Tuesday's game against Texas State encapsulated the 2014 Horns in a lot of ways. Things started off slow with Texas State grabbing an early 1-0 lead. Texas pitched well throughout. The offense came on after a rough start, tying the game at 1-1. Then everything came to a screeching halt. In the 2014 season this meant three straight series losses while against Texas State it meant a rain delay that never ended. What it amounted to on Tuesday was a four inning scrimmage against a local opponent that didn't mean anything.
On to Manhattan.
The Wildcats were once considered the favorite to win the Big 12 but instead they enter the final conference series an embarrassing 4-17 in conference and 24-28 overall. KSU will not be dancing this year, but they can still put the final nail in the Texas season, so there's that!
The Horns enter the season's final weekend nowhere near resembling the team that looked like it might challenge for the #1 overall spot. Every optimistic word Abram and I (and many of you) have written have come back to bite us in the collective behind. The non-corporeal baseball entities sure are a spiteful bunch.
Texas has now played four innings over the last 12 days. Will they have sloppy defense, no offense and a shaky bullpen after such a long break or will the Horns be different from how they looked last we saw them in Morgantown. Though we need to see what the non-corporeal baseball entities have in store for the Horns for the next few weeks, Abram and I have talked about potentially needing a post whose title may rhyme with "Soggy should benign or be tired". It's not a fun idea.
Now's not the time to worry about that though. The Horns still have three more games to go and some baseball is better than no baseball unless what we get is bad baseball. With a series win the Horns should clinch a 2-seed and if they are sent to Houston (seemingly the most logical destination) they'd get to face one of two teams (either Houston or Rice) that they've already beaten in 2014.
First pitch tonight is at 6:30 PM. Dillon Peters is on the mound tonight followed by Nathan Thornhill on Saturday and Parker French on Sunday (apparently there's another illness for French).
Hook 'em.