This comment and some others on the thread leave me with one thought..."Where do I start?" And I will take the High Road while Hashtag and You fight it out for the silliness award.
First the pitching was much improved over the last few years. No this isn't Clemens, Shiraldi, et al.......but it was much better than before. The pitchers' mechanics were much more consistent. They attacked the Zone. They got balls in play.
Unfortunately, the problem with more balls in play was our middle infield. You can't sugar coat it. We need to be better at shortstop and second. Our middle guys make too many errors. I don't think this is a coaching issue, but rather a recruiting issue. If may just be an experience issue, but a David Williams clone would be sweet.
The Spencer issue was HUGE. He is 1 of 2 Horns than were ranked in the top 100 pro-draft prospect....and they weren't top 50. Tennessee had something like 6 kids. Our Sunday starter should have been the Tuesday guy.
As for hit batters, this is a direct result of the new style of hitting. Batters today dive into the ball more today because they are afraid of the outside corner strike. Batters also "coil" their hips more today which reduces batter mobility. But, Fans love the long ball and that style generates longballs. The result is the batter has less mobility and is generally not in a position to bail on inside pitches. It also doesn't help that the batters now have all types of protective gear on that takes the fear out of being hit.... thank you Craig Biggio.
One last thought on the hit batter issue. I would like to see the stats on "us being hit by pitch" vs. "opponent being hit by our pitchers". I bet it was close to 50-50.
Other than you not personally liking Tulo whatever the reason, I see no reason for him to leave. Texas was a very good hitting team. Our hitters had a consistently good approach. We scored plenty of runs. That is his job and he did a good job. (i think there is more to your Tulo issue than you are letting on)