TCU Baseball blanks Texas Southern, Escapes with 1-0 win

Mitchell Traver was absolutely fantastic last night. The sophomore faced only 24 batters in the shutout, and in the process; struck out 11, walked zero, and gave up two measly singles. We'll get a truer look at Traver next week when he's throwing the kind of heat that was making Terrence Howard sweat at last Sunday's Oscars. But, like we've talked about the past week or so, having him throw Tuesday games could very well leave TCU with a clean sheet for these games come season's end...

Evan Skoug continues to prove himself as one of the most exciting freshman in the Big 12, if not the country. Skoug broke the game open with a solo shot to set up Riley Ferrell’s 2nd save on the season to give TCU a 1-0 victory before going into the weekend. We all would’ve liked to have had more runs and an offensive dynamic that we’re used to seeing thus far--but that’s what it takes sometimes; a home run, even a solo shot, to win games. Aside from Skoug's solo shot, the TCU bats were pretty quiet. And credit Texas Southern's Felix Gomez, who had; a strong number of strikeouts (10), gave up only 4 hits--one of them being Skoug's solo separator, and, like Traver, blanked in walks.

Despite the lack of offense last night, we are nowhere near hitting the panic button. TCU's bullpen and Ferrell security are so strong; and as we learned last year, this team's offense can pretty much run on fumes with this pitching. Giving the pitching staff run security however, makes this team nearly unstoppable. Remember this is baseball--you're going to lose games, you're going to win games against inferior talent by small margins.

Moving forward, we'll have some exciting stuff over the next 10-12 days. Big games against Cal Poly, who, as you'll find out tomorrow, will be a lot better this weekend. Then we got Rice, USC, UCLA, Vanderbilt, and the team I keep forgetting about: Loyola-Marymount. The week after, the Frogs begin conference play against Art Briles' favorite college baseball team. So yeah, it's going to fun. Baseball's already in high gear.

Also, I'll be taking a mailbag this afternoon. So be thinking about any baseball questions you may have...