What does sweep of Big 12 co-leader mean for Texas Tech baseball?
Cade McGee looked on the bright side when the Texas Tech baseball team lost two one-run games on the road this past week to the second-ranked team in the country.
"I think we played just really good ballgames over at Arkansas," McGee said, "so I think having those two games being so tight, it gave us a lot of hope for the year (that) we can play with kind of anyone in the country, playing clean ballgames like that."
It didn't take the Red Raiders long to substantiate what McGee sensed.
The Tech third baseman homered in both ends of a doubleheader Sunday as the Red Raiders beat No. 24 West Virginia 6-4 and 3-1 and swept a three-game Big 12 series at Dan Law Field/Rip Griffin Park. WVU came to Lubbock having won seven conference games in a row and tied for the Big 12 lead.
"It's got to do something for us, right?" Tech coach Tim Tadlock said. "I mean, they've played good baseball up to this point, and I think we've shown signs of it. Can it help us moving forward? Absolutely, it can."
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Texas Tech moves within one-half game of second place in Big 12
McGee has six home runs in the past nine games. The junior from Tucson, Arizona, has 10 for the season, tying the career high he set two years ago with Gonzaga.
Tech (29-13, 12-9) is in fifth place in the Big 12, only one-half game behind three teams tied for second with 11-7 conference records: Oklahoma State (26-14), WVU (23-16) and Texas (24-17).
The Mountaineers were swept for only the second time in their past 24 Big 12 series, a stretch dating to May 2021. Texas swept WVU in Austin on the last weekend of conference games last year.
"We've been consistently good for a long period of time," WVU coach Randy Mazey said. "When something like that happens, you don't panic. You get right back to the drawing board and start over."
Rain and cold weather on Saturday caused the teams to roll the second game of the series into a Sunday doubleheader. Tech pitchers spent much of the afternoon pulling off a high-wire act. The Mountaineers stranded 13 base runners in the opener, nine in scoring position. They stranded nine in the finale, five in scoring position, including one in scoring position in each of the last three innings.
"Those guys in the middle of the lineup, if they get good pitches to hit, they've got to hit them," Mazey said, "just like their guys did against us. When we got good pitches to hit, we didn't do much with them today."
In the opener, Tech got 12 hits off Big 12 ERA leader Derek Clark and ended his streak of four consecutive nine-inning outings. In the finale, Tech got a gem from Kyle Robinson, who struck out a career-high nine and allowed five hits over seven innings.
Kyle Robinson remains on a roll
It's the fifth time in six outings Robinson has delivered a quality start, defined as pitching at least six innings and allowing three or fewer runs. His earned-run average over that span is 1.70. Since giving up 11 earned runs to Texas in the first Big 12 series, Robinson has lowered his ERA from 8.00 to 3.76.
Robinson yielded a walk and a single to the game's first two batters in a scoreless first inning. In the second, he hit a batter, walked another and gave up two singles, but only one run.
He retired 15 of the next 16 batters. Nearly all his strikeouts came on off-speed and breaking pitches.
"Those first two innings were a little rough," Robinson said, "but picked it up going through. The plan was go in there, dominate the zone, throw strikes, land your spin when you need to and you'll have success. I planned for that all week, and I was able to get it done."
Robinson yielded a single and a walk with two outs in the seventh, but got a popout to end the inning. With a runner at first in the eighth, Kyle West doubled off reliever Zach Erdman, but throws from right fielder Austin Green and second baseman T.J. Pompey cut down Reed Chumley at the plate.
"Green's got a good arm. Pompey's got a good arm," Tadlock said. "We're fortunate we had the right two guys in the right spots right there."
The out at the plate kept the score 2-1, and in Tech's half of the inning Kevin Bazzell homered for the first time in 13 games.
Jacob Rogers pitched the ninth for his second save, stranding a leadoff triple with a popout, a strikeout and a grounder back to the mound.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: What does sweep of Big 12 co-leader WVU mean for Texas Tech baseball?
