Trips down to Corpus Christi when the weather starts touching the mid-80s normally result in a venture to the beach, a sunburn and fun memories all around.
The Longhorns experienced anything but that Tuesday night following an 8-2 loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
“This was just a poor job preparing all the way around starting with me,” Texas head coach David Pierce said during his postgame press conference. “We’ve just got to make an adjustment and get ready to play on the road at Kansas.”
Despite the burnt orange faithful traveling very well down south to outnumber the Islander fans in attendance, the manufactured home field advantage ended up not helping the Longhorns at the end of the day.
After scoring two quick runs in the top of the first inning, the Texas bats went dead. In the ensuing eight innings, the Longhorn bats were only able to manage two hits.
The bottom five batters in the Longhorns lineup went a combined 0-for-15 at the plate and reached base just twice on two walks.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi pitcher Zach Rumfield shut down the Longhorns in his four innings of work. He faced the minimum 12 batters, struck out four and did not allow a base runner.
“I actually made note of (his approach) in the dugout,” Pierce said. “Reason why he was successful — he topped out at 91 (miles per hour), but he threw three pitches for strikes and threw secondary pitches in full counts. It’s called pitching. We were one speed, one location and we’ve got to get better.”
The Longhorns traveled to Corpus Christi fresh off a 10-2 victory over West Virginia on Sunday, and hoped to build momentum against a struggling TAMU-CC team.
“(Texas) A&M-Corpus Christi had been struggling,” Pierce said. “We took the momentum early, and we let them right back in the game. Poor pitching, poor defense and really after the first inning, we didn’t swing the bat well.”
While the Texas lineup did not produce anything after the first inning, the men on the mound certainly didn’t add any help. The Texas pitching staff allowed nine walks compared to just five strikeouts.
Texas pitchers Coy Cobb, Kolby Kubichek, Donny Diaz and Owen Meaney all allowed two runs against an Islanders lineup that had scored eight or more runs just once in the last 11 games.
The loss for the Longhorns is the seventh in the last eight games. With two conference series remaining in the regular season, Texas needs every win possible and the first step begins at practice, according to Pierce.
“We’ll have a pretty tough practice tomorrow,” Pierce said. “(We have) to get ourselves ready to go to Kansas on Thursday.”
Pierce added that the Longhorns will roll out the same pitching rotation against the Jayhawks, beginning with Bryce Elder on Friday, Blair Henley on Saturday and freshman Ty Madden on Sunday.
