No. 27 Baseball Takes Series Rubber Match at West Virginia

Saturday, May 19

Morgantown, W. Va.

12:00 PM

Baylor

32-19, 13-11

West Virginia

27-25, 9-15

Baylor

West Virginia

No. 27 Baseball Takes Series Rubber Match at West Virginia

5/19/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

May 19, 2018

Final Stats

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

€‹Flipping the script from a year ago, Baylor baseball will go into next week's Big 12 tournament as maybe the hottest team in the league.

€‹Finishing off the second half of conference play with a 10-2 record, the Bears (32-19, 13-11) defeated West Virginia, 6-2, Saturday afternoon in Morgantown, W.Va., to win their fourth consecutive Big 12 series and fifth overall.

They earned the No. 5 seed for the Big 12 Championship and will face fourth-seeded Oklahoma (34-21, 14-10) at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.

"I think our guys have more confidence now than they've ever had," said Baylor coach Steve Rodriguez, whose team has won 18 of its last 21 games. "Going in there, they know they can beat any team in this conference. That's one thing I really enjoy is going into this knowing that we have a chance to win it, first of all, but there's not a lot of fear in these guys right now."

As has been the case for most of the second half of the season, senior reliever Alex Phillips gave the Bears four strong innings out of the bullpen in Saturday's series clincher against the Mountaineers (27-25, 9-15), allowing no earned runs on four hits and no walks with five strikeouts.

"Man, what a stud he's been for us these past couple weeks, just coming in and eating up innings for us and quality innings," Rodriguez said of Phillips, who improved to 6-1 with a 3.18 ERA.

"That's one of the reasons why we love having him back. Last year, he was hurt and trying to get back. I think this is more what he expected from his last year of baseball."

Phillips, who made previous stints at Arkansas and San Jacinto College, had Tommy John surgery and sat out the 2016 season before going 4-3 with a 5.83 last season.

"This is a lot better than Tuesday nights," said Phillips, who was primarily used as a midweek starter last year. "It's one of those things where I knew I had it in me, I just had to get better. Earlier in the year, it just wasn't working. So, I went into (pitching coach Jon) Strauss' office and said, `Hey, I think I'm more effective out of the bullpen. And he agreed. I'm not doing anything different. I think it's just the intensity is heighted. Nothing I can really put my finger on, but it's just a lot of fun going out there."

Coming off a strong start the week before in a win over Oklahoma State, freshman Tyler Thomas struggled with his control and left after giving up a leadoff walk to start the fourth. He gave up just two hits and struck out five batters in three-plus innings of work but was undone by five walks.

That leadoff walk led to the Mountaineers' only two runs of the day. Phillips got the next two batters out, but Ivan Gonzalez moved to second on a balk and scored on Braden Zarbnisky's RBI single to left. Taking advantage of an error to move up to third, Zarbnisky then scored the second run on a Brandon White single.

Before that, Baylor had jumped out to a 4-0 lead. The Bears scored a run in the third on singles by T.J. Raguse and Richard Cunningham and then tacked on three more in the fourth off reliever Alek Manoah.

After a one-out walk by Shea Langeliers, freshman Davion Downey doubled to the gap in left-center field and Cole Haring drove in a run with a single to right-center. Raguse's two-run double gave the Bears an early cushion.

"I told our guys that it was going to be a big weekend, and you could tell that the stress level was a little bit higher than normal, the energy was a little bit higher than normal," Rodriguez said. "They've been playing well for weeks. I'm just really happy to see them do what they're doing. They're doing a lot of great things out there."

Baylor's bullpen did the rest, with Phillips holding the two-run lead into the eighth. Fellow seniors Drew Robertson and Troy Montemayor faced just one over the minimum in the eighth and ninth to close it out.

"Me and Joe (Heineman), D-Rob and Mayor, we all have our roles," Phillips said of Baylor's senior relief corps. "I know if I don't throw on Friday or Saturday (in a normal weekend series), I'm going to pitch on Sunday and I know what my job is. It's to go out there and throw as hard as I can as long as I can. It's just fun when you go out there, do your job, come back and everyone's excited."

A day after Montemayor tied the program record with his 37th career save in Friday's 4-1 win, the Bears took a potential save out of his hands with two insurance runs in the top of the ninth.

Facing the seventh of eight West Virginia pitchers on the day, Haring led off with a ringing double down the left-field line and advanced to third on an error. After a Levi Gilcrease walk put runners on the corner with one out, Haring scored on a squeeze bunt by freshman Nick Loftin and then Cunningham (3-for-5) came through with an RBI single to center to push it to a four-run lead and take it out of a save situation.

Although Baylor's RPI ranking should get a boost from winning the road series at West Virginia, Rodriguez told the team that "we still have to earn our way in and do a lot of things right, because I want to make that decision for the committee as tough as possible. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that."

THE RUNDOWN
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. -- No. 27 Baylor baseball fought for a 6-2 win vs. West Virginia in the series rubber match on Saturday afternoon at Monongalia County Ballpark. The Bears (32-19, 13-11) used a three-run fourth inning to down the Mountaineers (27-25, 9-15).

Richard Cunningham broke a scoreless tie in the third with a two-out RBI single for Baylor. Then in the fourth, Cole Haring had an RBI single and T.J. Raguse delivered a huge, two-strike, two-out, two-run double for a 4-0 lead.

WVU answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth but did not score again. Meanwhile, the Bears scored in the ninth on a Nick Loftin squeeze bunt and Cunningham two-out single.

BU reliever Alex Phillips (6-1) earned the win, allowing an unearned run on four hits with five strikeouts in four innings. WVU reliever Alek Manoah (3-6) took the loss, giving up three runs on three hits and one walk with one strikeout in 0.2 innings.

NOTES
*Baylor has won 18 of its last 21 games.

*Baylor has won four straight Big 12 series and five straight overall series for the first time since 2012.

*Baylor has 12 or more wins (13) in Big 12 play for the second straight season. BU has won 12 or more in two straight seasons (12 in 2017) for the first time since 2012 (20) and 2013 (12).

*Baylor has won 30 or more (32) games in a season for the second straight year (34 in 2017), giving the program back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first time since 2011 (31) and 2012 (49).

*Baylor is 8-4 in three-game series this season (3-3 on road, 5-1 at home) and has a combined record of 20-14.

*Baylor has scored 121 runs in its last 92 innings.

*Richard Cunningham has an eight-game on-base streak and three-game hitting streak as he had his 16th multi-hit game (3) and team-high-tying 12th multi-RBI game (2).

*Shea Langeliers has a six-game on-base streak.

*Freshman Davion Downey posted his 12th multi-hit game (3).

*Cole Haring totaled his 15th multi-hit game (2).

*T.J. Raguse tallied his seventh multi-hit game (2) and fourth multi-RBI game (2).

*Alex Phillips tied a career high with five strikeouts and upped his career high win total to six.

STAT OF THE GAME
18 -- The amount of outs recorded while giving up just one unearned run by the Baylor bullpen (Alex Phillips: 12; Drew Robertson: three; Troy Montemayor: three).

QUOTE OF THE GAME
"The big thing was that we knew it was a big weekend and we handled it well. The stress and energy levels were a little higher than normal. We are doing a lot of great things out there. The postseason stuff, we still have to find our way in and do a lot of things right and make the decision for the committee as tough as possible. I think we've done a pretty good job of that." -- Baylor Head Coach Steve Rodriguez

WHAT'S NEXT
The Bears head to Oklahoma City for the Big 12 Championship as the No. 5 seed on May 23-27. BU will play No. 4 Oklahoma on Wednesday, May 23. For updates on the program follow @baylorbaseball on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

-BU-