Red Raiders finish a five game home stand against the New Mexico Lobos

Texas Tech Red Raiders vs New Mexico Lobos.

Game time

March 7 (Wed): 1:00 PM

Probable starters

RHP Ryan Shetter (2-0, 1.46) vs RHP Drew Gillespie (1-2, 5.06 ERA)

The matchup

The Red Raiders finish up a five game home stand with a midweek match up with the University of New Mexico Lobos. This will be the first of what will become a three game series. The Red Raiders and Lobos will meet again in Albuquerque for a two game set on April 17-18.

New Mexico comes in with a 5-5-1 record after dropping a series 1-2 to the Nevada Wolfpack last weekend.

This is the 10th season for head coach Ray Birmingham, who took over for the Lobos in 2008. In 2016, Birmingham led New Mexico to it’s fifth NCAA playoff berth in seven seasons. Last season the won the Mountain West Conference regular season championship after starting conference play 10-0.

Texas Tech enters the matchup undefeated after a four game sweep of the #15 South Alabama Jaguars. The win elevated Texas Tech to the top of the RPI rankings.

The last time these two teams met was on April 26 when the Red Raiders capped off a 3-1 series with a 27-15 win in Albuquerque. Fans will remember this particular matchup as it resulted in Tim Tadlock inexplicably being ejected and suspended for the series opener against TCU.

Players to watch

RS Junior Hayden Schilling leads the Lobos with 20 hits and 12 runs on 47 at bats. His best game came against Central Michigan when he recorded three runs and four RBIs.

Senior Danny Collier led the Lobos in triples last year. This season he’s batting .292 with 14 hits, eight runs and three RBIs.

Prediction

The Lobos are well coached. Aside from that they don’t have much going for them. They have a couple of good hitters in the lineup but severely lack pitching depth, which doesn’t bode well for any midweek game since the best pitchers will need rest for the upcoming weekend. New Mexico considers Texas Tech to be a huge rival however so I expect the Lobos to be ready to play. They just don’t have the personnel to get it done against a Red Raider team that all but shut out what was a really good South Alabama offense. I’m expecting a blowout.

Red Raiders will keep the streak alive 12-0.