williamknox
Murphy’s Law states, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” No truer statement can be used to describe the first weekend of Texas Tech’s 11 day road trip through California.
The Red Raiders began their exploration of California’s collegiate baseball squads with a 3-game series against 1-3 Cal-State Northridge. Most pundits expected the Red Raiders to emerge from Northridge with an 8-1 record, or 7-2 if something went wrong. Nobody outside of Northridge’s clubhouse expected the Red Raiders to leave at 5-4.
Game 1 began with each team matching scores until the 6th inning, when Texas Tech secured the lead at 4-3. The Red Raider bullpen then came to life as Cory Large retired 5 consecutive Matador hitters before everything came to a crashing halt. A solo home run by CSN catcher John Parham sent Large to the dugout in favor of Jordan Stern. 2 batters into Stern’s appearance, 1B Dominic D’Anna lifted a 2-run home run to right field, giving the Matadors their first lead of the game at 6-4.
Northridge would add a pair of runs in the 8th inning while Texas Tech failed to score either of the runners they put aboard in the final 2 at bats. It was the beginning of a long weekend full of base running errors and fielding blunders that would cost Tech all 3 games.
Saturday started off well for Texas Tech. Before recording an out, Tech managed to load the bases with leading hitter Chris Richburg at the plate. Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law stepped up in place of Richburg. With Michael Reed at 3rd, Taylor Ashby at 2nd and Joey Kenworthy on 1st, Richburg hit a hard grounder to 2nd base. Westley Wright flipped the ball to Jason Dabbs for the first out at 2nd base, then Dabbs threw to Dominic D’Anna at 2nd to complete the double play, but they weren’t done there. With Reed safely across the plate, Taylor Ashby got too far off 3rd base. D’Anna quickly threw the ball to 3rd baseman Ryan Pineda, who caught Ashby in a rundown. A quick flip to D’Anna, who applied the tag, and the Matadors had completed the triple play.
Northridge wasted absolutely no time with their momentum shift, stealing 3 bases and scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the first. With that, the Matadors cruised to a 7-3 win, and a clinch of the series. Michael Reed was the lone bright spot for the Raiders, going 3-5 with a run and 2 RBIs in the losing effort. Starting pitcher Miles Morgan suffered the loss in his 4.1 innings. Unlike his 11-strikeout season debut, Morgan managed only 1 strikeout against 5 walks and an HBP. Louis Head struck out 4 and surrendered only 1 hit in his 3.2 innings of relief.
The most unnerving statistic was Tech’s inability at the plate with runners on base. On the day, Tech scored 3 runs out of 16 runners to reach base; 3 were erased with double or triple plays while one was picked off 3rd base with 1 out. The Red Raiders managed to go 1-10 with runners in scoring position. The 2 fielding errors each led to a CSN run.
Sunday was a new day, until the 9th inning. Texas Tech came out with a shuffled lineup, leaving Joey Kenworthy on the bench for the first time all year. With a new breath about them, Tech continued to commit base running errors that cost them runs.
The first inning saw Justin Berry being picked off 1st base with a runner on 3rd for the final out. Scott LeJeune was thrown at attempting to score from 2nd on a ground ball to RF, and Kellen Monreal was caught stealing at the front end of a possible high-scoring inning for the Raiders. Fortunately, both Raider runs were scored on throwing errors from catcher John Parham.
A.J. Ramos, still hampered by a pitch count, threw a masterful 4 innings. Although 6 hits were collected by CSN, Ramos collected 6 strikeouts of his own. After Ramos, Texas Tech display a revolving door policy, sending Lorenzo Douglas, Austin Quick, Brennan Stewart and Ben Flora to the mound in a span of 1.1 innings. After Flora, Coach Gustafson called on veteran Brian Cloud to finish off the Matadors. Cloud did just as he was asked, but the defense cost him a sure save.
Trailing by 1 with only 3 outs left, CSN put their lead off hitter aboard. A quick FC put the Raiders 2 outs from victory. Following this weekend’s them, the Raiders executed to perfection…for the home team. A sharp grounder by C John Parham got the best of sure-gloved 3B Justin Berry. Richard Cates followed with a double, and was nice enough to allow Pineda to collect the game-winning single, scoring Parham who reached on the Berry error.
If you wear scarlet and black and you didn’t come away from this weekend with any frustration, then you must wear some other team’s scarlet and black. My expectations for this season are currently falling, fast. It appears that not even Amdahl’s Law can predict how long it will take for Dan Spencer to bring Texas Tech back to the glory days.
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Absolutely Obknoxious 
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