Red Raider Hardball | Kansas St. vs. Texas Tech | Weekend Thread

Much thanks to TMacRaider for the new photos, who sent a ton of new photos in this week! Totally awesome and much appreciated.

Texas Tech really needs to win this series against Kansas St. That’s sorta a simple statement, but this is a home series against an opponent that’s just 2-4 for the year in conference play and lost a series to Kansas last week. Kansas St. has the worst ERA in Big 12 play and this would be a great series for the Texas Tech offense to get back on track and put up some runs.

The baseball team knows that this is a key series with Kansas St. with three of the next four series being in Lubbock (via LAJ).

Tech came through those first four series in decent shape considering the road series were at Baylor, TCU and Oklahoma State. The Red Raiders picked up a series win against the Horned Frogs, but lost that advantage the next week by dropping two of three at home to Texas.

So at the very least, the Red Raiders did what is considered the bare minimum toward finishing .500 in conference play, a key factor in attracting the attention of the NCAA committee in late May. Tech is in good shape in all the other factors, with an official Ratings Percentage Index of 17, a 5-4 record against the top 25 in RPI and having played more conference games than any other team in the league.

Consistency has been a problem for Kansas st. after being so close to the College World Series last year (via LAJ):

"We’re just trying to battle through right now, stay positive and take it one day at a time," said head coach Brad Hill, who is in his 11th season leading the Wildcats. "We still have a ways to go. I think everybody would agree with that."

Despite having numbers similar to last year in terms of batting average, run production and ERA, the Wildcats have battled inconsistency all season long. They entered Wednesday night’s game at Nebraska at 19-13 overall and 2-4 in the Big 12 with a road trip to Texas Tech (25-11, 5-7) looming for this weekend.

OUTFIELD: LF: Alec Humphreys | CF: Stephen Smith | RF: Adam Kirsch
INFIELD: 3B: Jake Barrios | SS: Ryan Long | 2B: Bryant Burleson | 1B Eric Gutierrez | C: Hunter Redman | DH: Matt Broadbent

Game 1: Friday, April 11th @ 6:30 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: RHP Dominic Moreno (1-5, 3.29)
Kansas St. Starting Pitcher: RHP Levi MaVorhis (4-3, 2.75)
Final Score & Box Score: Kansas St. 3, Texas Tech 4 - Recap - Box Score - LAJ

Wooot!  Texas Tech was down 2 runs early, but scored 3 runs in the 5th inning and an additional run in the 8th inning, and the Red Raiders FINALLY get a Friday night win.  Dominic Moreno gets the start, but immediately gets into trouble and only lasts 2.1 innings, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits a walk and a strikeout. Luckily, Cameron Smith came in relief and was terrific, pitiching 5 innings of 1 hit ball, 1 walks and 5 strikeouts. Ryan Moseley came in and walked 2 batters without registering an out, and Jonny Drozd minimized the damage going the 1.2 frames, only allowing a run, off of 3 hits. As far as scoring, I think you can largely thank K-State's ability to throw an error.  Texas Tech only managed 8 hits for the game and only registered 1 RBI, by Stephen Smith.

Game 2: Saturday, April 12th @ 3:00 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: TBA
Kansas St. Starting Pitcher: LHP Jared Moore (5-2, 4.43)
Final Score & Box Score: Kansas St. 4, Texas Tech 7 - Recap - Box Score - LAJ

Head coach Tim Tadlock moved up Chris Sadberry to Saturday with the thought that he wanted to go for the win today.  Not Sunday, but today.  It paid off as Sadberry and Corey Taylor proved to be pretty good, Sadberry going 5 innings giving up 4 runs, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts, and Taylor pitching a shutout for the rest of the way, allowing only 2 hits in 4 innings.  The offense was led by Bryant Burleson, who was 2-4 with 2 RBI, one of those in the 7th inning, and Tyler Neslony, who was 2-4 with an RBI. Adam Kirsch hit his 5th home run of the year. Texas Tech goes for the sweep today (and obviously, Sadberry isn't starting, but I'm leaving it for now to remind myself that Tadlock is aggressive).

Game 3: Sunday, April 13th @ 1:00 pm
Texas Tech Starting Pitcher: LHP Chris Sadberry (3-1, 2.36)
Kansas St. Starting Pitcher: RHP Nate Griep (3-1, 1.79)
Final Score & Box Score: Kansas St. 7, Texas Tech 11 - Recap - Box Score - LAJ

Sweep!  Heck yes! High fives for everyone! Dylan Dusek gets his first start of his career (maybe that's just the Big 12) and goes 4 innings, giving up 4 4un, and walking 2 and striking out 2, but that was just the type of start that Texas Tech needed because the offense was absolutely on fire. And Jonny Drozd was terrific in relief, going 4.2 innings, giving up just 2 hits, and striking out 3. Just a terrific outing for him. And the offense very much carried the day, as Bryant Burleson was 4-5 with 3 RBI, including 3 doubles (that can't be right!). Eric Gutierrez is 2-3 with 2 RBI and Ryan Long gets into the action at DH going 1-4 with 2 RBI and Tim Proudfoot goes 2-3 with 2 RBI. Texas Tech is 8-7 in conference play and has 28 wins thus far this season. Just a great end to a terrific weekend.