Red Raider Baseball Preview - Baylor Bears

Last weekend Tech dropped a close series in Norman and look to get back to their winning ways as they host Baylor in the first Big 12 series in Lubbock this year. This will be Baylor’s first road conference series, after dropping home series to Oklahoma and West Virginia, their conference record at 2-4.

2017 Baylor Bears

Baylor has been an up and down team this season, beating Ole Miss and Texas A&M in the Houston classic that the Red Raiders were involved in, taking a series over a ranked Houston team, as well as midweek games against typical postseason members DBU and Sam Houston State. However, in recent games they dropped a series at Washington, and lost to UTSA and Lamar at home, allowing 26 runs in those 2 games alone. Early in the season they were not allowing many runs, and only allowed 7 in the Houston tournament. This has not been the case lately, with a team ERA of 3.62 and they are allowing almost 9 hits per game.

At the plate, senior DH Matt Menard leads the team in batting average (.317), while junior outfielder Kameron Esthay has 20 RBI’s and has at least 1 run in 18 of the 29 games he has played in. All 3 scheduled starters for Baylor have typically lasted at least five innings this season and have limited hits and runs while adding up the strikeouts.

Texas Tech Roster Updates

Last week Davis Martin was pulled from his scheduled start on Friday in favor of John Henry Gonzalez and it was announced this week that he is suffering from tendinits, and would be out at least 2 weeks. This means he could be throwing again this weekend and may return for the Kansas State series next weekend. Ryan Long, returning from a shoulder separation, started 2 of the 3 games in Norman last week and should be ready to start this weekend. Tanner Gardner was DH for the midweek game in Las Cruces, and may see time in that role again this weekend as he continues to come back from an ankle sprain.

Game 1 - Friday 6:30pm

John Henry Gonzalez (2-2, 3.91 ERA) vs Nick Lewis (3-2, 3.00 ERA)

Game 2 - Saturday, 2:00pm (SOLD OUT)

Steven Gingery (6-0, 0.92 ERA) vs Devon Perez (2-2, 2.96 ERA)

Game 3 - Sunday , 2:00pm (Televised on FSSW+)

Ryna Shetter (2-0, 3.50 ERA) vs Cody Bradford (4-2, 2.96 ERA)