What do you get when you combine Taylor Jungmann as his usual, barely hittable self with a suddenly potent offense? You get Baylor embarrassed on its home field by a tally of 11-3. Baseball is a game that's all about the "crooked number," a term that became famous via Tony La Russa in Buzz Bissinger's book about him, Three Nights in August. Texas put up a very crooked number in the sixth inning last night, using a nine-spot to extend a 1-0 lead to 10-0 laugher. Let's check out how it went down:
As so often happens, the rally started with a bit of luck topped off with help from the fielders. Baylor's right fielder lost an Erich Weiss fly ball in the lights, resulting in a double that should have been an out. Lucas Kephart picked on the poor kid again, nailing a legitimate double off the right field wall to trade places with Weiss. The stalwart Tant Shepherd followed with an RBI single, and the Longhorns had two runs home and nobody out.
Baylor then provided yet another bit of assistance, as is usually necessary to score nine times in one frame. With Shepherd on third and Kevin Lusson on second with one away, Paul Montalbano laid down a nice squeeze bunt. Which should have meant three runs in, two outs, runners at the corners. But Baylor starter Logan Verrett missed his target at first base, bringing Lusson home and sending Monty to second. Shaken, Verrett continued to miss targets by issuing nine-hole hitter Jacob Felts a four-pitch walk. Brandon Loy followed that up with a single to center field, where the Baylor CF was also in a giving mood; he mishandled the ball, allowing Montalbano to score and the other two runners to get into scoring position. (More after the Jump).
Baylor brought in reliever Tyler Bremer at that point to stop the bleeding, which he did--slowly. He walked Mark Payton to load the bases and then gave up an RBI single to Weiss (remember him? He already batted this inning). Kephart then smacked his second double of the inning to drive in a pair, and Shepherd knocked in Weiss with a sac fly in foul territory. There the merry-go-round ended, with Texas firmly in control.Taylor Jungmann was masterful once again, though he did uncharacteristically allow two homeruns. We gave short shrift in our series preview to Baylor right fielder Cal Towey, who had two bombs on the evening (one off Jungmann, one off freshman reliever Nathan Thornhill). We assume he'd rather have that fly ball from Weiss that started the Texas sixth, but who knows. In any event, aside from the Towey dinger and one from Max Muncy, Jungmann looked like he normally does. Both homers were solo shots because he only allowed three other hits in his eight complete innings, walked none, and had a zero-error defensive effort behind him.
It was exactly the way Texas needed to start this series, and they'll look to clinch the weekend win behind Hoby Milner at 3:00 PM CDT in Waco. You can listen to the Baylor radio broadcast for free here. Hook 'em!