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TCU Baseball: Army Weekend Series Preview
For back-to-back weeks, the TCU baseball team's weekend series will feature a double header. The Frogs will be glad this one is in front of the home crowd.
First pitch is Saturday at 1:00p.m., with Game 2 scheduled for 5:00p.m. and the Sunday Finale for 1:00p.m. All games will be televised on ESPN+.
Army (3-8) won their season opener against Richmond to earn Skipper Jim Foster his 400th career wins as a head coach. After spending most of his career as the Rhode Island head coach, Army hired Foster in 2017, and he has since taken them to the NCAA regionals every year since 2018 (except for the 2020 cancelled-COVID-19 season).
It has been a bit of a rough stretch for Army since Opening Day, but three of those games were against #4 Vanderbilt in a sweep.
Army has been in the state of Texas all week as they had a two game midweek series against the University of Texas-Arlington. They split the series winning the first game 8-4 on Tuesday before dropping the second game 5-8 on Wednesday. TCU beat UTA 8-5 at Lupton a couple of Tuesdays ago. It's a good bet someone is going to score 8 runs at some point this weekend.
Foster is still working to find a set weekend rotation, having already used five different starting pitchers on weekends. TCU will assuredly face opening day starter and left hander sophomore Connelly Early. Almost just as likely to get a start against the Frogs is Army team captain and senior, right hander Anthony LoRicco. The third Army starting pitcher in the series is less certain but will most likely be between 6'5 Patrick Melampy, 6'6 sophomore Mike Ruggieri or 6'2 sophomore Mathew Ronnebaum, all righties. In fact Army only has three left handed pitcher listed on their roster, which will come as a relieve to the Frog bats.
| Pitcher | GS | W | L | ERA | IP | K | OBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Early | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4.38 | 12.1 | 12 | .280 |
LoRicco | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4.50 | 8 | 5 | .357 |
Melampy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.52 | 7.2 | 9 | .310 |
Ruggieri | 2 | 0 | 2 | 11.00 | 9 | 12 | .273 |
Ronnebaum | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6.75 | 9.1 | 15 | .282 |
| Batter | Position | avg | slg % | r | 2b | 3b | hr | rbi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cerruto | C | .345 | .483 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Friedrick | 1B | .333 | .452 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Ruta | LF | .275 | .500 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
The Frogs and their fans get back to the comfy confines of Lupton Stadium after returning from a rough week in the state of Kentucky. A trip that ended with a missed call on a blocking of home plate by the Louisville catcher on what should have been the tying run in the 8th.
The first home weekend series of the season is finally upon the Frog faithful, albeit a day delayed. This weekend should see the Frogs get back to playing winning Frogball, with a series win, not sweep, as the achievement to attain. Hopefully Porter Brown can get some AB's against right handed pitching.
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