There’s no other way to put it, except Texas choked last night. After being up 6-1, the Horns had a colossal meltdown and lost 9-7. The offense went cold, the defense committed mistake after mistake.
Now, what should have been a win one and advance scenario, has turned into the No. 2 seeded Longhorns having to fight their way through three games to host a super regional.
That’s tough. Really tough.
First they’ll need to beat the Wildcats at 2:00 PM today.
Some books have Texas as a 1.5 run favorite over Kansas State, while some have a little more faith in the team, and has them as a 2.5 run favorite.
Regardless of all that, the Horns have to find a way to win.
Ruger Riojas gets the start on the bump today. If you’ve looked at his last few starts, that’s worrisome. If you look at his whole body of work, then you know he’s more than capable of handling business. The big question is, which version will we see today?
Of course, even if he’s on, Schloss and his staff need offensive output. They need what we saw in the first half of the UTSA game and definitely not the anemic offense we saw over the last few innings.
Which version of this team will show up?
Baseball is such a fickle game. Momentum and mindset play a role like no other.
Last night, a little before 11:00 PM, I texted both Jeff and CJ that the game is over. Texas’ faces and body language said everything.
Unfortunately, I was right. An hour later UTSA was celebrating.
They can NOT get in that funk today.
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A few other random thoughts:
- Everyone keeps wanting Flores out of the lineup. I get it, he hasn’t been the best the last few weeks. The only problem is, the depth at SS is very shallow. If Texas felt confident in someone else, they would put them there.
In a perfect world, I would suggest moving Mendoza over to short and letting A Rod start at 2nd.
- Some freshman mistakes from Jonah last night reared their ugly head at the wrong time. Those last couple of at bats were awful. When he’s on though, he and Borba create a nice 1-2 punch at the end of the lineup.
Growing pains.
- You HAVE to get more from your 5-6-7 today and the rest of the way. Last night they combined for ZERO hits in 12 ABs.
- Gasparino has got to be better. No excuses at this point.
- As Jeff pointed out last night, 13 players were left on base. Multiple times Texas left two runners stranded. That’s huge. It’s been an issue off and on this season.
- Multiple top 16 teams face elimination today. At least eight, by my count. As I said earlier, momentum is very important, and Texas has to get hot again….
QUICKLY.