Can Texas Tech baseball rediscover the 'recipe for winning' before it's too late?

Pitching has been a sticking point for Texas Tech baseball fans throughout the 2024 season. Tim Tadlock has heard plenty about his staff, but can't put the blame on the arms for the Red Raiders getting knocked off by Oklahoma on Sunday.

Starting pitcher Mac Heuer only got through four batters in Sunday's Big 12 home finale against the Sooners before coming out of the game. It wasn't because of his performance — though he had just given up a two-run home run. Instead, Tadlock said Heuer was dealing with pain in the latissimus dorsi, making it hurt when he pulled down to deliver the throw.

"Our starter came out in the first inning," Tadlock said, "and I still think we did enough on the mound to be in position to win the game."

He's right about one thing. The Red Raiders did have a chance to win. A ninth-inning comeback fell just short as the Sooners finished off the sweep with an 8-7 victory at Dan Law Field. It was Tech's first time being swept at home since 2011, and the first time being swept at home in a conference series since 2007.

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Tadlock wasn't able to have the full view of this factoid after the game. He admitted he couldn't even really add Sunday's setback to the entirety of the weekend series with Oklahoma, needing some more time to look at the finer points of the loss. Tadlock was, however, able to surmise just how the Red Raiders have managed to come up short in their last six conference games, putting them in danger of missing out on the Big 12 Tournament entirely.

"I think we've had some breakdowns on defense," Tadlock said, "and I think we've had some breakdowns at the plate also. The pitching evaluation, again, I think we've pitched good enough in enough games to win 'em. ... Over the course of those games, I would say you've got to have guys show up one through nine. It's not a one-man lineup. It's not about getting hits. It's about getting on base, getting them over, getting them in.

"A lot of times it's about the little things and not necessarily the big things."

And sometimes the little things can add up into big ones. That was the case with freshman second baseman TJ Pompey. He had two errors in the game, the first coming in the opening frame where a routine ground ball slip through his legs into the outfield. That allowed Michael Snyder to hit his two-run homer off of Heuer.

The other came in the fourth. Reliever Josh Sanders had a perfectly-time pickoff play that left Bryce Madron in a pickle. Sanders threw to Pompey at second, whose throw to third was wide of the mark, making Madron safe at third. He scored on a sacrifice fly two pitches later.

Pompey has struggled at the plate throughout Big 12 play, going just 1-for-37 since April 16. He was tagged with four errors in the Oklahoma series, including the two on Sunday. He was subbed out in favor of Will Burns in the bottom of the fourth.

"We wanna allow guys to make physical mistakes," Tadlock said, "and I think we've done that plenty and I think he's gonna be a great player, but right now we just need to go to something else."

That's a common theme for the Red Raiders as a whole. Losers of six-straight conference games and seven out of eight overall, Texas Tech is sitting as the No. 10 seed in the Big 12 standings heading into its final conference series at Oklahoma State next week. Only the top 10 teams in the standings get to Arlington for the conference tournament, so getting a win or two would be beneficial to Tech's cause.

Getting wins, though, has been a challenge. Since the team's eight-game winning streak at the end of March into the second week of April, Texas Tech is just 4-11 in its last 15 games. The team's RPI was 38th entering the Oklahoma series and is sure to drop, making a bid for an NCAA Tournament regional an even bigger challenge.

Tadlock approved of how the team has stuck together through the tough times as of late. Gavin Kash — whose leadoff homer sparked Tech's ninth-inning rally — said earlier this week the Red Raiders know it's not on any one person to get the job done. It's about the team putting things together, and time is running out for Texas Tech to do that.

"I think we just have to play good baseball," Tadlock said. "There's been a number of times through league play we just haven't played good baseball. When you give them more than three outs in an inning and when you give at-bats away or maybe give them an extra 90 (feet), that's not a recipe for winning. We wanna try to get back to that recipe."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Tadlock hoping Texas Tech baseball rediscovers 'recipe for winning'