Texas baseball cruises past Texas Southern 10-2

The Texas Longhorns (26-14) defeated the Texas Southern Tigers (16-22) 10-2 Wednesday night at a neutral site in southwest Houston.

Texas Southern came into this game having just lost to Baylor Tuesday night. Record-wise, TSU isn’t much to write home about, but prior to losing to Baylor, the Tigers enjoyed a five-game winning streak.

Freshman Kamron Fields got his first career start on the mound for the Longhorns tonight and his stats support David Pierce’s decision. Coming into tonight, Fields has been mostly used out of the bullpen, but the freshman has impressed many by getting Texas out of jams. So far, he’s posted a 1.42 ERA in 12.2 innings of work and averages just over a strikeout an inning. Bright days are ahead for Fields.

Texas got on the board early in the first thanks to a throwing error from Texas Southern that allowed Tate Shaw to score from third.

After Nico O’Donnell stranded a pair in the fourth, the Longhorns extended their lead in the bottom half. Ryan Reynolds two-out doubled and eventually scored off a Duke Ellis triple. Texas kept capitalizing on the Tigers mistakes as Ellis scored off a wild pitch to bring the score to 3-0.

Keeping with the midweek tradition of rotating arms from the bullpen, Parker Joe Robinson came in for O’Donnell in the fifth. Despite giving up early back-to-back singles, Robinson was able to strikeout three straight batters to keep the Tigers off the scoreboard.

The ‘Horns kept the foot on the gas in the bottom half of the fifth putting up another three runs. Back-to-back singles from Masen Hibbeler and Kody Clemens put both runners in scoring position. The combination of David Hamilton’s sacrifice fly and Andy McGuire’s two-run homerun put the ‘Horns up 6-0 heading into the sixth.

Texas Southern battled back to get two on the board in the sixth, but Parker Joe limited the damage that kept the Longhorns in a comfortable lead.

Speaking about that lead, Texas was able to push another run across the board in the sixth. A leadoff knock by Duke Ellis was followed by Michael McCann’s third single of the game. Shaw’s sacrifice fly opened the door for Ellis to score from third and give Texas a 7-2 lead.

After a nice L46 double play to end the top half of the seventh, the Longhorns widened their lead with another three run inning – making it four straight innings that they pushed a run across. Texas took advantage of mistakes by the Tigers defense and pitching as all three runs were scored off of either wild pitches, walks, or throwing errors. An important note is that George Pappas got his first base knock in burnt orange (or in this case: home pinstripe white). After it was said and done, Texas pushed its lead to 10-2 going into the final two innings.

Solid outings by Matt Whelan and Andy McGuire in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, capped off a Texas win 10-2.

The Longhorns simply outclassed the Tigers tonight. The ‘Horns capitalized on every single mistake made by TSU. Texas did their job at the plate tonight – whether it was putting runners on early in the inning, drawing walks, stealing bases, or sacrificing, the Longhorns did it all tonight. Not to mention, the Big 12 leading defense showed up in numerous times tonight to get out of some tricky situations.

Texas will be back in action this weekend against the University of New Orleans Privateers.