Red Raiders open Big 12 Championships Tues. vs UT

May 20, 2024 | Baseball

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The Red Raiders will seek a First-Round victory at the Big 12 Championships for the fifth-straight season

By: Andrew Stern

ARLINGTON -- Texas Tech Baseball opens postseason play on Tuesday night with a 7:30 p.m. contest against No. 24 Texas in the First round of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championships hosted by Globe Life Field and the Big 12 Tournament.

The Red Raiders enter the matchup and the event as the 10-seed with a record of 31-24 overall, while UT enters the week as the No. 3 overall seed and with a record of 35-20.

With a victory Tuesday night, the Red Raiders will advance to the Second Round of the Big 12 Championship where a date on Wednesday night (7:30 p.m.) with No. 19 and second-seeded Oklahoma State would await. With a loss on Tuesday, the Red Raiders would instead have to play an elimination game on Wednesday (4 p.m.) against the loser of Cincinnati and UCF.

INSIDE THE MATCHUP:
MATCHUP: Texas Tech (31-24) vs. No. 24 Texas (35-20)
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 2024
TIME: 7:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Globe Life Field (Arlington, Texas)
PITCHING MATCHUP: RHP Kyle Robinson (4-7, 4.97 ERA) vs. LHP Ace Whitehead (4-1, 4.07 ERA)

1-2-3 HEADLINES:

* With the new season upon them, the Red Raiders will now turn their attention to the Big 12 Championships in Arlington that begins on Tuesday night against No. 24 Texas. With a victory over the third seeded long horns, the Red Raiders will advance to meet No. 19 and two-seed OSU on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. With a setback against the Longhorns the Red Raiders would play an elimination game against the loser of Cincinnati and UCF on Wednesday at 4 p.m. With a win the Red Raiders would win their first round Big 12 matchup for the fifth consecutive season.

* The Red Raiders enter the weekend after recording their 31st win of the season last Friday against UNLV. In that game Tech socked five home runs including the first of two home runs on the day for Arizona native Cade McGee who homered in both games on Friday. Back in Arizona McGee went 4-12 with nine RBIs and the two home runs. The third baseman took over the team lead in RBIs with his strong performance.

* Other big performances in Arizona last week including reliever Trendan Parish throwing in a game for the first time since Apr. 1 and Gavin Kash socking his 40th career home run, a three-run shot on Friday night against. Parish retired all four batters he faced, while Kash became the fifth Red Raider in program history to reach 40 career bombs.

MATCHUP NOTES:

ANOTHER ROUND WITH THE LONGHORNS

After hosting Texas to begin Big 12 Conference play, the Red Raiders will next face Texas to open the 2024 Big 12 Championships on Tuesday afternoon. The Red Raiders lost that series to UT despite a 7-1 Saturday win.

KNOW OUR WAY AROUND THE PLACE

After opening the season with five straight games at Globe Life Field the Red Raiders will return to the home of the Texas Rangers for the Big 12 Conference Tournament. The Red Raiders opened the season with victories over Nebraska, Oregon and UT Arlington in Globe Life. Tech is no stranger to Globe Life as the Red Raiders have played a combined 18 games at Globe Life Field since 2021. The Red Raiders played the five aforementioned games at Globe Life to open the season, while the Longhorns did not play a game at Globe Life this season.

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2015
Despite both making every conference tournament that was contested, the Red Raiders and Longhorns are meeting in the Big 12 Conference Tournament for the first time since the 2015 season. The Red Raiders have seen UT seven times all-time in the Big 12 Conference Tournament. The Longhorns have won five of those seven matchups.

FINAL SHOWDOWN? COULD BE

When the Longhorns off to the Southeastern Conference at the end of the season, Tuesday's matchup against UT could very well be the final matchup between the two schools as conference mates. The Red Raiders and Longhorns have met every single season since 1968 a span of 57 years.

WON AND OH

The Red Raiders have frequently started 1-0 in the Big 12 Conference Tournament, in fact the Red Raiders are a perfect 4-0 since a 2018 opening round loss to TCU. That includes a 7-4 win over Kansas State in 2019, an 11-4 victory again Baylor in 2021, a 5-3 win over Kansas State in 2023 and a 6-2 victory over WVU last season. Under coach Tim Tadlock the Red Raiders have played 10 first round games and have won five of the last seven after Tadlock started 0-3 in Big 12 first round games.

SEE YOU IN ARLINGTON

By virtue of last weekends results around the Big 12 Conference, the Red Raiders have clinched the 10th and final spot in next week's Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship hosted by Globe Life Field. The Red Raiders are locked into the 10th-seed for next weekends event. The Red Raiders will open the Big 12 Tournament on Tuesday night at 7:30 against No. 3 Texas. With a victory over the Longhorns, Tech would move on to the Big 12 Second Round where a matchup with No. 2 Oklahoma State would await on Wednesday night also at 7:30 p.m. If the Red Raiders fall Tuesday to UT, they will face the loser of UCF and Cincy on Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m.

WELL PREPARED
Texas Tech's projected starting pitcher for Tuesday night Kyle Robinson enters Tuesday's game after throwing just one inning in last Friday's win over UNLV. Robinson allowed just one hit in a scoreless inning of work. Robinson is coming off a career-best 11 punchouts two weekends ago against OSU.

WELL PREPARED

The Red Raiders enter the Big 12 Championship looking for a strong performance to extend the season and avoid seeing an seven-year regional final streak snapped and a streak of seven straight regionals made. The last time the Red Raiders missed the NCAA Tournament was 2015. Despite entering the tournament as the lowest seed, the Red Raiders have been well prepared for postseason play as Tech has played six teams that have won over 35 games and three teams with 40+ victories. The Red Raiders 26 opponents are a combined 161 games over .500 this season (764-603) and have averaged 29.4 wins. Those teams have played to a winning percentage of .559.

ACCOLADES ROLLED IN

The Red Raiders saw nine different players earn All-Big 12 honors including catcher Kevin Bazzell who was named a Second Team All-Big 12 selection. In addition to Bazzell taking home Second Team honors, six different Red Raiders were honorable mention selections as Damian Bravo, Gavin Kash, Drew Woodcox, Cade McGee, TJ Pompey and Kyle Robinson all took home honorable mention. And while the seven overall honors were impressive, the Red Raiders weren't done there, as three different freshman also earned Big 12 All-Freshman honors as SP Mac Heuer, Parker Hutyra and Pompey were all named All-Freshman selections.

SEEN THE ACE JUST IN A DIFFERENT ROLE

The Red Raiders are familiar with Texas' starter for Tuesday's contest Ace Whitehead, as the Red Raiders saw the left-hander during the Friday night contest against the Longhorns. In his first extended outing of the season, the Red Raiders scored three runs against Whitehead in 4.2 innings. The lefty who had pitched just 1.1 innings prior to the series, allowed five hits and the aforementioned three runs. He walked two and struck out seven to earn his first of four wins. Like Robinson, Whitehead threw limitedly last weekend, pitching two-thirds of an inning out of the 'pen, allowing two hits and a run over 17 pitches in Friday's win over KU.

KA$H BOMBS
In Friday's Arizona finale, first baseman Gavin Kash launched his 14th home run of the season to reach the 40 home run mark for his career. Kash became just the fifth Red Raider in program history to reach 40 longballs joining Clint Bryant (1993-96; 44), Josh Bard (1997-99; 43), Joe Dillon (1996-97; 43) and Mike Humphreys (1985-88; 41) to hit 40 career bombs. Kash needs just four more home runs in his career to tie Bryant's program record.

ROBINSON SHOVES
In his start two Saturdays ago, Kyle Robinson turned in a career-night firing 6.1 innings with a career-best 11 punchouts. After allowing Robinson, who after allowing a two-out two-run double in the first settled into a rhythm. The double was the only extra base hit the right-hander allowed as he went six-plus innings and allowed just three runs. He struck out 11 including all three batters in the first.

After the Pokes struck out the side in the top of the second, Robinson answered his counterpart in the bottom using his fourth and fifth punchouts of the night to strand a pair. In the third, Robinson again answered the bell, using his sixth and seventh strikeouts to close a 1-2-3 third. Both pitchers worked around a single in the fourth to fire zeros, as the game went to the top of the fifth deadlocked at two. Robinson fired another strong 1-2-3 inning in the last of the fifth before striking out a pair in a scoreless sixth.

BRAVO. DAMIAN BRAVO.
Damian Bravo has been great in his second season in Lubbock, as the Sophomore hit a .384 in his 45 games played. Bravo lead the Big 12 in average and doubles. The OF became the first Red Raider to lead the league in average since Josh Jung did it in 2018. Bravo's .384 average would be the fifth-highest single season average in program history.

POWERS BEEN SURGING
The Red Raider bats have experienced a bit of a power surge since failing to homer in the three-game weekend series at Kansas. In fact with the nine homers that Tech hit last weekend against ASU (twice) and UNLV (once), the Red Raiders have now hit 94 home runs this season the most in a season since 1998 when the Red Raiders lifted 95 long balls. If the Red Raiders are able to go deep twice in Arlington this week, they would eclipse 95 long balls for the first time since 1997 when they lifted a program-record 108. The only other 95+ home run seasons in program history are 1984 (107), 1996 (97) and 1998 (95). With his home run last weekend in Arizona, INF TJ Pompey became the fourth Red Raider to hit 10 bombs this season.

ONE MORE FREE PASS FOR 300
After walking a program record 367 times in 2023, the Red Raiders are once again likely going eclipse 300 free passes in a season. It would mark the sixth straight season that the Red Raiders have eclipsed 300+ walks (in a full season). That mark dates back to the 2017 season.

RUNNIN' RUNNIN'
The Red Raiders have clearly been aggressive on the base-paths this season, as the club has now stolen 59 bases in 55 games played. The Red Raiders went until Mar. 23 against BYU without a caught stealing as the Red Raiders went 28 consecutive stolen base attempts with out a caught stealing. Tech has been caught stealing just seven times and already have stolen 31 more bases than 2023 (28). Last weekend in Arizona the Red Raiders stole 10 bases over the three games including six against Arizona State last Friday night. The Red Raiders 59 total steals are the most since 2017. Five of the 10 stolen bases came from OF Gage Harrelson who stole a pair of bases against UNLV and three bases against ASU. Harrelson has now stolen 18 bags without being caught.

BRIDGES HAS BEEN USED OFTEN
With his appearance Sunday on Senior Day against Oklahoma, Bridges pitched in a game for the 73rd time as a Red Raider. With that appearance, Bridges passed former Red Raiders John McMillian for seventh all-time on the appearance list. With his appearance last Friday in Tempe, Bridges saw action in his 74th career game which tied the lefty with Brian Cloud for sixth all-time on the list.

SANDY JOINS THE TOP-10
In arguably his most effective season as a Red Raider, senior Josh Sanders continues to take the ball for the Red Raiders. Sanders has now appeared in 70 career games after his stint last week against UNLV. The righty is now tied with Jerad McCrummen for eighth all-time in appearances. Sanders also made his 25th appearance of the season, and needs just three more to crack the top-10 in a single season.

NINE IN SEVEN BRINGS SCHOOL RECORD
The Red Raiders slugged a school-record nine home runs in the victory over ACU, as four different Red Raiders hit multiple home runs (Cade McGee, Gavin Kash, TJ Pompey and Drew Woodcox). Tech became the first Big 12 Team since 2019 to sock nine home runs as the four players with multiple home runs are the most by a Big 12 team since at least 2011.

6-4-3 HISTORY
On Friday night against Kansas, the Red Raiders turned seven double plays in nine innings. The Red Raiders turned a double play in every inning except the fourth and ninth. The streak started in the bottom of the first when Ryan Free induced a 4-3 GDP of Jake English in the first. In the second inning, Free ended the inning with a 6-4-3 GDP. In the third Free put the first two outs on the board on a 4-6-3 double play. In the fifth, Free got English to ground into another GDP, this time started by SS Tracer Lopez who flipped to TJ Pompey who then threw to Gavin Kash to complete the 6-4-3 DP. In the sixth, reliever Josh Sanders ended the inning with a 6-3 DP before a line drive DP in the seventh ended another inning. In the eighth, Sanders erased a lead off single for the Red Raiders seventh double play of the game. The seven double plays were a new school record and tied the all-time NCAA mark. It was the fifth time in NCAA history that a team had turned seven double plays..

UP NEXT:
The Red Raiders will face either No. 19 Oklahoma State at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the Second Round or will face a losers bracket elimination game against the loser of Wednesday's matchup between Cincinnati and UCF at 4 p.m.