By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Missing two-thirds of their weekend rotation, the sixth-seeded Baylor Bears will turn to a freshman whose only conference starts came in the last month. 
            Instead of a more seasoned pitcher like Tyler Thomas or Blake Helton, freshman left-hander Cam Caley (2-1, 4.15 ERA) will get the start when the Bears (31-18, 11-13) face fifth-ranked and third-seeded Texas Tech (35-13, 14-10) at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. 
            "I have a ton of confidence in him," Baylor coach Steve Rodriguez said of Caley, who got the win in last Thursday's 9-3 win over Oklahoma, giving up three runs on four hits and one walk with four strikeouts in 5.0 innings. "He's stepped up, thrown really well out of the pen and as a starter. And we expect him to do just exactly that. I don't want him to do anything more or anything less, just do what he's been doing."
            Caley, who is 2-0 with a 1.40 ERA in 25.2 innings over his last eight appearances, will be matched against an explosive Texas Tech lineup that is hitting .282 and ranks second in the Big 12 and seventh nationally with 80 home runs. Freshman Jace Jung, the Big 12 Player of the Year, is hitting .366 with a league-best 20 homers and 65 RBI. 
            "My freshman year and other freshmen tend to get in their own head a little bit and just worry about the next pitch or the previous pitch," said first-team All-Big 12 reliever Luke Boyd, who has eight saves. "Cam just kind of simplifies everything, dumbs it down, so that he's not really thinking when he's pitching well. He can be one of the best pitchers on this team when he's hitting his spots and snapping off that breaking ball."
            Bidding to make their fourth-straight NCAA regional, the Bears dropped to 40^th in the latest RPI rankings and are listed as the last team in the field by D1Baseball.com and as a No. 3 seed by Baseball America. 
            Baylor still has a strong resume, taking two of three at Texas Tech in an impressive stretch of winning four-straight conference series, but series losses the last two weekends to Oklahoma State on the road and Oklahoma at home didn't help its cause. 
            "We just need to play really well on Wednesday," Rodriguez said. "If we do that, I really like our chances. It really depends on what the committee is looking for. if they're looking at the overall picture, I really like what our guys have done, especially when you consider some of the COVID and injury issues we've battled through and still performed very well. We can only perform how we perform, and then we let the committee do their job."
            Freshman centerfielder Jared McKenzie (.380, nine homers, 39 RBI), who joined Boyd and fifth-year senior catcher Andy Thomas (.342, 11, 59) on the All-Big 12 first team, said the Bears can't really change their approach, "but we know it's in the back of our minds that we are that bubble team."
            "We know it's crunch time, and we need to win, so whatever it takes," he said. "As long as we go out here and do what we know we're capable of and we leave it all out there, then it's out of our hands. We've done all we can do, and just trust if we get that opportunity, we'll show the country what we're made of."
            Boyd, whose goal going into the season was to make a regional, said doing something special at the Big 12 tournament "would definitely help our chances."
            "That's all I want to do – make a regional, see what this team can do and make a run to Omaha (for the College World Series)," he said. 
            While the Bears are facing one of the top teams in the country and a potential host for an NCAA Regional and Super Regional, they do have the advantage of winning the series earlier this year in Lubbock. Probable Tech starter Mason Montgomery (3-3, 4.36) took the loss in the series finale, allowing four runs on six hits and one walk with eight strikeouts in Baylor's 13-3 series-clinching win on April 25. 
            "We have that confidence against them already," McKenzie said. "Hopefully, we continue to play well against them. We want that revenge against TCU, and then we can keep winning, one game at a time."
            In the top half of the bracket, second-seeded and seventh-ranked TCU (37-16) faces seventh-seeded Kansas State (31-22) at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, with the two winners squaring off at 4 p.m. Wednesday and the losers playing at 9 a.m. in an elimination game. 
            Top-seeded and third-ranked Texas (40-13) plays No. 8 seed West Virginia (24-25) at 4 p.m. Wednesday, followed by fourth-seeded and 16^th-ranked Oklahoma State (32-16-1) versus No. 5 seed Oklahoma (27-26) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night, West Virginia eliminated ninth-seeded Kansas, 8-7, in the play-in game. 
            "Truthfully, you need a little bit of luck, you need some guys to step up." Rodriguez said of the Big 12 tournament. "You need your dudes to play like dudes and play well. I'm just really happy with where they are right now, considering everything that's going on."


OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – No. 6 seed Baylor baseball starts the 2021 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship with a matchup against No. 3 seed Texas Tech on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. CT on ESPNU in Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Okla. The Bears (31-18, 11-13 Big 12) will look for its third win of the season against the No. 5-ranked Red Raiders (35-13, 14-10 Big 12).
 
The Red Raiders lead the all-time series against the Bears 90-85, with the last meeting coming on April 23-25, 2021 in Lubbock where the Bears took the series. With the series win, it was the first series win for BU in Lubbock since May 15-16, 2010 and Baylor became the first team to win a series at Rip Griffin Park since 2018 as Tech was 20-2 at home in 2021 entering that weekend.
 
Wednesday will be the eighth time the two teams have met at the conference tournament, with the Bears winning four of the seven matchups. The last meeting came in 2017, with TTU eliminating the Bears, 4-1.
 
SERIES INFO
Date: May 26 (Wed.)
Game Times: 9 a.m. CT
Site: Oklahoma City, Okla. /Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (9,000)
TV: ESPNU
• Talent: Keith Moreland (pxp), Greg Swindell (color)
Radio: ESPN 1660/92.3FM
• Talent: Derek Smith (pxp), Pat Combs (color)
Live Stats: Big12Sports.com
Twitter Updates: @BaylorBaseball
Series History: TTU leads 90-85
                        Streak: BU, W1
                        First Meeting: 1928
                        Last Meeting: April 23-25, 2021 (BU won the series)
Under Rodriguez: 7-9
 
PITCHING MATCHUP
Wed. May 26 – LHP Cam Caley (2-1, 4.15 ERA) vs. LHP Mason Montgomery (3-3, 4.36 ERA)

STORY LINES
•  Baylor is on the bubble entering this week, BU has an RPI of 40. D1Baseball.com has Baylor as the last team in the tournament, while Baseball America has BU as a No. 3 seed. The Bears need a strong showing in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship to make its fourth-straight trip to a regional (excluding 2020) under Coach Rodriguez.
 
• Two innings stand out for the Bears, with BU outscoring opponents 59-19 in the opening frame and then 44-18 in the eighth inning. Baylor has scored in the first inning in seven-straight games.
 
• The Bears are 37-39 all-time in the Big 12 Championship, including a 33-31 record while playing in Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. In 2019, Baylor went 1-2 at the tournament after winning its first game against OU and dropping the final two to Oklahoma State and TCU. In 2018 Baylor won its first Big 12 Championship title in program history with a dramatic walk-off win over TCU in the title game. Under coach Rodriguez, BU is 5-6 in the tournament.
 
• After a slow start to his Baylor career, true freshman Cam Caley has become a reliable piece on the mound for the Bears. Over his last eight appearances, Caley has an impressive 1.40 ERA in 25.2 innings of work. Most recently, Caley took the role of series-opening starter after getting the nod on Thursday night against OU (5/20) and hurling five innings while allowing three runs.
 
• The Bears completed a number of feats with its dominant series victory in Lubbock April 23-25. With the series win, it was the first win for BU in Lubbock since May 15-16, 2010 and the first series win over a top-10 team since defeating No. 8 Texas Tech March 16-18, 2018 in Waco. In addition, it was the first series win on the road over a top-10 team since 2005 and Baylor became the first team to win a series at Rip Griffin Park since 2018 as Tech was 20-2 at home in 2021 entering the weekend. In the three games vs. TTU, Baylor outscored the Red Raiders 26-8, as the only time the Bears trailed in the series was after the eighth inning in Saturday's loss.
 
• Baylor is one of three Power 5 teams (Vanderbilt & Nebraska) to rank top-two in its conference in both batting average and ERA. The Bears are first in the Big 12 in batting average (14th nationally) with a .305 clip and second in the conference in earned run average with a 3.69 ERA (21st nationally).
 
• Individually, the Bears have a number of players at the top of the conference as McKenzie is 1st in runs scored (5th in the nation), 2nd in hits (7th in the nation) and 2nd in batting average, Andy Thomas is 3rd in RBI. Tyler Thomas is T-2nd in opp. batting average (.202) and 4th in ERA (2.49), while Luke Boyd is 3rd in saves.
 
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