Texas Tech (7-5) vs. TCU, Rice and Houston
Location: Minute Maid Park : Houston, TX
Radio: Affiliates
| Date | Start Time | Texas Tech Starting Pitcher |
Opponent Starting Pitcher |
Result |
| 3.5.10 | 12:00 p.m. | Chad Bettis L, 2-1 |
Steven Maxwell-TCU W, 3-0 |
L: 2-11 |
| 3.6.10 | 7:00 p.m. | Jay Johnson L, 0-2 |
Matthew Reckling-Rice W, 1-0 |
L: 2-3 |
| 3.7.10 | 2:30 p.m. | Louis Head L, 1-1 |
Taylor Hammack-Houston W, 1-0 |
L: 8-15 |
Outfield:
LF - Michael Reed (Sr.); CF - Taylor Ashby (Sr.); RF - Barrett Barnes (Fr.)
Infield:
SS - Joey Kenworthy (Sr.) 2ND - Garrett Totten (So.);
3RD - Nick Popescu (Jr.) 1ST - Stephen Hagen (Jr.)
C - Jeremy Mayo (So.)
DH - Scott LeJeune (So.)
*Click on the score for boxscore. Texas Tech series preview (pdf).
The Game: Ugh. It's all about pitching and there's not a lot of depth of pitching at Texas Tech. Starter Louis Head (1.1 IP; 4 H; 6 R; 5 ER; 3 BB; 1 SO) and Justin Cooper (0.0 IP; 6 H; 6 ER; 0 BB; 0 SO) were absolutely awful. No one likes to lose games, but Spencer is trying to find guys that can pitch, some of it includes testing out young guys like Head, who struggled as a freshman and you hope matures, but Spencer has to find a third starter by the time conference play starts. I've only started following baseball closely over the past three years, but the one thing I've noticed is that its pretty rare for teams to have that consistent third starter, and those teams that are really good, have that third starter.
One other issue that needs to be discussed when discussing the pitching is that in the first three innings, the defense had 4 errors, and 5 errors for the game. Head, C Jeremy Mayo who had 2, and 3B Justin Berry had errors during these awful first two innings. Berry was replaced after the 4th inning and Mayo was replaced in the 3rd inning. I have no idea if each of these players being pulled as a result of shoddy defense, but I'm guessing there's something to this.
LF Michael Reed (2-4; 3 RBI; 2 BB) and SS Joey Kenworthy (2-4; 1 RBI; 2 BB) led the offense. The biggest problem yesterday was that 1B Barrett Barnes (0-5) and DH Scott LeJeune (1-5; 1 RBI) didn't fare very well in the middle of the Texas Tech lineup.
Recaps: DT's Adam Coleman has the recap, but nothing from yesterday's game.
Roberson and Singletary, All-Big 12 Honorable Mention: LAJ's Courtney Linehan and DT's Mike Graham both write about PG John Roberson and SF Mike Singletary being named to the All-Big 12 Honorable Mention of the Big 12 All-Big 12 Teams. Linehan talked with Singletary:
"We haven’t really talked about next year, not yet, just because we don’t know what the rest of this year has in store for us," Singletary said. "We don’t know what’s going to happen with the NIT, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the Big 12 tournament, but we do know we have a good foundation, we have a good nucleus of guys who will come back next year and show that potential."
One of the Losers: Yahoo! Sports' Jason King has the very typical winners and losers list, but of particular note is that head coach Pat Knight's performance is starting to gain national attention:
Pat Knight – The Texas Tech coach will enter the 2010-11 campaign under pressure after losing seven straight to end the regular season. At 4-12, Texas Tech only improved by one game over last year’s 3-13 Big 12 record. The final loss – a 101-90 setback at Colorado on Saturday – was particularly embarrassing.