TECH SET TO OPEN UP FOUR-GAME HOMESTAND
Texas Tech will open up a four-game homestand on Wednesday afternoon with a 3 p.m. matchup against the Dallas Baptist Patriots. The brief homestand continues over the weekend as the Red Raiders and the Nebraska Cornhuskers open up Big 12 Conference play with a three-game series that is set to get underway at 6:30 p.m. on Friday evening. The homestand may be a short one but it's most certainly welcome to a team that just spent the last 11 days on an eight-game road swing through the state of California. Tech's 11-day trip was the longest ever taken by the baseball program as the Red Raiders spent time in Los Angeles, Riverside and Palm Springs. THE TEXAS TECH-DALLAS BAPTIST SERIES
Wednesday afternoon's meeting against Dallas Baptist University will mark the first of two regular-season contests between the two schools. The second and final game between the two teams will fall in early May when the Red Raiders visit Patriot Field on May 6 for a 6:30 p.m. contest. Texas Tech and Dallas Baptist will be meeting for the 12th time on Wednesday afternoon with the Red Raiders holding a slim 6-5 lead in the all-time series. The series dates back to May 12, 2004 when the Patriots scratched out a 4-3 win at Dan Law Field. The Red Raiders have won three of the last five games in the series, including the last matchup (9-8) back on May 14. A LOOK AT DALLAS BAPTIST
The Dallas Baptist Patriots come into Wednesday's game against the Red Raiders having swept a weekend series against Oakland to improve to 8-3 on the season. The Patriots are coming off the best season in school history (as a Division I member) as they earned their first-ever invitation to the NCAA Tournament in 2008. The Patriots earned a spot in the College Station Regional with a 37-19 record under a first-year head coach in Dan Heefner. Heefner returns six starting position players from that NCAA Tournament team and they are leading the way for the Patriots in 2009. Outfielder Ryan Enos paces the squad with a impressive .533 average along with seven home runs and 20 RBIs. Ryan Goins, Chris Haney and Jason Krizan each have 10-plus RBIs. On the mound, the Patriots have put together a staff ERA of 4.59 and are holding opponents to a .286 batting average. Victor Black, Wednesday's projected starter, is 1-0 on the year with a 2.81 ERA in three starts and 16 innings of work. He leads the team with 21 strikeouts and is holding opposing hitters to a .283 average. Black, a junior from Amarillo, did not see any action against the Red Raiders in 2008. RED RAIDERS ON THE AIR
Texas Tech's entire schedule in 2009 including both regular-season and post-season action will be carried live on the flagship station of the Texas Tech Sports Network, KKAM-1340. The Texas Tech Sports Network begins its 16th season of full coverage of Red Raider Baseball. Robert Giovannetti will handle the play-by-play duties for the second year in a row and will be assisted by Matt Miller and Blayne Beal. Network pregame coverage begins 30 minutes prior to first pitch and concludes with a postgame show. Live audio streams will be available for all road games through RaiderVision All-Access while live video/audio will be available for all home games. SHORT HOPS
- Senior RHP AJ Ramos continued his impressive start to the 2009 season with an outstanding effort against Gonzaga on Saturday. Ramos, who underwent Tommy John Surgery in April of last year, logged six shutout innings against the Zags while scattering just three hits, no walks and struckout nine. He now has 13 shutout innings to his credit and a perfect ERA of 0.00 along with just two walks and 18 strikeouts.
- After a dreadful string of 25 errors over 11-straight games, Texas Tech has thrown up zeros in the error column in each of the last two contests. Tech's fielding woes culminated with four errors in back-to-back games against UC-Riverside. Tech's fielding percentage of .955 ranks last in the Big 12 Conference just behind Kansas State who owns a .960 fielding mark.
- Freshman third baseman Justin Berry has posted a quiet 11-game hit streak and that is the longest by any Tech player this season by four games. He has also hit safely in 13 of Tech's 14 games this season.
- Sophomore catcher Jeremy Mayo and junior infielder Logan Leslie both hit their first home runs of the year in the Palm Springs Invitational.
- Senior RHP Miles Morgan leads the Tech pitching staff with 19 strikeouts while senior RHP AJ Ramos is right behind with 18. The two pitchers have allowed only nine combined walks in 29 1/3 innings of work.
- Tech's eight-game road trip to California caused its team batting average to drop 42 points from .335 to .293. In California, the Tech offense managed just a .263 average along with only 28 RBIs. Most noticeably, the Red Raiders struckout 80 times in the eight-game span.
- Three of Tech's eight losses this season have come by one run as the Red Raiders have dropped one-run losses to Cal-State Northridge, UC-Riverside and San Francisco.
- Freshman Garrett Totten saw his first playing time of the season in the first game of the Palm Springs Invitational. Totten had missed the first 10 games of the season due to a broken hand and ended up starting at second base in each of the four games in Palm Springs.
- Tech averaged 2,215 fans per-game during the six-game season-opening homestand at Dan Law Field. A season-high crowd of 3,413 turned out to watch Tech defeat Southern Utah 8-2 on Saturday afternoon.
- Texas Tech was officially the first team in the Big 12 Conference to begin play in 2009. The Red Raiders threw the first pitch against Southern Utah at 1:01 p.m. on Feb. 20 while the Kansas Jayhawks started just four minutes later (1:05 p.m.) against Air Force.
- Senior second baseman Willie Rueda suffered a hamstring injury while running to first base in the second inning against Southern Utah on Saturday, Feb. 21. Rueda will be out indefinitely.
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