Good afternoon and welcome to another addition of..... I have no idea which TTU team to show up this weekend!
This writeup will be shorter than usual because it totally just dawned on me that it's Easter Weekend. Year is flying by.
- Good TTU is damn good. We're a threat to throw up crooked numbers at any given point. We have dominant pitching with strikeout stuff, and we don't make dumb mistakes. Bad TTU, which we've seen more recently, isn't beating up on anyone in this conference. Errors, free bases given up, Oklahoma and GCU scoring runs seemingly at will against our pitching staff..... Which one goes to Ft Worth will determine if we win another Big 12 series this weekend.
- Morris and Birdsell are invaluable all of a sudden. With the woes, essentially across the board, with our pitching staff the past few midweek games.. it puts some serious pressure on this club to win when these two guys are on the bump, because if not, you suddenly are grasping at straws trying to piece together quality innings. They need to be good tonight and tomorrow.
- Murrell coming back will definitely help. He's so solid at the top of the order, always on base, always putting pressure on opposing pitchers. He will stable the ship somewhat offensively.
- I can't even begin to say how poorly we looked defensively against OU. That was just a clown show. Flush the tape and move on. It definitely looks like we struggle a bit transitioning to a grass/dirt field.
- TCU comes into the series 25-12 and 7-5 in big 12 play. They have struggled of late losing 7 of 10 since sweeping KSU on 3/25-27. It looks like last weekend's series against UT was their first battle with a ranked team up to this point and they went 1-2.
- TCU hits .267 as a team and is paced by Tommy Sacco, Brayden Taylor, and David Bishop. Bishop leads the team with 37 RBI while Sacco and Taylor have combined for 12 HR on the season. They're main SB threat is Elijah Nunez at 17/17 on the year.
- Texas Tech is going to have to absolutely blow away the bottom of the Frogs order this weekend to win. I think that the drop off on TCU's bottom 3rd is much more significant than other teams in the league. They have 3 every day guys hitting .240, .236 and .194 who have combined to start 86 games this season. Those guys also have struck out 85 times. You need to get those guys out and pitch to their better guys with the bases empty. Keep an eye on whether or not Boyers/Rodgers/Maxwell do any damage this weekend.
- They're pitching staff is also not as daunting as we've seen from TCU in the past few years. Riley Cornelio is a bonafide top of the rotation piece with a .99 WHIP/.166 BA against in 46.2 innings and 8 starts. He strikes out about a batter an inning and doesn't walk a ton of guys.
- After Cornelio, their starting pitching is meh. Krob/Walker and Cam Brown all have ERA's north of 4.7. And the only other guy with multiple starts, Caedman Parker, has a 7.71 ERA.
- The difference in this TCU group, to me, is the lack of dominant pitching is somewhat offset by a relatively deeper bullpen than they've had. Ridings is a closer with great stuff. Savage-Perez-Bolden-Mihlbauer have all appeared in double digit games as well. If you can get after Cornelio at all tonight, it sets up really well for TTU. Making TCU burn a couple of their horses at all today really helps us. We will see if they can rack up a higher pitch count and a more patient approach today.
I still really like this TTU team. I can certainly get down during the midweek stuff because we just look like we don't care at all. Defensive miscues and base running mistakes are so fixable. I think that our middle of the road guys in the pitching staff have been exposed a bit, especially with Girton going down.
I'll take TTU to win 2/3 in Ft. Worth, but the game of the weekend is tonight with Morris vs Cornelio. Tech feels good about Saturdays with Birdsell and TCU probably feels like Sunday leans their way with our lack of a third solid starter.
This writeup will be shorter than usual because it totally just dawned on me that it's Easter Weekend. Year is flying by.
- Good TTU is damn good. We're a threat to throw up crooked numbers at any given point. We have dominant pitching with strikeout stuff, and we don't make dumb mistakes. Bad TTU, which we've seen more recently, isn't beating up on anyone in this conference. Errors, free bases given up, Oklahoma and GCU scoring runs seemingly at will against our pitching staff..... Which one goes to Ft Worth will determine if we win another Big 12 series this weekend.
- Morris and Birdsell are invaluable all of a sudden. With the woes, essentially across the board, with our pitching staff the past few midweek games.. it puts some serious pressure on this club to win when these two guys are on the bump, because if not, you suddenly are grasping at straws trying to piece together quality innings. They need to be good tonight and tomorrow.
- Murrell coming back will definitely help. He's so solid at the top of the order, always on base, always putting pressure on opposing pitchers. He will stable the ship somewhat offensively.
- I can't even begin to say how poorly we looked defensively against OU. That was just a clown show. Flush the tape and move on. It definitely looks like we struggle a bit transitioning to a grass/dirt field.
- TCU comes into the series 25-12 and 7-5 in big 12 play. They have struggled of late losing 7 of 10 since sweeping KSU on 3/25-27. It looks like last weekend's series against UT was their first battle with a ranked team up to this point and they went 1-2.
- TCU hits .267 as a team and is paced by Tommy Sacco, Brayden Taylor, and David Bishop. Bishop leads the team with 37 RBI while Sacco and Taylor have combined for 12 HR on the season. They're main SB threat is Elijah Nunez at 17/17 on the year.
- Texas Tech is going to have to absolutely blow away the bottom of the Frogs order this weekend to win. I think that the drop off on TCU's bottom 3rd is much more significant than other teams in the league. They have 3 every day guys hitting .240, .236 and .194 who have combined to start 86 games this season. Those guys also have struck out 85 times. You need to get those guys out and pitch to their better guys with the bases empty. Keep an eye on whether or not Boyers/Rodgers/Maxwell do any damage this weekend.
- They're pitching staff is also not as daunting as we've seen from TCU in the past few years. Riley Cornelio is a bonafide top of the rotation piece with a .99 WHIP/.166 BA against in 46.2 innings and 8 starts. He strikes out about a batter an inning and doesn't walk a ton of guys.
- After Cornelio, their starting pitching is meh. Krob/Walker and Cam Brown all have ERA's north of 4.7. And the only other guy with multiple starts, Caedman Parker, has a 7.71 ERA.
- The difference in this TCU group, to me, is the lack of dominant pitching is somewhat offset by a relatively deeper bullpen than they've had. Ridings is a closer with great stuff. Savage-Perez-Bolden-Mihlbauer have all appeared in double digit games as well. If you can get after Cornelio at all tonight, it sets up really well for TTU. Making TCU burn a couple of their horses at all today really helps us. We will see if they can rack up a higher pitch count and a more patient approach today.
I still really like this TTU team. I can certainly get down during the midweek stuff because we just look like we don't care at all. Defensive miscues and base running mistakes are so fixable. I think that our middle of the road guys in the pitching staff have been exposed a bit, especially with Girton going down.
I'll take TTU to win 2/3 in Ft. Worth, but the game of the weekend is tonight with Morris vs Cornelio. Tech feels good about Saturdays with Birdsell and TCU probably feels like Sunday leans their way with our lack of a third solid starter.
