As the SEC Tournament gets under way in Hoover on Tuesday, the No. 5 Texas Longhorns are taking advantage of a double bye in preparing for a Friday matchup at 3 p.m. Central on SEC Network.
Head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s team lifted on Sunday in the wake of the regular-season finale against Missouri during which Texas swept the weekend series, held a light workout on Monday, and will practice on Tuesday and Wednesday before leaving for Alabama.
Meanwhile, No. 7 seed Arkansas waits for the outcome of
Tuesday’s matchup between No. 10 seed Tennessee and No. 15 seed South Carolina at 4:30 p.m. Central to determine the Wednesday opponent for the Razorbacks. The winner of that game advances to face the Horns.
In the latest D1 Baseball projections, Texas is the No. 5 overall seed, so the stakes aren’t especially high in Hoover beyond a Friday win helping the Longhorns remain on that line.
“You’re getting super competitive at bats for your position players, keeping them sharp and engaged,” Schlossnagle said on Monday.
Those at bats will be all the more important for junior right fielder Aiden Robbins after the Seton Hall transfer was pulled before the third inning on Thursday and didn’t play for the rest of the series with a stomach illness.
But if Texas does win on Friday, Schlossnagle and his staff will be careful how they handle the rest of the tournament with the pitching staff.
“The challenge is once you get past the first day, then from a starter standpoint, are you going to use your starting pitchers, and whoever pitches on Sunday for you normally, are you going to have them pitch on that Sunday?” Schlossnagle said. “Then now in the best-chance scenario, they’re getting their normal rest. In the worst situation, if you get in the loser’s bracket of a regional, then you’re going to need that guy, earlier in the regional, and on shorter rest.”
To devise a plan with how to approach the usage on the mound, Schlossnagle met with assistants Nolan Cain and Max Weiner early Monday morning.
“We just kind of went through picture by picture. What does this guy particularly need? What does this guy need, is it completely shut down and not available at all on the weekend? Is it, hey, we want to see this guy, maybe we want to see one of the starters in a relief role because they haven’t done that this year,” Schlossnagle said.
A key figure in that plan is senior right-hander Ruger Riojas, who was moved back from his Saturday start against Tennessee due to arm soreness and only threw five pitches in the Senior Day win over Missouri. Would the Horns start Riojas on Sunday in the championship game of the SEC Tournament? Would the staff like to see him get some time out of the bullpen? Or is he going to be available at all in Hoover?
Because senior right-hander Max Grubbs recently underwent season-ending arm surgery, Texas has an opening in the bullpen rotation with redshirt senior right-hander Cody Howard showing flashes of effectiveness in pitching 6.2 innings in two appearances over the last two conference series and graduate left-hander Cal Higgins allowing one run in two innings against Missouri on Saturday in his first stint on the mound in more than a month. Schlossnagle also threw freshman right-hander Kaleb Rogers in the mix for his debut in closing out Saturday’s win in anticipation of the NCAA passing its five-for-five rule.
“You want to be competitive, so there’s a lot of thought that goes into it, that’s for sure,” Schlossnagle said.
But playing competitive baseball in Hoover doesn’t matter as much as playing competitive baseball back in Austin for the postseason, something that the Texas head coach isn’t going to forget during the SEC Tournament.
“I can promise you this — we’re not going to do one single thing that would risk the following weekend, not one. So we’re going to do whatever is best for our team, and we’ll take it from there,” Schlossnagle said.
