Just 30 minutes after the conclusion of its first game against Texas State, Texas baseball took the diamond again, this time for a full game. The game was the opposite of last night, where the 9-1 game was suspended in the ninth inning, as the Bobcats dominated the Longhorns, winning 7-3.
Throughout the midweek series, neither team was consistent enough to dominate on their home field. Texas head coach David Pierce has a lot of work to do to get his team ready to return to conference play this weekend.
“The bottom line is in this little mini-series that we played so far, neither team seemed to want to win at home,” Pierce said. “That’s been the consistency of the two-game series but we’ve just got to play better. It starts with me.”
Freshman pitcher Easton Tumis started the game on the mound, his first career start. Tumis pitched just over three innings, gave up two hits, earned three runs, walked three and struck out one batter.
“He threw three scoreless (innings), in the fourth one just free passes costs the game,” Pierce said. “By results, he pitched well, but he still wasn’t as sharp as he needed to be.”
Tumis gave up three runs in the fourth inning, ending his night. Texas State used this to its advantage and broke the game open. It forced Texas to play two more pitchers, redshirt sophomore Luke Harrison and freshman Cole Selvig.
Texas State capped off its six-run fourth inning with a three-run home run by senior third baseman Alex Gonzales, the first of his career. The scoring spree in the inning was enough for the Bobcats to take control and win the game.
“We’ve got to pitch better we have to have some timely hitting,” Pierce said. “It’s really tough if you look at (the score) and go ‘You’re down six, okay, we’ve got plenty of time left in the game.’ But that mentally is tough.”
Texas was unable to overcome the mental challenge to come back and win the game.
On the offensive side of the game, Texas had more success but was unable to put runs on the board. The Longhorns outhit the Bobcats 9-6 but left eight runners on base.
The only offensive spark came in the bottom of the seventh inning when sophomore first baseman Jared Thomas hit his tenth home run of the season.
Texas will need more offense than Thomas hitting home runs, and Pierce met with his team in the locker room following the loss. The main message of the meeting: sticking together and figuring out what needs improvement.
“I think there’s some frustration and I gotta be cautious that we stick together,” Pierce said. “It wasn’t a meeting of yelling and screaming because we’ve got some guys playing really well. It was more about being much more reliable, doing your job and just pounding the strike zone.”
Those themes will be key for Texas as it will travel to Houston this weekend to play the Cougars. Having dropped four straight series openers, Pierce will be changing his pitching lineup. Sophomore Max Grubbs will start on Friday night and junior Ace Whitehead will start on Saturday.
With its new lineup, Texas looks to get its first series-opening win in conference play starting on Friday.
