Texas continued its skid, extending the losing streak to five games by the end of Sunday. With the season record now at 2-5, it is time for some of the players to step up as leaders and get the team going in the right direction.
Friday: 7-2
Saturday: 6-2
Sunday: 15-1
Texas will try to snap the streak on Tuesday night at the Disch when they take on Houston Baptist.
Filed under Series in Review
Number 12 Texas gets its first road test of the season this coming weekend when it travels to Palo Alto, California to take on the Stanford Cardinal, currently ranked Number 2. Stanford is returning seven position players and their Friday starter from the 2011 team that reached the NCAA Super Regionals.
In 2011, Stanford went 35-22, batted .299 as a team, and hit 27 home runs. So far this season, they are undefeated, after pulling off a crushing three-game sweep of Number 10 Vanderbilt and a Tuesday victory over Pacific in extended innings.
Players to Watch
Mark Appel (#26): Appel is the Cardinal ace, returning to the role he assumed last season as the Friday starter. Predicted by many to be the first choice in the 2012 MLB draft, Appel went 6-7 last year, posting a 3.02 ERA in 17 starts, including two complete games. Last season, Texas managed 8 hits off Appel in his 7.1 innings of work.
Brian Ragira (#11): Ragira is a hard-hitting sophomore first-baseman that is already hitting .529 on the year. In his freshman season, Ragira led the team with RBIs (46), triples (5), tied for the lead in home runs (4), and batted .329 overall. Ragira’s bat heated up for a ten-game hitting streak in May of 2011 and he had 20 multi-hit games.
Also of note is junior third baseman Stephen Piscotty, who is batting .300 with three home runs and 11 RBI already this season.
Stanford hosts Texas this weekend at Klein Field at the Sunken Diamond, with the first pitch of the series scheduled for Friday, February 24 at 7:30pm CST.
Filed under Series Preview
Texas hosted UT Arlington for its first midweek game of the season yesterday. The game ended in a 7-5 loss for Texas and the team showed its youth and lack of focus, leaving the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. Not much positive news can be gleamed from last night’s game aside from the performance of Mark Payton, who continues to solidify himself as a leader for the team. Payton went two-for-two, scoring two runs and picking up an RBI as well.
Austin Dicharry went three innings, yielding three runs, but seemed much improved since his start last season. We look forward to seeing him on the mound again, hopefully next Tuesday when the Horns take on Houston Baptist. In the interim, the team will travel to Palo Alto for a three-game series against highly-touted Stanford.
Filed under Midweek Games
The Texas Longhorns took two out of three games against the Duke Blue Devils to start off the 2012 campaign this past weekend at Disch-Falk Field. After sweeping a rain induced double header on Saturday with clutch pitching and timely hitting, the normally sound Texas defense fell apart on Sunday, committing two errors and giving up 5 runs.
Game One
The first game of the double header featured Nathan Thornhill in his new role as Texas’ Friday starter and heavy hitting Marcus Stroman on the mound for Duke. Thornhill pitched five innings of a seven inning game, scattering three hits (all singles) while throwing only 63 pitches. He struck out two batters, walked one, and came away with the first win of the year for a young Texas rotation. Stroman also pitched five full innings but the Texas offense made him work, taking a look at 92 pitches. Texas managed four hits against the Blue Devils’ ace, including two home runs, earned five walks, were twice hit by pitch, and struck out only three times.
The offensive standout of the first game was clearly Brooks Marlow, the freshman second baseman out of Giddings High School. After striking out in his first at bat, the youngster led off the fourth inning by smashing the fourth pitch he saw into the Texas bullpen for a solo home run. Up until that point, Stroman had only given up one hit and had been able to pitch around the several walks the Longhorns had earned. When Marlow returned to the plate in the fifth inning, Landon Steinhagen was standing on first base after being hit by a Stroman pitch. With one on and one out, Marlow launched a fastball over the 375’ marker in right field.
Texas only managed one more hit in the game, but it proved to be a productive swat. After Christian Summers drew his second walk of the afternoon off Duke relief man Chase Bebout, Mark Payton drilled a triple that rolled to the right center field wall for his first RBI of the year and the fourth and final run of the game. The game was uneventful after sophomore Corey Knebel relieved Thornhill to start the sixth inning. Aside from an error by Christian Summers on a throw to first, and a mysterious balk called against Knebel, the nation’s best closer retired the next four Duke batters in order, including two strikeouts.
Game Two
The nightcap saw a shaky start from junior southpaw Hoby Milner, but more offense from Marlow and company allowed the Horns to overcome an early two run deficit. Milner was matched against Duke freshman Trent Swart, a left handed pitcher from Carlsbad, CA.
After a 12 pitch first inning, Milner began to struggle with his control, hitting the lead off man with a pitch and then giving up a double, putting runners at second and third with no outs. Milner struck out the next batter he faced, but when Jordan Betts hit a routine ground ball to third base, Erich Weiss threw wide of first. When the dust settled, Duke had scored two runs on the play, one earned, and had Betts on second with only one out. Milner walked the next batter, but then used a come-backer to the mound to get the lead runner, Betts, out at third. He then struck out Matt Berezo to end the inning.
Texas answered those two runs in the bottom of the second. Jonathan Walsh led off with a single up the right side, and was joined on base by Christian Summers who earned a walk. Tim Maitland stepped to the plate and laid a perfect bunt down the third base line to juice the bases for Mark Payton. When Payton laced a double into left field, Walsh and Summers scored easily. Brooks Marlow brought home the final run of the inning with a sacrifice fly to deep center field. Texas went on to score two more runs in the bottom of the fourth, an inning that saw three walks, a wild pitch, and a single by Tim Maitland.
Though Duke scored a run in the fifth, Texas held on to their lead and claimed the victory, thanks in large part to a strong first outing by freshman right-hander Parker French. French came to the mound in relief of Milner in the sixth and saw three innings of work. In the eighth, he ran into some trouble by loading the bases with Blue Devils, but came back strong with a strikeout to end the Duke threat. In the ninth, the ball was handed to Corey Knebel, who quickly procured three ground outs.
Game Three
Texas and Duke returned to the field on Sunday, led by freshman John Curtiss and sophomore Robert Huber, respectively. Huber dominated the Texas bats, allowing only two hits in his six innings of work.
The brightest performance on an otherwise unremarkable day for Texas was freshman Ricky Jacquez. Jacquez pitched five scoreless innings of relief, scattering four hits and flashing a mighty fastball.
Texas finally mustered a few runs in the eighth off a predicted home run from senior Kevin Lusson, bringing them within a run of Duke, but it was not enough.
Texas had a horrendous top of the ninth of defense, committing two errors and allowing two unearned runs in the process. A ninth inning rally was not in the cards for the Longhorns, as they went 1-2-3 into the showers. Curtiss was saddled with the loss with a final score of 5-2 and Texas took the series with two out of three.
Filed under Series in Review
Game 1: February 18, 2012 2:00pm
Game 2: February 18, 2012 6:00pm
Game 3: February 19, 2012 12:00pm
Filed under Series in Review
Senior Austin Dicharry will make his first start of the year against the Mavericks of UT-Arlington, at 6 pm Tuesday at Disch-Falk Field. This is his first appearance for Texas since a rocky start last April 19, when he pitched one inning against UT-Pan Am while allowing two runs. He could not record an out in the second frame and was relieved by Nathan Thornhill. Texas went on to win the game, 4-2, leaving Dicharry with a no decision.
While Dicharry’s performance at Texas has been inconsistent since an injury sustained during his sophomore year, he showed promise this summer in the California Collegiate League as a member of the Santa Barbara Foresters. In seven appearances, six of them starts, he went 3-0 with a 2.17 ERA, tallying 36 strikeouts in 37.1 innings, and holding opposing batters to .180. Dicharry’s most impressive game of the summer came in a start against the League City Hornets, where he threw a 98-pitch complete game yielding only four hits and one unearned run, along with four strikeouts and one walk.
Austin Dicharry’s potential return to his freshman form would bring more depth and provide experienced innings to a young rotation and bullpen.
Photo: Donald Boyles
Filed under Midweek Games
Texas took 2 out of 3 in the series against Duke this past weekend. Expect a more detailed series summary in the next day or so, but until then, enjoy these pictures from Sunday’s game. Texas wore throwback uniforms in honor of the 1949 and 1950 National Championship teams.
Pictures by Donald Boyles
Christian Corona wrote an article on the latest in the CJ Hinojosa saga for the Daily Texan today. For the complete article, click here.
As for where he’ll be after this season, his stepfather and Klein Collins baseball booster club president Patrick Navarro claim the chances of Hinojosa playing at Texas next year are “85 to 90 percent.”
“If you would have asked the same question a month ago, I would have said his chances of coming to UT were about 20 percent,” Navarro said.
But now he’s changed his mind, Navarro said.
“I asked him, ‘So what are you feeling?’ and his response to me was, ‘If I don’t get [2011 No. 8 overall pick] Francisco Lindor money [$2.9 million], then there’s no question I’m going to Texas,” he said.
Much like Hinojosa, we change our minds frequently about the prospect of him playing for Texas. The latest updates don’t seem to bode well for his chances of donning burnt orange, especially when considering the all-too-recent memory of Joshua Bell being 100% sure he would arrive on the forty acres. Time will tell with CJ Hinojosa.
Filed under recruits
The trend of bad news Fridays continues this week, with news surfacing that Sam Stafford has suffered a shoulder injury and will miss the entire 2012 season. Stafford, drafted but unsigned by the Yankees in the offseason, was projected to be the Friday night ace for the Longhorns this season. With only one week to go until the season opener, this is a huge blow for the team and Sam personally. He is eligible for a redshirt, but it is unknown if Stafford will elect to claim it, thereby gaining another year of eligibility.
According to Alan Trubow of the Statesman, Augie says the most likely weekend pitching rotation at this point will be junior Hoby Milner, sophomore Nathan Thornhill, and freshman John Curtiss. We predict Thornhill will get the nod next Friday for the first game against Duke, followed by Milner on Saturday and Curtiss on Sunday. This will give Texas the Righty-Lefty-Righty approach that the coaches seem to like.
Stay tuned for more information as the week progresses. T-7 days until baseball season!
Photo: Donald Boyles
Filed under News
A few general news bits from the last few weeks:
Filed under News
