By Jake McKeever
Often in Baseball we use the term “wait it out” this can mean a variety of things.A batter waiting to drive up a pitch count. A coach waits to see how a starter does. In the case of Baylor March 17th, it was just simply waiting on the weather. In a game that took over 24 hours, it was Baylor who came out with the Win. Rj Ruais was the “starter” for the Bears in Game 1. While he did enter in the 4th with 1 out, a runner on and a 1-1 count, he was the first to toe the rubber on this gloomy Sunday. What we saw, was nothing short of a masterclass. A Raiders lineup littered with guys hitting over .300, filled with power. Met their match. Rj was “effectively wild” limiting the raiders to just 2 hits. He threw his curveball off the fast ball to the tune of 3 k’s and a ton of weak contact.
For the visitors, the Texas Tech staff did a great job limiting the traffic on the bases. While they did allow 5 runs pre delay, they held the Bears scoreless and only 4 hits.
In game 2 we got another rain delay. This time only for 90 minutes. What happened post game was the story of the game. Baylor again got a great start from Dylan Green. At 67 pitches he looked like he was going to go the distance, but mother nature had other ideas. “While I wanted him to pitch more, I knew I had to do the right thing, you just are going to get complete games every weekend in college baseball, it was good work for our bullpen” Stephen Sepulveda and Kobe Andrade continued the tremendous pitching allowing only 1 earned run.
For the Red Raiders, it is back to the drawing board. The Tech approach in game 2 was abysmal to say the least. Lots of weak ground outs, and only 1 earned run across 14 innings today. While we did see a long homerun from Drew Woodcox, it did nothing to spark the offense.
Looking forward Baylor continues the tough road. They play Sam Houston Tuesday before making the trek south to face the Longhorns.
For Texas Tech the get ACU in the midweek, before BYU comes to Lubbock.