Prairie View A&M comes to Austin for the third to last regular season home game at UFCUDFF tonight at 6:05 PM. Texas enters the game with a 20 game winning streak, and the Panthers' 12-29 means that anything less than a 21 game winning streak after tonight will be disappointing. As we enter the final nine games of the regular season the Texas pitching staff continues to perform at an historically good rate. How good? Just take a look at the top 10 team ERAs after last weekend:
| Rank | Team | ERA | ||
| 1 | Texas | 2.17 | ||
| 2 | Coastal Carolina | 3.00 | ||
| 3 | UCLA | 3.04 | ||
| 4 | Arizona State | 3.07 | ||
| 5 | Portland | 3.24 | ||
| 6 | Vanderbilt | 3.31 | ||
| 7 | Louisiana-Lafayette | 3.34 | ||
| 8 | Miami, Florida | 3.56 | ||
| 9 | Virginia | 3.58 | ||
| 10 | Oregon | 3.59 |
Anyhow, this post is already all over the place, so the midweek question of the week is: would a loss in the last nine regular season games be good for the Horns? The argument against needing a loss is pretty obvious, you play to win the game and there's no such thing as a moral victory. There are several arguments for needing a loss:
- The last thing you want going into the postseason is for Texas' winning streak to become a Streak for the media to harp on and become a distraction.
- A midweek loss to Oral Roberts was the best thing to happen to Texas this season, igniting the winning streak to this point. The conference title is all but sewn up so a midweek loss could ignite the Horns in a way no win can.
- Texas is going to lose, that's the nature of baseball. Better it be in the regular season than in the postseason when it matters. Texas can win 40 straight games this season but if it doesn't end with a dogpile in Omaha then it'll be perceived as a failed season. Might as well get it over with now and start over in the post season.
Anyhow, what say you? This can be your open thread for the game versus Prairie View A&M. It'll be TBA on the mound for both teams tonight, not sure what to make of Sam Stafford not being announced ahead of time as the starter.