Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the Texas Tech baseball team had mixed results in their first true road test of the season. However, most of the results were not positive. Tech dropped its first road series 2-1 and were completely outplayed on Friday and Saturday. I’ll dive into this series and try to talk about the positives, because there are some from the first game of the series.
Thursday
Tech 17- K State 1
On Thursday there were many positives as obviously the bats were working overtime, and once again, Brandon Birdsell had an absolute gem of an outing. It really seems that Birdsell has come into his own lately, and Thursday was no different as he went five innings giving up one run on two hits and striking out four while throwing 71 pitches. In relief, Micah Dallas and Chase Webster combined for four innings of no hit relief and shut down the Wildcats. The bats as I mentioned, were white hot as four different Red Raiders homered, including three homers from Jace Jung alone. Dylan Neuse had two doubles and Kurt Wilson homered and doubled. The main news from this one though, was later in the game Dru Baker seemed to tweak his leg and ended up leaving the game. But, overall a good outing from this team. Unfortunately, it would be the only good one of the series.
Friday
Tech 2- K State 7
Well, I hate to say it was bound to happen, but Patrick Monteverde was bound to have a rough outing at some point and this was it. Monteverde had his worst outing as a Red Raider, going four innings giving up six runs on eight hits and striking out seven. Patrick just didn’t have his best stuff on Friday and I’m sure he’d be the first one to tell you that. He missed his locations out over the plate and the Wildcats took advantage. The bats were really non existent as Tech couldn’t get anything going at all. When the Red Raiders did get on base there were only two runs pushed across as they left nine runners on base in this one, again bringing to light one of the struggles that Tech has had this season.
Saturday
Tech 4- K State 10
Saturday wasn’t any better as the Red Raiders were just outplayed in all facets. Mason Montgomery didn’t even make it out of the first inning on the mound and picked up the loss. Ryan Sublette had to come in and throw three and a third innings in relief and Levi Wells was the only reliever used in this game that didn’t allow a run so lets hope this was a one time thing and not a sign of what is to come. Cody Masters homered and Dillon Carter drove in two runs for the Red Raiders’ only offense on the day, as this game was hard to watch.
Thoughts
This was a series Tech should’ve won, let alone probably should’ve swept. Dropping one game wouldn’t have been terrible, but dropping two and losing the series hurts. Starting pitching absolutely killed Tech for the first time since the opening weekend tournament in Arlington when Tech went 0-3. As a first road series, there is not much that could’ve been worse, I guess other than being swept. Dru Baker was injured on Thursday in a game that Tech was up by 14 runs at the time. He had two at bats on Friday before being taken out and didn’t play at all on Saturday. This will be a major story going into the TCU series this weekend and hopefully the leading Big 12 hitter will be able to play in the top 10 matchup in Lubbock.
Tech will need to improve in all aspects of the game to find wins this weekend against TCU.
Follow Along
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The Link LonkApril 07, 2021 at 10:17PM
https://www.vivathematadors.com/2021/4/7/22369800/tech-baseball-has-weekend-to-forget-against-ksu
Texas Tech Baseball has a weekend to forget in Manhattan - Viva The Matadors
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