BSB Falls in Opener at TCU, 5-1

Friday, May 12

Fort Worth, Texas

3:30 PM

Baylor

16-33, 5-16

TCU

28-21, 9-10

Baylor

TCU

BSB Falls in Opener at TCU, 5-1

5/12/2023 7:18:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

Bullpen combines for five innings of one-run baseball in the loss

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            FORT WORTH, Texas – On a day when starter Will Rigney lasted only three innings, Baylor's bullpen did its job in keeping the Bears in the game in Friday's series opener at Lupton Stadium.
            The problem was Baylor's bats were silenced for the third-straight game, the Bears managing just four singles in a 5-1 loss to the TCU Horned Frogs that put them on the brink of elimination for a berth in the Big 12 Championship.
            "We're tired, there's no question. But who cares?" said Baylor coach Mitch Thompson, whose team fell to 16-33 overall and 6-16 in the Big 12. "We've just got to have better at-bats. . . . We're not going to win nickel-and-diming them. We're going to have to hit some balls hard, hit them through people. That's what we're going to try to do tomorrow, see if we can come out and get (the bats) going."
            In the three games since coming back from a break for semester final exams, the Bears have combined for just five runs and a .138 batting average, going 12-for-87 with no extra-base hits.
            "Somehow or another, we've got to find our bats," Thompson said. "We've got to start swinging the bats again with some confidence and purpose, intent. I just didn't' feel like we did a very good job of that. Sometimes, you've got to give the other guys credit, too. They're always trying. At the same time, I just don't think we've been very good."
            TCU (28-21, 9-10), which punched its ticket to the Big 12 tournament with the win, scored in each of the first four innings and touched up Rigney (3-3) for a season-high four runs on five hits, four walks and a hit batter with three strikeouts.
            What Rigney did, though, was limit the damage. The Frogs left six runners stranded in the first three innings and 13 for the game, scoring their first run on a Brayden Taylor sacrifice fly in the first inning after back-to-back hits by Elijah Nunez and former Bear Tre Richardson.
            TCU tacked on two more runs in the second on two-out doubles by Logan Maxwell and Richardson, whose hit up the middle ricocheted off the second-base bag and into right field. In the third, Cole Fontelle led off with a walk, stole second, went to third on a balk and scored on Kurtis Byrne's RBI groundout to short.
            Louis Rodriguez (2-1) retired the first 11 batters of the game before freshman Kolby Branch reached on an infield single to third. Rodriguez went a career-high 6.1 innings, giving up just one run on three hits and two walks with five strikeouts.
            Thompson said Rodriguez wasn't doing anything specific, "other than throwing strikes."
            "He throws a cutter and a slider, and he had pretty good command of it," Thompson said. "And he's throwing strikes, he's attacking the zone. It's a great day to pitch here, too. The wind is blowing in, for crying out loud. And it blows in here a lot. They felt pretty comfortable throwing to us. We've just got to take better swings."
            Taylor crushed a solo home run to right-center field in the fourth inning off reliever Anderson Needham, his 16^th homer of the season, to extend the Frogs' lead to 5-0. But that was TCU's last hit until a pair of eighth-inning singles off Ethan Calder.
            "I thought the bullpen was good," Thompson said. "Needham came in there and pitched us out of a jam when we should have made a play for him and didn't. (Brett) Garcia came in and was good. And then Calder was good as well. You get down 5-0, you lose 5-1, you've got to say your bullpen did a nice job. They gave you chances, and we had opportunities on offense, too."
            One of those opportunities came in the seventh inning with back-to-back hits by Castle and Cole Tremain. Pinch-hitter Jack Johnson drove in Castle with a sac fly to left, but Tremain was thrown out trying to steal third when Caleb Bergman walked. Threat over.
            After giving up a pair of singles to Taylor and freshman Anthony Silva in the eighth, Calder got out of the inning by inducing a double-play grounder to third by Byrne.
            Sitting a game behind Kansas (22-27, 7-14) in the loss column, Baylor has to win the next two games from TCU after getting swept by the Jayhawks earlier in the season. Saturday's game has been moved to a 7 p.m. start at Globe Life Field in Arlington, while Sunday's series finale is scheduled for 1 p.m. back at Lupton Stadium.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Baylor baseball (16-33, 6-16) dropped its series opener at TCU (28-21, 9-10), 5-1, Friday afternoon at Lupton Stadium in Fort Worth.

BU's bullpen combined to throw five innings of one-run baseball to keep the Bears in it, but the offense could only muster one run on four hits.

Redshirt freshman INF Jack Johnson had the lone RBI for the Bears with a pinch-hit sacrifice fly to score sophomore C Cortlan Castle. Junior RHP Brett Garcia worked 2.1 scoreless innings before handing it off to freshman southpaw Ethan Calder for the final 1.2 frames without allowing a run.

THE RUNDOWN
The Horned Frogs hopped out to a quick 5-0 lead through the first four innings with a sacrifice fly in the first, a pair of RBI doubles in the second, an RBI groundout in the third and a solo home run in the fourth.

That's all they would get, as junior RHP Anderson Needham combined with Garcia and Calder to allow just three hits the rest of the way while striking out four.

Baylor's biggest threat came in the top of the seventh after back-to-back singles by Castle and junior RHP/OF Cole Tremain. A wild pitch allowed both Bears to advance 90 feet ahead of Johnson's sacrifice fly that got BU on the board.

In the eighth, Baylor stranded a pair of runners in scoring position, increasing its total to seven left on base on the day, then went down in order in the ninth to end the ballgame.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Sophomore C Cortlan Castle extended his on-base streak to 13 games.
• Junior RHP/OF Cole Tremain reached base for the sixth-consecutive game.
• Sophomore 1B John Ceccoli reached base for the fifth-consecutive game.
• Junior RHP Brett Garcia worked his sixth appearance of at least two innings.
• Freshman LHP Ethan Calder pitched his seventh scoreless outing of the season, including his third in a row and fourth in his last five appearances.

STAT OF THE DAY
5 – Baylor's bullpen of junior RHP Anderson Needham, junior RHP Brett Garcia and freshman LHP Ethan Calder combined to throw five innings of one-run baseball.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Mitch Thompson
On today's game…
"I thought our bullpen did a great job at keeping us in the game. When you're down 5-0, to end the game 5-1 was big. They gave us a chance to come back. But, offensively we've got to get something going. It's frustrating, and our guys are disappointed about it too. We had an opportunity to get it done today, but we're going to have to find it by tomorrow."

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (16-33, 6-16) and TCU (28-21, 9-10) will head to Globe Life Field in Arlington on Saturday night for the second game of the weekend series, with first pitch set for 7 p.m. at the home of the Texas Rangers.

To stay up to date on all things Baylor baseball, follow the team on its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts: @BaylorBaseball.

-BaylorBears.com-