Texas strands 17, falls in late comeback attempt as Mississippi State evens the series

It’s hard to win any baseball game in which you strand 17 base runners.

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There’s no denying that fact, even if it proves that you have the ability to get runners on base and move the line on offense.

It’s like a football team who makes their way to the goal line four times in a game, but fails to score on all four attempts. How do you expect to win?

That’s the exact fate of Texas Baseball today, stranding 17 enroute to a 7-4 loss, that really wasn’t as competitive as the final score makes it seem.

Texas loaded the bases in all four of the final frames, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings.

They scored just two runs, both of which came while down five in the bottom of the ninth inning on an Aiden Robbins single.

In the sixth, Texas took advantage of a mid-inning pitching change and loaded the bases for freshman Maddox Monsour, but his swing on an 0-1 count went straight to the shortstop.

It was still a tie game at one when Monsour grounded out, but Mississippi State would tack on four runs in the seventh, breaking the game open with a three-run homer.

Still, Texas threatened again. Anthony Pack and Ethan Mendoza’s 3-2 walks loaded the bases, but veteran 3B Temo Becerra would once again ground out to short. It was the only AB all game where he didn’t have a hit.

One inning, and two runs surrendered later, Texas drew three straight walks and had star freshman Anthony Pack at the plate. He’d fly out.

One inning later, despite adding two runs on the Robbins single with Pack standing in as the winning run, the youngster would strike out, ending the game and Texas’ fans misery of the left on base woes.

“You’re counting on timely hitting, and the difference in the game was the swings they got with two outs,” Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle said.

Schlossnagle, despite the loss, was cheery after the game. He didn’t show much concern for the bats inability to generate runs with men on base.

“As I always say, batters left on base never, ever, ever bother me, ever, unless they’re less than two outs with a runner on third,” Schlossnagle said. “What bothers you is when you’re not getting on base, that really stinks, because then you had no chance to score.”

Bothersome or not, the result is the result, and Texas has now seen four straight Saturday’s where the bats failed to capitalize in the run department.

It continues another upsetting streak, three straight weekends where a pair of games saw the team score four runs in a large sample of innings. Against Alabama, the team lost out on the chance of a sweep by scoring just four runs in the final 18 innings of the series.

Against Vanderbilt, they scored four in the final 19, being shut out on Saturday and barely escaping on Sunday with an extra-innings series win.

And this weekend, Texas started 1-1, but scored just four runs in 17 innings. 12 runs in a combined 54 innings for Texas during those stretches.

It’s funny, when you look at Texas’ box score, you don’t see a team that scored just one run in the first eight frames.

Texas matched Mississippi State’s nine hits, two of which were homers, and had more free passes than strikeouts (12-10).

Becerra had four hits, Robbins was 2/3 with two RBI, Casey Borba hit his first SEC home run in over a month, Adrian Rodriguez had his second homer of the season and Ethan Mendoza was stellar at the plate.

But both of the bombs were solo shots, and Texas’ star Pack left seven runners on base after a signature game the night before.

It’s part of why Schlossnagle has confidence in his team. You know that Robbins, Tinney and Pack are studs, even if Tinney and Pack struggled on the day. The returns from Mendoza, Becerra and Borba are steadily improving, and Rodriguez looks to be on a better track than he was pre-injury.

But that doesn’t win you ballgames, and on a day where Texas could’ve controlled the No. 2 spot in the SEC standings and taken home an SEC series win, they failed to come up big when it mattered most.

Luke Harrison looks to continue the steady starting pitching over the weekend (Ruger Riojas looked great in five innings of work today) as the Longhorns take on the Bulldogs in a rubber match starting at 1 P.M. tomorrow.