of leadership and mentality that provided that type of leadership and competitiveness and balance. In some cases, it drove the player to expectations. They expected to be perfect. They expected to do too much. (Zane Gurwitz) was one of them. He made the adjustments, so it worked on different people in different ways.

It was surprising to the coaching staff, quite frankly, because we went through the fall and had great workouts and did really a great job. Nobody missed anything. Everybody was working full blast and on the same page with everything and what it did, I think, was elevate the expectations of all of us. Expectation is a demon that wouldn't fit in this room because it's not real. So we had to get through that and we had to pay a high price in the nine one-run games that we lost and the six extra-inning games that we lost because we were expecting things to be easy or we felt like we didn't have the right to fail. So we tried too hard and we started living in a little bit of an unrealistic world. Baseball is about that.

The difference between last year is that no one was playing with expectations. We were playing just to play and fighting the fight. I hope I am making myself clear on that because it is one of the huge demons in this game. There are two that are bigger than everything else. One is batting average and two is expectations, not necessarily in that order."

On letting Parker French remain in the game: "We left him in the game because of his focus and his competitiveness, and the fact that his pitch count was reasonable. It wasn't out of range for him. He has the right Longhorn spirit and he was in focus. He really competed, but he was under control at the same time. You just play your punches."

On the left-handed lineup: "I played the lineup we played when we scored 11 runs against Baylor, that's why I played it. That's the only way I thought about it. I just played this group against their [baylor's] best left handed pitcher, we scored five runs in the first inning and 11 runs total, a higher total then we had scored in a long time, so why break that group up? That was my way of thinking about it."

On the regular season losses: "There wasn't a series where we weren't competitive. It seems like Friday night we would be playing 11 innings, 18 innings or 12 innings, so my position is that, and they can contradict this if I'm wrong, I think that they know they can win. I think the problem was that we expected to win and we thought it was going to be easy, but when it got tough we tried too hard. We were afraid we were going to lose. Fear of failure comes from expectations. Then once fear enters the minds of players, and now what feeds that fire, the fuel for that is losing. And we did that. Now this thing starts raging on us, but that's gone."

Parker French

On today's pitching strategy: "I had to tailor a little bit because they have seen me before. They were a little bit more aggressive this time with the fastball early in the count so we had to throw more breaking balls, more sliders. I think later in the game once they had seen our adjusted play we could go back to the soft away, hard in, and finish them early off. Early in the game I had to really go soft because they were looking to ambush a fastball early in the count, so that was a little adjustment there."

On staying in the game in the 7th inning: "Coach said, 'how do you feel?'. I said, 'good', and he said, 'go back out there', so I did. Really simple, when it comes to tournament time you have to win a baseball game and you're going to do whatever it takes. There wasn't much discussion, you just have to win baseball games."

Zane Gurwitz

On contributing in a big game: "It's great. Especially since our teammates have been carrying me and carrying all of us throughout the entire season, especially when I was struggling early. To come out and play well and provide the team when some of the guys who have carried us all season didn't do as much today, it means a lot to help us win."

On being benched against Baylor: "It was something that I needed. Coach and I had talked about that after it had happened. It's something, like walking after a ball, that is inexcusable. No matter how good you are or how bad you are, something you can always do is hustle and just play hard. I had gone away from that and Baylor took advantage of that and exposed that. It's what I needed because it allowed me to reevaluate what I had been doing and get me back out to playing hard and just playing as hard as I can. Sitting me on the first game, me and coach talked about it and I deserved it." 

 

[Huskie1]

Thanks for the recap! Didn't get to watch the game. I hope these guys can get on a roll. Parker French had been one of the few constants this year. Great competitor!