Baylor
Texas A&M
Baseball Blanks Aggies, 1-0, Clinches Series
4/21/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
 0TEXAS A&M (28-11, 9-5) Rank: #2 |
Box Score | Quotes | Highlights |  1BAYLOR (34-7, 17-0) Rank: #6 |
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April 21, 2012
WACO, Texas - Trent Blank pitched a career-long 8.0 shutout innings to lead No. 6 Baylor to a 1-0 win over No. 2 Texas A&M in front of a record crowd of 5,911 on Saturday night at Baylor Ballpark.
The win gave Baylor (34-7, 17-0 Big 12) its 23rd consecutive win, which set a new Big 12 Conference record, and the Bears tied the league record with their 17th straight conference victory.
"I thought that we couldn't have had a better guy on the mound for us than Trent in a game like this, with this kind of crowd, and with this kind of atmosphere," head coach Steve Smith said. "I think (Ross) Stripling was tremendous, and both guys gave the fans and their teams all they had. It was just a phenomenal college baseball game."
Baylor also clinched the series over Texas A&M (28-11, 9-5 Big 12) to record their ninth straight Big 12 series win dating back to last season.
Blank (9-0) won his 11th straight decision after allowing just four hits with no walks and six strikeouts in 8.0 innings. Max Garner record his seventh save by working around a leadoff single in the ninth inning. Garner also saved Friday's win in College Station, and he's now saved two games in each of the Bears' last three conference series.
Max Muncy's sacrifice fly in the fifth inning provided the only run of the game, as Baylor defeated a ranked team 1-0 for just the second time in program history - the Bears won by the same score against No. 7 Texas on May 17, 1995.
The 5,911 fans in attendance broke the previous record of 5,602 fans that watched Baylor play Texas on April 17, 2004.
Texas A&M starter Ross Stripling (6-2) took the loss after allowing one run on six hits in 7.2 innings. The only run scored against him came in the fifth when Adam Toth and Nathan Orf singled with one out, Lawton Langford walked to load the bases and Muncy followed with a game-winning sacrifice fly.
Toth, Orf and Josh Ludy had two hits each to account for all six of Baylor's hits. Five different Texas A&M players had a hit apiece, with Scott Arthur's double going as the only extra-base hit.
Blank cruised through the first five innings, facing the minimum of 15 batters. He allowed a one-hit single in the first, but followed that up with a double-play grounder, starting a string of 14 consecutive batters retired.
After a one-out single in the sixth, Arthur doubled to give the Aggies two runners in scoring position with one out. Blank got Mikey Reynolds to ground to Cal Towey at third base, and Towey fired home to Ludy to cut down Blake Allemand at the plate. Blank then induced a popout to get out of the inning, and he allowed only an infield single in his final two innings of work.
"The guys want to win. They just want to win, and they don't want to win any differently on the first pitch and the last pitch," Smith said. "They're just playing the game, and that's so gratifying to see. To be able to perform at your best when your best is needed and people want to see your best, it's just exceptional. I'm proud of them."
Blank threw 74 of his career-high-tying 107 pitches for strikes and faced just three batters over the minimum in 8.0 innings of work. His previous long outing was 7.0 innings.
The Bears go for their sixth consecutive Big 12 series sweep when the teams meet for the series finale at 2:05 p.m. Sunday at Baylor Ballpark.
