Longhorns Notebook: No. 15 Texas Outlasted, Falls to Texas State 11-10
HOUSTON -- Well, folks. There are a lot of heartbreaking ways to lose a baseball game and the Texas Longhorns (7-3) experienced one of them against the Texas State Bobcats (7-3) on Saturday afternoon.
After trailing 6-0 after the second inning, the Longhorns battled and scratched their way back into the game to find themselves trailing by three in the seventh. A pair of go-ahead home runs, one in the seventh and one in the eighth inning respectively, were not enough as they dropped their second straight game.
Now, here are three key takeaways from the Longhorns' 11-10 loss to Texas State.
Starter shaky again
Lebarron Johnson Jr., the usually reliable staff ace for Texas, only gave the Longhorns three innings of two-run baseball on Friday. So looking to Saturday they really needed Hurley to give them a strong start to the tune of four or five innings with minimum damage.
Well, that was not what happened unfortunately. Instead, Hurley struggled to get a feel for things on the mound from the jump. The very first batter of the game took Hurley deep to give Texas State the early 1-0 lead, and it did not get much better from there.
He got out of the first only allowing the one run, but the second was another inning of trouble. Two straight singles, an E1 on a failed pickoff attempt and a wild pitch allowed the Bobcats to plate their second run with Hurley only lasting 1.2 innings.
Hello, offense
A day after the Longhorns were held to just three runs on seven hits, the bats roared to life in dramatic fashion against Texas State. However, things appeared to be following a similar pattern to the LSU game as the Longhorns found themselves trailing 6-0 after the second inning.
They responded with three runs in the third without a hit, taking advantage of free passes. It would be a back-and-forth affair from there, until the seventh inning. Jack O'Dowd came in as a pinch hitter and proceeded to unleash a no-doubt three-run shot to put Texas ahead 9-8.
Texas State didn't go away, though, and so in the bottom of the eighth it was Porter Brown's turn. The left fielder hit a behemoth two out, go-ahead solo home run to put Texas ahead 10-9, but it was ultimately not enough.
Bullpen implosion
Why wasn't it enough, you might ask? Well, for the first time this season the Longhorns' bullpen looked human. They'd started out the campaign red-hot, mowing through lineups and limiting the damage that opponents did until Texas State.
Staked to a 9-8 lead in the eighth, Max Grubbs gave up a leadoff single. Moving the runner up with a sacrifice bunt, the Bobcats immediately singled him home to tie the game. Then Brown gave David Shaw a lead heading into the top of the ninth, and it appeared to be going well after two quick outs.
That was not to be, though, as he gave up a two out single and then a go-ahead, two-run home run to give Texas State the 11-10 lead and eventual win.
What's next for Texas?
The Longhorns are back in action on Sunday afternoon for their final game in Houston, looking to snap a two-game losing skid against the No. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores at 11 a.m. CT.