Game 1 recap: Stanford 5 - Texas 4

[Matt Cotcher]

submitted Today, 08:26 AM in Texas Longhorns Baseball By Matt Cotcher   

 @mlcotcher
 
Game 1: Stanford 5 – Texas 4

On Thursday night, both the Stanford Cardinal and Texas Longhorns blasted two homeruns, matching each other with two-run and solo shots. The difference in the game proved to be Texas’ inability to produce a hit when needed. The Horns left the bases loaded three times and stranded a total of 14 baserunners.

Chad Hollingsworth, who allowed five runs, six hits, and three walks (5 IP) took the loss for Texas. The Texas bullpen continued it’s trend of dependability with Connor Mayes and Ty Culbreth combining to pin the Cardinal at five runs over the final three innings.

In the loss, Ben Johnson went 3-4 with two homeruns. It was the first multi-homerun game of Johnson’s career – he tallied 3 RBI and scored 2 runs. Stanford’s homeruns came off the bats of Mikey Diekroeger and Austin Barr.

Augie Garrido: “[Chad] Hollingsworth got hit but kept throwing the ball in there and did a really good job, and then his relief pitching came in and did a really good job, kept them right on that ‘5.’ We had several opportunities to pass them up but we over-competed in those situations. Just trying too hard and not playing with the kind of confidence that we hope we have as we move forward. As long as we continue to swing at balls outside of the strike zone because we’re trying to score the runs – it isn’t because we’re not competing and it isn’t because we’re not good. It’s because we’re trying too hard. Hopefully as they gain more experience they’ll gain more confidence, and as they gain more confidence they’ll be able to balance out the patience it takes to be a good hitter along with the aggressiveness it takes to be a good hitter.”

Augie Garrido on the offense: “What separated the two teams – actually I think we have the better team – however we lost the game because we didn’t take quality at-bats with runners in scoring position. We didn’t drive runners in when we had a chance, either by taking the pitches that would have walked the run in, or by squaring up the ball. We struck out about six times with runners in scoring position and we left the bases loaded three times."