What Did We Learn After No. 18 TCU Baseball's Series vs. No. 1 UCLA?

Welcome back to another edition of What Did We Learn. With the return of the baseball season, my weekly article returns, a two-year-long tradition now. At the end of every weekend, I release my weekly "what did we learn"—an opinionated editorial detailing what Frog fans can take away from the week before that might not appear in the box score.

It hasn't been an excellent week for the TCU Horned Frogs. Atrip out west ended in a weekend sweep at the hands of the number one team in the country, with no game on the slate being particularly competitive.

That doesn't mean the sky is falling yet. Like Chicken Little, you must be certain before making that call, and for now, I'm certain it is too early to make that call. So what did we learn from week two of the season?

Just the Second Round

TCU Horned Frogs Preston Gamster — The Arkansas Razorbacks play the TCU Horned Frogs during the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series presented by Kubota Weekend 2 at Globe Life Field. | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

Not all games are equal. Not all schedules are equal, nor are the performances, results, or starts and endings of a season. Some are great, some are bad, and some can change in an instant, so that it feels as if what happened in one week completely erases the week before.

At least that's how it feels now for TCU baseball. A midweek loss to UTA, allowing nine runs in the first inning, followed by a trip out west to take on the number one-ranked UCLA Bruins, which resulted in way more questions than it did answers. You know how they say sometimes you can't take your eyes off a car wreck? That's what it felt like at times during the series, and even at times during the first half of the Monday matinee win over LMU.

It was like watching your brand-new car, the one you were so excited to drive, get hit from three directions by three other vehicles as it rolled past you. It was ugly, it's tough to come to terms with it, but you also couldn't look away. At least, I hope you didn't. And, if you didn't, that means you truly read last week's "WDWL," where I said overreaction will ruin your fandom.

In the same sense, it wasn't right to overreact to week one; the same goes for this past weekend. There is no denying that it was bad at times; I think my counterpart, Carson Wersal, could have been better out there during certain innings. With the good comes the bad, though, and unlike the SEC, the Frogs aren't afraid to challenge themselves early in the season against tough opponents.

That, to me, is what we learned this past weekend. There is still fight, there is still talent on his roster. These are the same names on the roster that were there before the season, when the hype was around them. There is still a lot that needs to be shown to get people fully back on board. But buy stock now, don't sell.

Time Will Tell

The home opener this weekend against New Haven will tell fans a lot. If they dominate, and I mean truly dominate, then that's a good sign; that is what good teams should do against lesser teams. Come out and struggle, though, and it might get really uncomfortable.

No team is going to win every game, but most games should at least be competitive. For now, they are working on that part, but there's still a fight there, and it shows. When it finally all clicks, after their time spent waiting for it, that's when the wins and the fun return as well.