There were a lot of encouraging signs coming off this past weekend's series win against previously ranked #16 (and now ranked #17) ECU-- strong starting pitching against a quality offensive club, solid defense (we doubled our season doubleplay total in the 3 games), some timely hitting, a couple late-inning rallies and, perhaps most important, a noticeable difference in emotion, energy and aggressiveness. We have now won back-to-back weekend series, and have improved to 3 - 4 vs. Top 25 caliber opposition. Having said that, our record is still just barely above .500 (8 - 7) as we pass the quarter turn on the season, and we have yet to play a series on the road...and we're still hitting just .249./331/.322 as a team, and averaging just 4.1 runs per game. This weekend's series win did little to raise our profile amongst the college baseball pundits. That will require playing at a consistently high level for an extended period, and demonstrating that our offense is capable of winning games when our pitching is less than at an elite level.
Consensus Top 10 ranked TCU (12-3) comes into Reckling for a mid-weeker (Tuesday @ 6:30pm CST), having just taken the weekend series from nationally ranked USC, though they did give up double-digit runs the final two games. In addition to taking 2 of 3 from Southern Cal and embarrassing us at Minute Maid, they've beaten ULaLa and Houston, and took a weekend series from a quality Gonzaga team. One item of note-- this will be their first true road game of the season (though they had to travel to Minute Maid). Here's their schedule and results over their first 15 games...
http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2016/schedule/TCU
Offensively, the Froggies have been on a tear. They're hitting .320/.413/.503 as a team, with 13 HRs, 43 doubles/triples-- that's almost 4 extrabase hits per game!, 22-25 SBs and averaging a robust 8.4 runs per game. They've score double-digit run totals in 7 of their last 12 games. They appear to be VERY patient at the plate, and tend to work the count, reflected in their high walk and strikeout totals.
On the mound we'll likely see Fr. LHP Dalton Horton (3 app, 2 starts, 2-0, 11.0 IP, 0.00 ERA, .184 BAA, 4 BBs, 5 Ks), who beaten both UT-Rio Grande Valley and UT-Arlington over the past two weeks. Not exactly great competition, but it's not as if we've been able to hit left-handed pitching. One can only hope that with our revamped lineup, and with several batters coming off strong weekend performances (Chandler, DiCaprio, Proctor, Dunlap, Myers), we can make some noise. The key, however, is going to be to try to keep the potent TCU offense in check. To minimize the damage, we simply must keep the number of free passes to an absolute minimum. I'm presuming Jackson Parthasarathy gets the start, with both Solecitto and Otto available out of the pen.
Here's their individual and team stats to date.
http://www.gofrogs.com/sports/m-basebl/s...mcume.html
Let's build on our encouraging series win over ECU, avenge our bad loss at Minute Maid, and build some much-needed momentum as we hit the road for the first time this year and open up our conference slate this weekend vs. UTSA. Go Owls!
Here's D1Baseball's, College Sports Madness' and Baseball America's preseason writeups on the Horn Frogs...
http://www.d1baseball.com/analysis/top-2...no-19-tcu/
http://www.collegesportsmadness.com/article/12552
http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/c...christian/