After a second straight late-inning Friday meltdown in SEC play, the No. 2 Texas Longhorns needed to find a way to close out an important road victory against the No. 5 Auburn Tigers at Plainsman Park on Saturday.
It wasn’t easy in the 7-6 win, as a pitching staff considered historically elite by a credible observer like Baylor head coach Mitch Thompson, a longtime assistant for the Bears and Central Texas junior college head coach, once again showed significant cracks to heighten the long-term concerns
about the upside of head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s team.
Taking a 7-2 lead into the seventh inning, the Horns stuck with senior right-hander Max Grubbs after the Texas bullpen stalwart took over for redshirt senior left-hander Luke Harrison to record the final out in the sixth inning.
Grubbs was close to cruising through the seventh after retiring the first two batters on eight pitches before hanging an 0-1 breaking ball that turned into a 420-foot home run.
A nine-pitch at bat resulted in a full-count walk and a 2-1 single put runners on first and second as Schlossnagle turned to freshman right-hander Brett Crossland, who got ahead of the next two batters, but gave up consecutive 1-2 singles through the right side to score two more runs.
In the eighth inning, freshman right-hander Sam Cozart receive a high-leverage opportunity, hitting the leadoff batter on his second pitch before bouncing back to record two outs. Like Grubbs, Cozart couldn’t finish the inning, allowing a first-pitch single that ended his outing with runners on first and third.
The ostensible closer for Texas, junior right-hander Thomas Burns, entered the game and gave up a 1-1 RBI single and threw a wild pitch before stranding two runners with a six-pitch strikeout.
Drama in the ninth inning followed the previous pattern — Burns struck out the first two batters before losing his command, issuing a four-pitch walk, a five-pitch walk, and a seven-pitch walk to load the bases because the Auburn hitters weren’t convinced that Burns could dominate the strike zone, and for good reason.
With Friday’s hero at the plate, center fielder Bristol Carter, Burns was able to make the crucial pitch, inducing a fielder’s choice to redshirt senior third baseman Temo Becerra to secure the hard-fought victory.
Texas was in a position to win the game because Harrison turned in a typically-strong performance in allowing two runs over 5.2 innings, striking out six and working around four hits and three walks.
Aside from the questionable bullpen support, the game-changing efforts for the Longhorns came at the plate, where freshman designated hitter Maddox Monsour opened the scoring in the second inning with a a two-out, two-run single to right center to take advantage of an error by the Auburn shortstop, slashing a 1-2 breaking ball on the outside corner into the opposite field.
The game-changing inning for the Longhorns came in the fourth when junior center fielder Aiden Robbins led off with his third home run of the series, a 417-foot tank to deep center at 109 miles per hour off the bat by crushing a first-pitch fastball at 89 miles per hour up and out over the plate.
After redshirt senior third baseman Temo Becerra was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, Texas mounted a two-out rally when two walks led to the first career home run by senior right fielder Jayden Duplantier on a full-count pitch, turning on a breaking ball and sending it 381 feet over the 37-foot well in left field at Plainsman Park, unquestionably the best swing of Duplantier’s baseball career.
In the sixth inning, a double by junior catcher Carson Tinney scored Monsour after a leadoff single for the final run scored by the Longhorns.
Texas goes for the series victory on Sunday at 2 p.m. Central on SEC Network+ with sophomore left-hander Dylan Volantis taking the mount.
