At Daikin Park in Houston on Saturday evening, the No. 3 Texas Longhorns took advantage of early mistakes by the Baylor Bears to secure a 5-2 victory that represented the 1,000th win of Jim Schlossnagle’s career as he became the seventh head coach to reach that plateau.
Schlossnagle shifted around his batting order, moving junior catcher Carson Tinney from fourth to second while dropping sophomore shortstop Adrian Rodriguez into Tinney’s former spot, in addition to elevating redshirt senior third
baseman Temo Becerra into the five spot after he hit two home runs on Friday and dropping scuffling junior first baseman Casey Borba down to seventh. Freshman catcher Preston Courville also received his first start at designated hitter.
Texas struck quickly even though Tinney and junior center fielder Aiden Robbins were both retired on pop ups after a leadoff walk by junior second baseman Ethan Mendoza. Rodriguez started the two-out rally with a chopper down the third-base line fielded by the Baylor pitcher, who lost control of the ball to the backstop after recognizing he didn’t have a play at first, allowing both runners to advance a base.
After Becerra was hit by a pitch, freshman right fielder Anthony Pack Jr. laced a ball to right field that was misplayed and went to the wall, allowing Pack to take third and all three runners to score.
In the top of the second, Texas redshirt senior left-hander Luke Harrison got some help from his defense when Rodriguez made a diving stop up the middle and did just enough to get the ball out of his glove to retire the runner from first.
Harrison dealt with some two-out adversity in the third inning after back-t0-back two-out walks, but was able to strike out Baylor slugger Tyce Armstrong on a 2-2 pitch with a nasty sweeper in on Armstrong’s hands.
In the bottom of the frame, Pack came through again, finding a hole to the right of the second baseman to drive on Rodriguez, who had reached on an error by the shortstop and stole second.
Harrison dealt with earlier trouble in the fourth, issuing a full-count walk to the leadoff batter and a single that put runners on first and third. A good play on the mound allowed the Texas pitcher to get the leadoff runner out in a rundown at the cost of the runners advancing to second and third. Baylor scored its first run on a wild pitch, and another full-count walk ended Harrison’s outing in favor of senior right-hander Max Grubbs, who entered the game with runners on first and third with one out.
Grubbs struggled to immediately find the strike zone, issuing a four-pitch walk to load the bases before trading a run for an out on a fielder’s choice by Becerra. A strikeout ended the frame without any further damage and the score 5-2.
Texas didn’t look threatening again until the sixth inning, when Borba led off the inning with the second extra-base hit for the Horns and senior left fielder Jayden Duplantier reached on a bunt. But Duplantier was thrown out trying to steal second and Courville popped out to shallow right field, too short to allow Borba to score. And although Mendoza drew a walk to get Tinney to the plate, the Notre Dame transfer grounded out to shortstop on a full count to end the inning.
On the mound, freshman right-hander Michael Winter wasn’t able to record an out in the second inning of his appearance, departing in favor of junior left-hander Haiden Leffew after an infield single and a walk to start the seventh inning. Leffew looked sharp, striking out all three batters he faced with his slider really flashing.
The Horns had to hit the ball hard three times to show anything to show for it in the bottom of the seventh when Robbins came up just short of an opposite-field home run with an exit velocity of 102 miles per hour and Rodriguez hit a line drive into deep right-center at 107 that was caught. Then Becerra pulled a ball into left-center for a double, but Pack’s line drive to center field was handled easily to end the frame.
After redshirt junior left-hander Ethan Walker gave up a leadoff single in the eight and the runner advanced to third on an error by Becerra and a fly out to center field, junior right-hander Thomas Burns came on and retired both batters he faced as his fastball hit 99 mph.
In the ninth, Burns worked around a walk to secure his second save of the season.
On Sunday, Texas faces off against Ohio State at 2 p.m. Central on Astros.com and the Houston Astros YouTube channel.
