RED RAIDERS FACE NEBRASKA IN BIG 12 OPENER
Texas Tech will look for a fresh start in the second half of its season beginning on Friday evening as the Red Raiders open up Big 12 Conference play with a three-game home series against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Tech-Nebraska series will get underway at 6:30 CDT on Friday and will continue at 5 p.m. CDT on Saturday and conclude at 1 p.m. (CDT) on Sunday. The Red Raiders enter the weekend series on a two-game losing skid after dropping an 11-2 decision to Dallas Baptist at Dan Law Field on Wednesday afternoon. The Huskers will bring a five-game win streak into the series after sweeping a four-game weekend set against Cal-State Northridge at Haymarket Park. THE TEXAS TECH-NEBRASKA SERIES
Friday's game against Nebraska will mark the 44th all-time between the two schools. The two teams first met back in 1990 with the Huskers taking an 8-3 win over the Red Raiders at Dan Law Field. The two schools would meet four other times before playing an annual series after the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1997. Nebraska holds a 25-19 advantage all-time against the Red Raiders and the Huskers are currently riding a three-game win streak. Nebraska swept Tech last season in Lincoln with scores of 6-2, 5-2 and 5-3. Despite Nebraska's lead in the all-time series, Texas Tech holds an 11-10 advantage in games played at Dan Law Field and has won the last two series there. A LOOK AT NEBRASKA
The Nebraska Cornhuskers come to the South Plains of Texas riding a five-game win streak and stand at 10-3-1 on the season. The Huskers, who did not play a midweek game, swept a four-game weekend series in sub-par weather against the Cal-State Northridge Matadors. The Huskers are coming off their best offensive week of the year as they averaged 10.2 runs-per-game over the five-game stretch. During those five games, the Huskers hit .365 and climbed to fourth place in the Big 12's team batting standings with a season average of .300. The Huskers are led by second baseman Kyle Bubak who has a .415 batting average along with five doubles and a .610 slugging percentage. Outfielder Adam Bailey is the team and Big 12 leader in home runs with six and also leads the squad with 22 RBIs. On the mound, Nebraska has a team ERA of 3.82 and is led by reliever Casey Hauptman who is 2-0 with a 1.45 ERA. Three different Husker relievers each have a save, including pitcher/outfielder Adam Bailey. Nebraska is led by Mike Anderson who is in his seventh season as the Husker skipper. 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 committed just one miscue in the last three games. Tech's fielding woes culminated with four errors in back-to-back games against UC-Riverside. Tech's fielding percentage of .957 ranks last in the Big 12 Conference just behind Kansas State who owns a .960 fielding mark.
- Freshman third baseman Justin Berry had his 11-game hit streak come to an end on Wednesday afternoon after going 0-for-4 against Dallas Baptist. The 11-game streak is the longest by an Red Raider so far this year.
- Berry alongside shortstop Joey Kenworthy have hit safely in 13 of Tech's 15 games this season.
- 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.
- AJ Ramos and Joey Kenworthy were both named to the Palm Springs Invitational All-Tournament Team.
- 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 that 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.
- Texas Tech currently has a strength-of-schedule ranking of 38 but an RPI of 177 according to boydsworld.com. The Huskers enter the weekend series with a strength-of-schedule ranking of 33 and an RPI of 63.
- Junior RHP Nate Karns tied the longest outing of his career on Wednesday afternoon with 5 1/3 innings against the Patriots. He dropped to 0-2 on the year after giving up four runs (three earned) on three hits and five walks.
- 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.
RED RAIDERS IN BIG 12 OPENERS
After just 15 games of non-conference action, the Red Raiders begin Big 12 Conference play this weekend with a three-game series against Nebraska. Tech will be looking for just its fourth series win in a Big 12 Conference opener. Tech's only series wins to start the Big 12 season came against Kansas in 1999, Texas A&M in 2005 and Nebraska in 2007. Tech dropped its Big 12 series opener last season 2-1 at No. 22 Texas A&M. |
