There’s a saying in the hockey world that a 2–0 lead is the worst lead in sports. Well, the Texas baseball team may challenge that precept with one of their own — a 6-0 lead is the worst lead in sports.
At least it was Wednesday night in the Longhorns’ 10-7 defeat by the UTSA Roadrunners at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
Texas led 6-0 heading into the fifth inning and held UTSA to just one hit on the evening before the flood gates opened.
The fifth inning was nightmarishly bad for the Longhorns. It started with a full count walk and a weakly hit ball through the right side of the infield and before anyone had a clue, a rally was born.
“It just came down to one inning,” Texas head coach David Pierce said. “It just started to unravel. When you have 11 free passes, you’re going to get beat, and that is what happened tonight.”
The wheels on the Roadrunners rally machine began to roll, and not too much later, the first eight Roadrunners reached home safely.
Texas was engulfed in its own mistakes. After 70 pitches and four pitchers later, the Longhorns finally escaped the inning. But thanks to three hits, three walks and two errors, the 6-0 lead was only a thing in the past.
The Roadrunners ended up scoring eight runs in the inning before Texas reliever Cole Quintanilla came in to record the final out.
The life inside of UFCU Disch-Falk Field turned eerily similar to the cemetery directly south of the stadium.
Luckily for the Longhorns, the season is still young, and they’ll have plenty of chances to improve throughout the season.
“There’s no silver lining here,” Pierce said. “But at the same time, it’s still early, and we’re still trying to figure some guys out.”
There’s good news and bad news for the Longhorns following the loss. The good being they will have an opportunity to right the ship quickly with their next game coming Friday. The bad news is that their next opponent is No. 1 LSU.
For Texas, the best thing it can do is to wipe this defeat from memory and move on.
“You never want to lose a game, especially a midweek game, or any game to an in-state team,” said third baseman Ryan Reynolds, who collected three hits in the loss. “You can kind of take away some of the pros and then also some of the cons, but overall, I think it’s pretty good to put this one behind us and get ready for LSU.”
Luckily for Texas, the bats will be ready when the Tigers come to town. On top of the 17 runs scored in the two weekday games leading up to the LSU series, the Longhorns have averaged over seven runs per game in their last seven outings dating back to the road game at Rice.
Though the task of facing the No. 1 team in the country may seem daunting, Texas isn’t going to roll over.
“Anyone can come in here and beat anyone in a given day in baseball,” Reynolds said. “So we gotta prepare every game like the opponent’s better.”
