AMARILLO – The #4 Red Raiders (27-9) fell to the Oklahoma Sooners (19-12) in a non-conference matchup at Hodgetown Stadium in Amarillo 14-9 Tuesday night. It was arguably the most lackluster performance of the season for a Red Raider squad that has summited the peaks of memorable all-time moments and fallen into the valleys of blowout losses in 2022.
The Red Raiders booted four errors, tying a season-high dating back to March 12 at Rice. They issued a season-high 9 walks and coupled with hit batsmen (2) they broke into double-digit free passes. The Red Raiders also surrendered a new season-high of 14 runs, surpassing the 13 given up to #15 Arizona in Arlington on February 20.
Despite the negatives, and at the risk of being accused of pumping sunshine amidst a disappointing performance at the home of the AA Sod Poodles, there’s a silver lining in this performance. Each season’s team develops an identity that characterizes their style of play and Tim Tadlock’s 2022 Texas Tech squad has built a mantra through 35 games of playing with grit.
Grit is one of those words that sportswriters and fans toss around when describing a team or an individual performance but when it comes to defining what it is without using the word itself, things get murky.
Tuesday night, in a game that saw the Sooners crank five home runs out of the bandbox that is Hodgetown Stadium, Oklahoma still opted to bring in their closer Trevian Michael. Wearing #99, the big RHP entered with 5 saves on the season and a five-run lead, a testament to Oklahoma Head Coach Skip Johnson’s respect for the grit of the Red Raiders. By bringing in Michael, it reads as recognition by Johnson that despite the score Texas Tech is never out of a game.
He and Tadlock know each other well, something Tadlock talked about on his radio show Monday.
“Skip and I go back, I mean back in the 90s he’s coaching at Navarro Junior College and I’m coaching at Hill Junior College and there was many a days where the van was already rolling towards Hillsboro or Corsicana and pretty much said ‘hey, I’m bringing a group over, we’re gonna play today,'” said Tadlock.
Maybe this recognition by Johnson reveals that not only is grit a characteristic of the Red Raiders of 2022, but the Red Raider program under Tim Tadlock.
“You feel like you’re right there obviously, and even in the ninth you’re only down five and the wind’s blowing straight out,” said Tadlock. “Lauden [Brooks] went in there and drew a walk and then we hit a double-play ball, that happens.”
Texas Tech took a 2-0 lead in the second inning when Owen Washburn deposited a one-out nuke onto the right-field berm. He scored Kurt Wilson who’d reached on a walk immediately before, and Tech carried the 2-0 lead until the fourth.
Starting pitcher Andrew Devine struggled through three innings giving up 5 walks, including two to load the bases in the second and third, but Devine pitched out of trouble with the help of his defense behind him to post three scoreless frames and 3 strikeouts. On a night the Red Raiders sent 9 pitchers to the mound and the defense struggled with mistakes, they also turned three double plays. Texas Tech is last in the Big 12 in double plays turned with 15 on the season, but 6 of those have been turned in the last three games.
“We’ve been practicing a lot of double plays recently because we know, obviously we’re baseball players we understand we haven’t been turning those plays,” said Jace Jung after Saturday’s K-State win.
Is the willingness to prepare, assess performance, adjust, and grow your game part of grit?
Oklahoma responded in the fourth with a four-run frame led off by right fielder Brett Squires hitting his first of two bombs. Squires, in his second game back in the lineup after missing several weeks due to a chipped bone in his left thumb suffered in a botched bunt attempt against Air Force on March 15, went 5-5, 2HR, 3RBI, 3R. Squires reached safely on all six of his plate appearances with an HBP in the final frame of the evening.
Jamie Hitt entered for the fifth but he plunked the leadoff man and Squires smoked his second long-ball of the day, this time to left-center field to tack on two more making it a 6-2 advantage for Oklahoma. After a walk and the Red Raiders’ fourth error of the evening, Blake Robertson pounded a moonshot off of the middle of the center-field monster (above the yellow line) for another two-run jack. Robertson also had a big day going 5-6, HR, 2R.
The grit of Texas Tech evidenced itself again and again over the next three innings as Tech battled for a three-run fifth, a single run in the sixth, and a three-run seventh. In the fifth it was a two-out rally when Sam Hunt got things started with a walk, a single by Zac Vooletich and a two-RBI double by Cole Stilwell closed the lead. After OU intentionally walked Jung, Ty Coleman sent an RBI double to the left-center field wall to tack on another for Tech. It was a spark in an important inning as the Red Raiders were in a one-hit affair prior to the fifth.
A moment that may go otherwise forgotten in a midweek loss was the re-appearance of Easton Murrell. Tech’s left-fielder, and usual leadoff hitter, hasn’t played since sliding through a wall at Grand Canyon a week ago. Murrell suffered a laceration on his right knee that required five stitches to close. Washburn led off the sixth inning with a walk and Murrell pinch-hit for Sam Hunt with two outs and Washburn still standing at first base. Murrell smoked a 1-1 offering down the right-field line and hobbled to second base protecting the stitched knee.
Maybe grit is a willingness to do whatever you can to help your team win regardless of the score or your own discomfort.
The Red Raiders had one more counterpunch to throw. In the seventh inning, Stilwell sent a leadoff single to right field followed by an oppo double by Jung. With one out, Wilson smoked a moonshot to right-center field onto the berm where it met the center-field fence. The three-run ding dong, Wilson’s eighth of the season, cut the Sooner lead to two.
After Wilson’s mashed his tater, Washburn snuck a seeing-eye single through the left side, Hudson White walked, Parker Kelly hit into a fielder’s choice, and Cody Masters pinch-hit for Cooper Swanson, who’d taken over center field after pinch-running for Murrell. Masters put together a competitive at-bat, but the eighth pitch nailed him and loaded the bases. The inning ended one hitter later with a strikeout.
“There in the seventh inning with Cody Masters standing at the plate, a guy that’s traditionally hit in the middle of the order and you’re rolling him off the bench, he can run a ball out of there at any moment,” explained Tadlock. “Yeah, I thought we were in a good spot. I think every situation we had tonight we’ll take it. We’ll take our guys in those situations and it just didn’t work out today.”
Is clutch situational hitting how to define grit?
Preparation and adjustment, clutch hitting, commitment- maybe all of these things are a part of defining grit. Teams that play with scrap, grit, tenacity, gumption, moxie, whatever the adjective observers attach to it all of them indicate a team that is unwilling to quit. That was on display Tuesday, as in many other games this season. Maybe grit is less about an attribute or a particular behavior, and more about an outcome. Not on the record, but that feeling after a game when you reflect past the disappointment of a loss and say ‘we left it all on the field.’
For Tadlock however, it’s not a single characteristic or an outcome of effort or commitment that defines the grit of his squad, it’s why they do the things they do that he turns to in articulating what defines them.
“I think the guys would tell you this group of guys is really close. They really get along, they enjoy working, they enjoy preparing, they enjoy being around each other,” said Head Coach Tim Tadlock after the loss Tuesday.
The players seem to agree.
“I’ve been saying this from day one. Like the Covid year, we were up in the suites, we couldn’t be around each other, six feet apart,” said Wilson on February 26. “Now we’re in there messing around with each other, it’s like a family, it’s like a big family. I can’t wait to play every single day with these guys.”
“We want to win,” said Brandon Birdsell on February 27. “I think everyone in there has that same mindset. That’s just all we are, we’re going to grind, we’re going to compete for each other, and try to win a lot of ballgames.”
The Red Raiders have won four walk-off games in 2022 (Michigan, Texas x2, K-State) but in addition, they have come from behind to win or make close 12 more contests in the late innings. Whether they’re winning it on the final swing (or slide), scoring five in the ninth to push back against a dominant Grand Canyon pitching performance, or trading blows with red hot Sooner bats, the Red Raiders have shown their grit time and again in 2022.
Tuesday in Amarillo was yet another example of a team that is unwilling to quit and who has built a chemistry that has them playing hard for each other until the final out is recorded.
Texas Tech will take their grit to Fort Worth next to face Texas Christian University (21-12, 7-5) Thursday through Saturday in their fourth Big 12 series. The Horned Frogs are coming off a series loss in Austin to the Texas Longhorns and a midweek loss against Dallas Baptist in Fort Worth. First pitch is set for 6:00 pm and the live stream will be available on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with the radio call available on Double T 97.3 FM and in their listening area, as well as through The Varsity Network App.
TTU36 box score
