The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas A&M
Baseball drops round two of State Farm Lone Star Showdown
05.09.2009 | Baseball
May 9, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas -- The No. 8 Texas Longhorns managed just three hits on the afternoon and dropped a 3-0 decision to the No. 14 Texas A&M Aggies in the second game of the State Farm Lone Star Showdown series at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. With the loss, the series was evened at one game apiece.
A half day after logging 11 runs on 11 hits in a win in College Station, Texas managed one hit in the first inning, one in the ninth and just one in the seven innings in between.
Texas A&M starter Ross Hales (5-1) scattered three hits and didn't issue a walk while striking out nine over 9.0 innings for his first career shutout.
Cole Green (4-2) suffered the loss for Texas. He yielded three runs on five hits and three walks while striking out three over 4.2 innings. Brandon Workman was outstanding out of the bullpen to quell the Aggies' momentum. Workman pitched 4.0 hitless, shutout innings, while striking out five.
Texas A&M (33-17, 14-9 Big 12) broke the scoring seal in the fourth inning when Kyle Colligan launched a two-out solo home run to the left of the scoreboard.
The Aggies tacked on two runs in the fifth inning. David Alleman drew a leadoff walk and Kevin Gonzalez doubled to the gap in left centerfield to put two runners in scoring position. With one out, Brodie Greene singled up the middle to drive in both runners for the 3-0 lead.
Texas (35-12-1, 16-9-1 Big 12) got hits from Travis Tucker, Michael Torres and Brandon Loy.
The two teams meet in the rubber match of the State Farm Lone Star Showdown at 2 p.m. at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
TEXAS QUOTES
Head coach Augie Garrido
On the pitching performance of A&M lefthander Ross Hales: The pitcher did what his team needed him to do - he dominated the game. He had a three-ball count on the hitters one time the entire game. The other times, he never got past a two-ball count. He dominated the strike zone with all of his pitches. He attacked the glove. That's what the story's about. College pitching can do this. It can take apart any team. It isn't so much about what we did wrong. In fact, our pitching was fine. But he pitched the kind of game that makes it extremely difficult to be successful. We had one runner at second - that's the closest we got to the plate the entire game. This is about as dominant as it can get and we have to recognize the brilliance of the moment.
On the positives for Texas in this game: A lot of positives. The game was pretty well-played. Our pitching was fine. We can pitch and play defense, and it was a pretty clean game by both teams.
On the importance now of tomorrow's rubber match: It just means the difference between the championship or not, most likely. So it's the way it should be in the Big 12. It should come down to the last day. I've been of the mindset that it could be down to 10 losses for quite some time. I've also said it's going to be the most competitive league ever, and I've also said recently that it's probably going to get down to the last pitch on the last day. The bad news is it's hard on everybody's nerves and patience, and it's difficult to deal with. The good news is if you do learn how to deal with it, and cope with the adversity and nerves, you're a better person, ballplayer and team because of it, and you give yourself a chance to win a national championship.
Righthander Brandon Workman
On today's pitching performance: It was nice to go out there and pitch well for the first time in a while. It would have been great if we had won the game, obviously. That would have been better.
On the pitcher's duel that defined today's game: Of course if we had scored a lot of runs, it would have helped a lot. But we weren't able to do that. The guy over there pitched really well. He threw a really good game today. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to somebody.
On pitching out of the bullpen today: It was different. First time I've done that in a long period of time this year. But it worked out well for me.
Second baseman Travis Tucker
On Hales' pitching performance for A&M: He threw three pitches for a strike - curveball, changeup, fastball - and pitched sliders away. He pitched a great game.
On the importance now of tomorrow's rubber match: It's pretty important. We need to win the series, especially finishing up at home. But we're just thinking about winning that first inning and going from there.
On A&M's response today after last night's defeat: They responded all last night. They're a great team and the Big 12 is a tough conference. We knew they were going to come out swinging and playing hard.
Michael Torres
On Ross Hales: He was locating two pitches for strikes and his breaking ball was really good. We were unable to jump on the opportunity when he threw his fastball over the plate. We had a lot of foul balls and he got ahead of the count which made it difficult.
On being unable to get any offense going: There were a couple of innings where we didnt have at-bats in a row. Thats not doing what we could. We might have taken a little too long to make adjustments at the plate; he continued to get people out to the same way. He pitched well but we had some guys that barreled the ball and it just went to someone. There were times that if that falls, it would have changed the game.
