TCU Baseball: You Get A Hit, You Get A Hit, You Get A Hit
It was a wild night at Lupton Stadium and was really the story of two innings. The TCU Horned Frogs (25-12, 10-5) beat the UT Arlington Mavericks 15-1 in a game that ended at the 7th inning stretch due to the run rule. Every batter in the starting lineup had at least one hit. The Frogs ended with 16 hits.
The win gave TCU a season sweep over UTA having also won at Lupton on March 1 (8-5) and in Arlington on April 5 (10-2). Caedmon Parker (2-2) started his fifth game of the season and was credited with the win. Between the pitching staff and changes in the lineup, 21 different Frogs made an appearance in the game.
It was the story of two innings. TCU batted around in both innings, scoring seven runs in the second and eight in the fifth. Ten of the 15 runs were scored with two outs.
In the bottom of the 2nd inning, TCU sent 12 batters to the plate. In that inning, they got seven hits and two walks. The seven runs were scored on seven different occasions in the inning. Five of those runs came with two outs.
Kurtis Byrne had an incredible night. His bases-clearing double in the second gave him three RBIs. He added two more with a single to left field in the fifth inning.
The fifth inning also saw all batters come to the plate which started at the top of the order with Elijah Nunez getting the lead-off walk. TCU would score eight runs in the inning, matching a season-high for one inning. The Frogs also scored eight runs in one inning against Kansas State on March 26.
Sam Thompson came to the plate in the fifth with two outs and bases loaded. His hit wound up being one of the most bizarre plays of the game and something you don’t see often in baseball. Technically, it was not scored this way, but visually it was an inside-the-park grand slam with a ball that barely traveled past the infield. Thompson pops the ball up, and it looked like it would be a fly-out to end the inning. UTA sent four players towards the ball – the shortstop, the second baseman, the center fielder, and the right fielder. The ball got lost in the lights. When the shortstop went to get the ball, he dropped it. So, Thompson got a bases-clearing double. The shortstop threw the ball home to stop Gray Rodgers, who was the third run coming from first base. The throw was an error by the shortstop, which allowed Thompson to come across the plate.
The wild night at Lupton was not the only game in the Big 12 with hot bats. There were eight games featuring Big 12 schools played on Tuesday night. The Big 12 went 5-3 in those games, with the three losses all coming from the ranked teams, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Texas Tech. There were a total of 132 runs scored in those eight games. When divided by the 16 teams playing, that’s 8.25 runs per team. Here’s how those games went:
- Baylor vs. Sam Houston State – BU wins 9-5
- Kansas vs. Texas Southern – KU wins 7-6
- Kansas State vs. Omaha – KSU wins 11-3
- Oklahoma vs. Wichita State – OU wins 9-5
- Oklahoma State vs. Oral Roberts – ORU wins 15-9 in 12 innings
- Texas vs. Air Force – AFA wins 14-2
- Texas Tech at New Mexico – New Mexico wins 11-10
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