What Did We Learn From TCU Baseball In the Week 3 Home Opener

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.

Finally, the TCU Horned Frogs baseball team returned to Lupton Stadium. After spending the first two weeks of the season away from home and finding themselves with a below-.500 record, a refresh was much needed.

Still ranked in the top-25, and still with all the talent in the world on their roster, they swept New Haven for a massive mentality change, but what exactly did Frog fans learn from the weekend series?

A Win Is A Win

TCU Horned Frogs Head Coach Kirk Saarloos — 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

It's easy to take the weekend's results and compile them and say, "Well, they played New Haven, who is in their first season of the D1 level, this is what they should be doing against them." Which isn't wrong, but it also isn't the correct way to look at it either.

Good teams take care of bad teams, but great teams dominate them, which is precisely what the Frogs did. A weekend sweep that resulted in a 46-8 score over the three-game series, including a 20-run game in game three to complete the sweep. They could have gotten complacent after the first two games and just been happy to win the weekend, but they wanted more than that.

Now, while all that was great, and again, they handled business as expected, it wasn't perfect. Baseball hardly is. It would have been nice to see a little more length from the starting pitchers, who had their second weekend without Tommy LaPour. A little more dominance in the batter's box would have been great, too, but that might be nitpicking, to nitpick.

There are still problems to be addressed, injuries that raise questions about timelines, and a big weekend series looming against the Tulane Green Wave that could be a big tell about where this team is right before conference play. For now, though, there was a lot to like.

After speaking with players and head coach Kirk Saarloos after the home opening win on Friday night, you could tell just how much it meant for the players - and the coaching staff - to find their way back playing under the lights at Lupton.

Now with a home stretch upon them, there is still work to be done. Finding consistency, health, and all of the things that will come with more games under their belt. They are getting their confidence back. Chase Brunson showed some swagger on a pimped home run, and Uli Fernsler was showing tons of emotion on the mound. The drive is there, the skill is there, and the wins are slowly getting there. Now it's about doing it week after week.

What's Next

TCU returns to action Tuesday to face Abilene Christian University before hosting Tulane for a weekend series at Lupton Stadium. The next four games present a chance to build rhythm at home and establish consistency as the season moves forward.

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