TopFrog
Lifelong Frog
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/06/20...could-have.html
[SIZE=14pt]TCU's loss to Oklahoma could have meaning later on[/SIZE]
By GIL L eBRETON
glebreton@star-telegram.com
For TCU's baseball team, the road to Omaha picked up another pothole Tuesday night.
True, there are still miles to go before the eight teams that make it to Omaha, Neb., and the College World Series are sifted and sorted.
But the Horned Frogs know, especially after last season, that some games carry more weight than others.
Games such as Tuesday night's, a would-be friendly interconference meeting with Big 12 Oklahoma that quickly turned darkly serious.
How serious? The Sooners went on to prevail 4-2, but not before OU coach Sunny Golloway pulled his starting pitcher three batters and no outs into the first inning.
Golloway wasn't simply looking for a mulligan. He reached into the bullpen for Jeremy Erben, arguably the Big 12's best reliever. And 120 pitches and 72/3 innings by Erben later, Golloway summoned his marquee closer, Ryan Duke.
Erben entered the game for OU after the Frogs had loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the first inning. He promptly extinguished the fire with a double-play ball and a groundout.
"When you're facing maybe the best relief pitcher in the Big 12 three batters into the first inning, you know it means something to both sides," TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
The Frogs' record fell to 20-7, which is far from cause for alarm. TCU still has 29 games to play before the Mountain West Conference tournament.
"There's no one game that makes or breaks a season," Schlossnagle said. "We've lost a few in conference play. But we were 1-7 against the Big 12 a year ago, and what are we now, 5-1?
"And we're not even at the halfway point in the season."
For baseball teams, however, with the biggest of NCAA dreams -- and TCU rightly is one of them -- these are the season's hurdles that have to be cleared, the hoops that have to be jumped through.
Already this season, the Frogs have defeated Cal State Fullerton twice on the road and have beaten Big 12 foes Texas Tech and Missouri. They came into Tuesday's game batting .341 as a team, scoring 8.7 runs a game and owning a highly respectable 3.53 ERA.
In the latest of the myriad college baseball polls, TCU was ranked 11th by the writers, 12th by Baseball America and the nation's coaches, and 18th by Collegiate Baseball.
The highest that any of those polls had TCU ranked in the preseason was 11th, so the Frogs haven't lost much ground in the minds of the people who watch college baseball.
But there are also the computers. And for whatever reason, TCU finds itself ranked 38th in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) standings.
How meaningful are the RPI ratings? At the end of the season, when the NCAA committee meets to select and seed its tournament teams, the RPI has proven to be a valid indicator.
But in early April, go figure.
The Frogs are 38th, but Cal State Fullerton, beaten twice at home by TCU, is 19th.
The Frogs are also 10 places behind tiny Southeastern Louisiana, located in the strawberry capital of Hammond, La.
"The players are smart enough to know what games mean more than others," Schlossnagle said. "Tonight, they knew, if you win, you've really got a chance to help yourself.
"But you can't play baseball thinking about that stuff."
One problem is that while MWC baseball has come miles since the days when Schlossnagle was at UNLV, the computers haven't caught on. TCU is trying to counter that perceived scheduling problem by playing 10 games this season against Big 12 teams.
Four more remain, including a home contest next Tuesday against Texas A&M and a return meeting with OU in Norman, Okla., on April 20.
In past TCU baseball seasons, Tuesday night games were the chance for the backups to stay sharp. The regulars sometimes rested in the midweek games, and best pitchers pitched in the all-important conference games on the weekends.
But not this Tuesday game. Oklahoma was trying to rebound from a three-game sweep by Texas last weekend in Austin.
"It's turned into a huge rival game," said Golloway, whose record against TCU is now 8-2. "Every one that I have been a part of has been tight.
"That," the Oklahoma coach said, "was really a good college baseball game."
It was serious stuff, from two teams that know how serious a Tuesday night in April can be.
GIL LeBRETON, 817-390-7760
[SIZE=14pt]TCU's loss to Oklahoma could have meaning later on[/SIZE]
By GIL L eBRETON
glebreton@star-telegram.com
For TCU's baseball team, the road to Omaha picked up another pothole Tuesday night.
True, there are still miles to go before the eight teams that make it to Omaha, Neb., and the College World Series are sifted and sorted.
But the Horned Frogs know, especially after last season, that some games carry more weight than others.
Games such as Tuesday night's, a would-be friendly interconference meeting with Big 12 Oklahoma that quickly turned darkly serious.
How serious? The Sooners went on to prevail 4-2, but not before OU coach Sunny Golloway pulled his starting pitcher three batters and no outs into the first inning.
Golloway wasn't simply looking for a mulligan. He reached into the bullpen for Jeremy Erben, arguably the Big 12's best reliever. And 120 pitches and 72/3 innings by Erben later, Golloway summoned his marquee closer, Ryan Duke.
Erben entered the game for OU after the Frogs had loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the first inning. He promptly extinguished the fire with a double-play ball and a groundout.
"When you're facing maybe the best relief pitcher in the Big 12 three batters into the first inning, you know it means something to both sides," TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
The Frogs' record fell to 20-7, which is far from cause for alarm. TCU still has 29 games to play before the Mountain West Conference tournament.
"There's no one game that makes or breaks a season," Schlossnagle said. "We've lost a few in conference play. But we were 1-7 against the Big 12 a year ago, and what are we now, 5-1?
"And we're not even at the halfway point in the season."
For baseball teams, however, with the biggest of NCAA dreams -- and TCU rightly is one of them -- these are the season's hurdles that have to be cleared, the hoops that have to be jumped through.
Already this season, the Frogs have defeated Cal State Fullerton twice on the road and have beaten Big 12 foes Texas Tech and Missouri. They came into Tuesday's game batting .341 as a team, scoring 8.7 runs a game and owning a highly respectable 3.53 ERA.
In the latest of the myriad college baseball polls, TCU was ranked 11th by the writers, 12th by Baseball America and the nation's coaches, and 18th by Collegiate Baseball.
The highest that any of those polls had TCU ranked in the preseason was 11th, so the Frogs haven't lost much ground in the minds of the people who watch college baseball.
But there are also the computers. And for whatever reason, TCU finds itself ranked 38th in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) standings.
How meaningful are the RPI ratings? At the end of the season, when the NCAA committee meets to select and seed its tournament teams, the RPI has proven to be a valid indicator.
But in early April, go figure.
The Frogs are 38th, but Cal State Fullerton, beaten twice at home by TCU, is 19th.
The Frogs are also 10 places behind tiny Southeastern Louisiana, located in the strawberry capital of Hammond, La.
"The players are smart enough to know what games mean more than others," Schlossnagle said. "Tonight, they knew, if you win, you've really got a chance to help yourself.
"But you can't play baseball thinking about that stuff."
One problem is that while MWC baseball has come miles since the days when Schlossnagle was at UNLV, the computers haven't caught on. TCU is trying to counter that perceived scheduling problem by playing 10 games this season against Big 12 teams.
Four more remain, including a home contest next Tuesday against Texas A&M and a return meeting with OU in Norman, Okla., on April 20.
In past TCU baseball seasons, Tuesday night games were the chance for the backups to stay sharp. The regulars sometimes rested in the midweek games, and best pitchers pitched in the all-important conference games on the weekends.
But not this Tuesday game. Oklahoma was trying to rebound from a three-game sweep by Texas last weekend in Austin.
"It's turned into a huge rival game," said Golloway, whose record against TCU is now 8-2. "Every one that I have been a part of has been tight.
"That," the Oklahoma coach said, "was really a good college baseball game."
It was serious stuff, from two teams that know how serious a Tuesday night in April can be.
GIL LeBRETON, 817-390-7760
