The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
VCU
No. 16 Baseball posts 17-4 win over VCU
02.23.2008 | Baseball
AUSTIN, Texas -- The No. 16 Texas Longhorns started the season 2-0 for the first time since 2005, posting a 17-4 win over Virginia Commonwealth (0-2) in collegiate baseball action Saturday afternoon at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
The Longhorns were paced by junior transfer Michael Torres who went 3-for-6 with two doubles, two runs and five RBI in his second game in burnt orange. Brandon Belt, a junior college transfer, went 4-for-5 with two doubles and four runs scored.
Freshman Kevin Keyes went 2-for-3 with three runs scored. Jordan Danks and Kyle Russell both logged two hits and Russell, the 2008 national home run leader, hit his first dinger of the season.
Cole Green pitched four innings in his first career start, yielding one run on three hits and four walks while striking out three. Keith Shinaberry (1-0) earned the win with 1.2 innings of relief. Chance Ruffin picked up his first career save with 3.1 innings of hitless shutout work, fanning four.
Matt Leskiw went 3-for-5 with one double with two RBI. RJ Schenk and Brad Bonney each logged two hits for VCU.
The series wraps up Sunday with a noon contest at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
TEXAS POSTGAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH Augie Garrido
On the game today: I think what we showed today is that we're looking for pitching. I think Cole Green gave us that and I think Chance Ruffin did a great job with his opportunity to pitch and both were dominating performances. The second very good thing about the game from our point of view is that we made some plays defensively that show our athleticism, our quickness, our speed and our skill. We made several outs that were very difficult. I think that we showed athleticism, I thought we showed skill and I think we had good performances defensively from the position players.
Then on the offensive side of it I think we're getting our bunts down, we're taking our walks, we've swung at six bad pitches in two days and I think that yesterday we went six innings without swinging and missing a ball. We either fouled it off or hit it. The hitting has been consistent. One thing that I have warned our players about is when you do hit the ball hard and you make outs it's depressing, if you let it be. So if you're really a good hitting team you're going to hit a lot of balls hard and they're going to catch them and when they do you have to know you got the job done.
DH Kevin Keyes
On his offensive production: I think my first series is going pretty good. It's better than I expected. I'm just listening to what my coaches are saying about hitting and doing what I can to help the team.
2B Michael Torres
On his five RBI: I came up a lot today with guys on base with less than two outs so a lot of times all I have to do with guys on second and third is hit a ground ball in the middle of the field or use the middle of the field and it worked out today. A couple of them fell so both runs scored instead of one.
On his defensive performance: On defense I'm feeling really good. I'm getting use to the astro-turf and we take a lot of ground balls and we work hard in the infield and then we have wristbands that tell us the defensive positioning that helps us get certain jumps on balls and puts us in good positions.
RF Kyle Russell
On hitting his first home run of the season: It feels good to get that first home run of the season. He threw a good pitch at me and I took it the other way, so one down and hopefully there are more to go.
On the impressive victory today: Well, it shows that we have confidence in our offense and defense. The guys have come out here and really shown great aggressiveness at the plate and gotten their base hits when we need to get base hits and we've gotten our outs when we needed to get our outs. I think we are really a strong team.
RHP Chance Ruffin
On his first time out on the mound: I was just anxious and wanted to get off to a good start. I was excited as I could be to get out there. I was just thinking about throwing to the mitt, throwing strikes and letting your defense work for you.
