The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas Tech
Baseball falls to Texas Tech, 4-2
03.28.2009 | Baseball
March 28, 2009
| Quotes | Box Score 
| Box Score
AUSTIN, Texas -- The No. 9 Texas Longhorns managed a pair of runs in the first inning, but were unable to get on the scoreboard again in a 4-2 loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Saturday.
Texas (16-7, 3-5 Big 12) pounced on the Red Raiders with two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Travis Tucker drew a lead-off walk and with one out Brandon Belt doubled to rightfield to put a pair of runners in scoring position. Cameron Rupp plated both runners with a single through the left side of the infield to stake Texas to a 2-0 lead.
The Red Raiders claimed the lead with a three-run home run by Chris Richburg in the top of the third inning. With two outs, Jeff Kenworthy singled up the middle and Michael Reed was hit by a pitch to set up the three-run dinger.
Texas Tech (11-16, 4-4 Big 12) tacked on an insurance run in the top of the fourth. With two outs, Garrett Totten doubled to the gap in left centerfield and scored on a bloop single to rightfield by Jeremy Mayo.
Belt and Tant Shepherd each had two hits to lead the Texas offense. Rupp logged both of the Longhorns RBI.
Taylor Ashby went 2-for-4 for Tech and Richburg went 1-for-3 with the three run homer.
Brandon Workman (3-2) was saddled with the loss for Texas, yielding four runs on six hits while striking out four over 4.0 innings. Keith Shinaberry worked a scoreless fifth inning and Taylor Jungmann pitched four shutout innings to close out the game, allowing one hit and one walk with six strikeouts.
AJ Ramos (3-1) earned the win for Texas Tech, allowing two runs on six hits and two walks while striking out five over 6.0 innings. Chad Bettis earned his third save of the season with 3.0 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and one walk.
Before the contest, Brooks Kieschnick's No. 23 was retired, becoming the second player in school history to have his jersey number retired.
Texas and Tech play the rubber match of the series Sunday at 1 p.m.
TEXAS QUOTES
Head Coach Augie Garrido
On today's game: It was almost exactly like the three games in Kansas, where in reality from the offensive side of it we scored up more balls today, meaning hitting balls solid, than we did yesterday. In many ways, it was a better game for us than yesterday's game. Like the ball [Russell] Moldenhauer hit, you don't hit it any better than that. The separation between the two teams came from the two-out hitting. The three-run homerun came with two outs. They built that rally after two were out. Then the single run was after the two outs and they built another rally. They extended the innings in both cases to get their four runs. We didn't do that so that really was the separation. Both team's pitchers pitched efficiently and pitched well. Both teams played excellent defense. What I hope our players realize and hang on to is that sometimes in losing you have to work harder to keep your confidence. You do that by recognizing that you played well and we did.
On if the team made productive outs: Not as the outs turned out, but the percentages on those plays were the right percentages to pursue from our point of view. So was it smart? Yes. So what made it an out? It wasn't being dumb. It was because they made good plays.
On today's innings: We only had one bad inning, offensively. We had the three strikeouts in the same inning and each one of those strikeouts had a pitch outside the zone that helped the pitcher. Besides that, we took our turn in the batter's box as well as we have all year and better than most.
DH Cameron Rupp
On today's hitting: We came out there today. We had a plan up at the plate, stuck with it and things really didn't go our way. We hit the ball hard at people, turned into outs and it was kind of rough for us. But you've got to come back and bounce back tomorrow and hit the ball like we did today and hopefully it will fall.
On moving forward from losses: You just have to let it go. It happens. That's why we play 60 games a year. You just let it go, start over and go to the next day. You can't let it knock you back. Each day's a new day and you come out and play hard. If you play hard, good things are going to happen for you. We've got a lot of confidence right now and we just got to come back and play hard tomorrow.
Catcher Preston Clark
On today's hitting: Stay with the plan. We got a plan and hitting the ball hard happens. When you hit the ball hard and square it up, they're going to find the holes. One thing you've got to do is just keep hitting the ball.
On the team's improvements: The approach has been there. We've worked on it all year. It's not like we've always had a bad approach. For the most part, we've been squaring up the ball more than a couple times per game. But having the wind blowing in with as many right-handed hitters in the lineup, it's hard for us to spread the ball around the field. We try to sit on one pitch and go the other way, and it's hard to do that the whole time. We've been squaring the ball up but it's just not falling in our favor.
Shortstop Brandon Loy
On the offensive struggles today: In the first inning, we hit the ball the same way we did the entire game. It's just that in the first inning, they found holes for us. There were balls hit hard all day long. We're not going to blame it on that. We just have to keep doing what we're doing, keep playing hard like we always do. The breaks will go our way some time.
Third baseman Michael Torres
On the frustration of hitting well but not producing: It worked yesterday. We hit the ball well yesterday and we put pressure on the defense, and eventually they're going to break. Not every team in every game is going to make these great plays. We just have to stay consistent at the plate, continue to square up the ball and hit it well, and eventually it'll fall and the great plays will go away.
On whether the team has seen offensive improvement: Definitely. We talked about it in the locker room and we felt that there was only one inning where we didn't have a good approach or good at-bats at the plate. We had I think seven hits [today], but we hit the ball really well throughout the game and that's definitely better than where we were a week ago.
