This Week In Texas Tech Baseball - 5/3/2016

The Past Week in Red Raiders Baseball

After a less than appealing home series against the Horns last weekend, Tech had a midweek game against Abilene Christian in Midland before a big matchup against the Frogs in Ft Worth. The Red Raiders played a close game, going up 4-3 before allowing a run in the top of the 9th to tie the game. However Hunter Hargrove would hit a walkoff RBI to seal the victory for Tech, with some momentum going into Ft Worth. The series against TCU was built up by many as the series to possibly decide the Big 12 regular season champ. Tech was able to play a very strong game Friday night in a battle of undefeated pitchers in a 7-3 victory. Saturday's game was going well with Tech up 5-1 before a pair of innings where Tech pitchers couldn't find the strike zone and TCU batters found the open spots in the field. With the series evened up after Saturday, Tech's lead over TCU was at 2 games, and set up for a huge game on Sunday. A TCU win would put them only 1 game back of Tech in the Big 12 race with only 6 games remaining.The Red Raiders would play a great game on Sunday, winning the series, and more importantly, stretching their lead over TCU to 3 games.

Inside the Big 12

The other important series last weekend was between OSU and UT in Austin. With each team 3 back of Tech, anything but a series sweep would be in our favor, and unfortunately OSU did sweep the Horns, and now sit just 2 games back of Tech with 6 games left. Right now the standings with 6 games left (for the teams still in the hunt ) are:

Technically UT and West Virginia are still in it, but they both need a ton of help for either one to win the conference. Even TCU at 3 games back is on the outside, needing things to fall into place. With finals coming up for the schools, fewer games will be played and most will take the week of finals off. By the end of this weekend, the picture should become much clearer, and Tech may have the conference all but wrapped up.

This Week in Red Raider Baseball

This week there will be no midweek game, and the Red Raiders will be in Lawrence starting Friday night at 6:00. All 3 games against Kansas will be televised by ESPN3, so check your local listings or hop online to catch us put a stranglehold on the Big 12. On Monday, the rankings from D1 Baseball were released, with Tech finally cracking their top 10, ranked 10th in the nation. They currently have the 13th strongest RPI in the nation, with a 7-2 record against the Top 25. Kendall Rogers od D1 had this to say on Sunday night....

We had @TTU_Baseball as a national seed this past week. #Wreckem bolsters that resume even more with a road series win over #TCU. Impressive

— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogersD1) May 1, 2016

When the postseason begins, there will be 16 regional hosts, 8 of which will be National Seeds. Typically, if you are a national seed and win your regional, you also host the super regional. As of last Friday, D1 has us as the #8 seed in a regional with Virginia, New Mexico, and Binghamton. The regional across from us would be hosted by Arizona, with Vanderbilt, Cal Poly, and Wright State. As Kendall pointed out, this past weekend may have bumped us up to the 7th seed, and possibly even more. Tech has played well enough to give themselves the chance to make some noise, now its time to go out and take it.