Baseball Travels to Stillwater

by 40AS on Apr 3, 2009 7:19 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns Baseball

[Update 7:18 PM]: Horns take game one 7-2 behind 3 HRs and terrific fielding and pitching.

This weekend in Stillwater is the halfway point in the season. Like every other conference series, and especially road series, taking two of three games is the goal. Looking through the national statistics in a little more detail and a few things pop out.

Texas is bad offensively, but it doesn't need to be great to win. Think back to 2004, that team went to the CWS championship game only to lose to CSF. That team was an elite pitching squad (#10 in the rankings) and a mediocre-to-bad offensive squad (#154).
Give us the elite pitching over the hitting any day of the week. '06, '07 and '08 could all hit but only '07 could pitch, and that team ran into a red hot and poorly seeded UCI team. This isn't to say the offense doesn't need to improve, it clearly does, but maybe just marginal improvements will see big dividends.
It's probably pretty natural for Texas to have deflated hitting numbers until it reaches Omaha. UCFCUDFF is a vacuum, Rosenblatt is not. That's why we saw offensive explosions from Texas in '04 and '05.
The signs of offensive improvement are there: Torres and Moldenhauer are regulars in the lineup, Lusson's hitting well, Tucker's healthy...but are these signs of improvement or signs of weak competition?
The second closest team in terms of team ERA nationally is Arizona State, .34 points higher (2.46). The good news is that at this point in the season, we probably know what's going to end it. But if the offense improves, even slightly, the sky's the limit.

Preview

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday, April 3, 2009 – 6:30 p.m. Central
Texas: RHP Chance Ruffin (4-2, 2.68 ERA)
OSU: LHP Andrew Oliver (4-2, 5.59 ERA)

Saturday, April 4, 2009 - 2 p.m. Central
Texas: RHP Brandon Workman (3-2, 2.15 ERA)
OSU: LHP Tyler Lyons (4-2, 3.60 ERA)

Sunday, April 5, 2009 - 1 p.m. Central
Texas: RHP Cole Green (2-0, 2.31 ERA)
OSU: RHP Tyler Blandford (5-0, 3.83 ERA)

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Lineup info

Brandon Belt’s eye apparently isn’t ready to go yet because he didn’t even make the trip to Stillwater (per Craig and Keith), so Preston Clark will start at first with David Hernandez DHing.

Connor Rowe is getting the start in center. Both Rowe and Kyle Lusson are solid fielders, and Rowe probably has a slight edge in speed. Neither has hit the ball very well, but Lusson hasn’t bunted well of late either, so maybe that’s why Rowe is getting the nod. I’m not partial to one or the other, though. Offensively, all I would really ask of either of them is to get on base now and then, bunt well, and run the bases well. Since the defensive differences are basically negligible, I (as usual) will defer to Augie’s decision.

by Sweed4Heisman on Apr 3, 2009 6:37 PM CDT reply actions