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TCU just continues to dominate the early part of the 2016 season: Luken Baker is as good as advertised, Elliott Barzilli is hitting over .700, and the pitching–starting and bullpen–is thriving under Kirk Saarloos' tutelage. After crushing Louisiana-Lafayette Friday night, the Frogs run-ruled the Rice Owls Saturday night at Minute Maid 10-0.
What should we expect for Sunday? Well, after Brian Howard and Luken Baker did their part, it's now up to Rex Hill to close out a perfect weekend. Hill, the only lefty in TCU's starting arsenal, will get a Houston team that was nearly run-ruled by Arkansas in a game that pushed back the TCU-Rice game by an hour. Hill, who gave up 3 earned runs in his first start, looks to shave off his +6.00 ERA Sunday afternoon against a Cougar team, that despite what Saturday's score indicates, is still capable of scoring a lot of runs.
|
Record |
ERA |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
|
|
Mitch Ullom, RHP |
1-0 |
3.60 |
5.4 |
0.00 |
|
Rex Hill, LHP |
0-1 |
6.23 |
14.55 |
0.00 |
Look for Elliott Barzilli, who had 3 RBIs and 2 Rs yesterday, to continue his hot-streak. Also, I'm expecting Dane Steinhagen and Connor Wanhanen to have big days as well. Steinhagen had absolutely brilliant ABs in Saturday's game; the one that comes to mind was his early inning AB, where he fouled off numerous pitches to stay alive then drilled one off the RF wall. Wanhanen also had some brilliant ABs himself against the Owls, most notably squeezing out a Pete Rose-style hit to drive in a run.
More than anything, and we talked about it above, the Frogs are (a) capitalizing off of runs and they're doing it because (b) there's simply just more power on this team in 2016. Last year, 9 hits may've meant that the Frogs scored 3 or 4 runs, as they were notorious for leaving runners on base. In 2016, there's no such thing thus far and 9 hits means they're going to drop 10 runs. Getting out of Houston without a loss and being able to dominate ULL-Rice-Houston in succession will be a very promising beginning for this young team and perhaps even lift them into the Top 10 in the polls.