Texas Tech Baseball Returns Home for Important Weekend Series vs. No. 22 WVU

LUBBOCK, Texas – Fresh off an eight-day road trip through Abilene, Fort Worth and Arkansas, the Texas Tech Baseball program returns home for the start of a four-game homestand this weekend.

The homestand begins with a critical top-25 matchup against No. 22 WVU, who currently resides in first place in the crowded Big 12 Conference standings.

Tech’s penultimate homestand of the 2024 season also includes a midweek contest on Tuesday against New Mexico.

INSIDE THE MATCHUPS:

GAME ONE:
MATCHUP: Texas Tech (26-13 9-9 Big 12) vs. No. 22 West Virginia (23-13, 11-4 Big 12)
DATE: Friday, Apr. 19, 2024
TIME: 6:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Rip Griffin Park at Dan Law Field (Lubbock, Texas)
PITCHING MATCHUP: LHP Ryan Free (4-0, 5.50 ERA) vs. RHP Aidan Major (3-2, 4.56 ERA)

GAME TWO:
MATCHUP: Texas Tech (26-13 9-9 Big 12) vs. No. 22 West Virginia (23-13, 11-4 Big 12)
DATE: Saturday, Apr. 20, 2024
TIME: 2 p.m.
LOCATION: Rip Griffin Park at Dan Law Field (Lubbock, Texas)
PITCHING MATCHUP: RHP Kyle Robinson (3-4, 4.13) vs. LHP Derek Clark (4-0, 2.15 ERA)

GAME THREE:
MATCHUP: Texas Tech (25-9, 8-7 Big 12) at TCU (20-11 5-10 Big 12)
DATE: Sunday, Apr. 11, 2024
TIME: 1 p.m.
LOCATION: Rip Griffin Park at Dan Law Field (Lubbock, Texas)
PITCHING MATCHUP: RHP Mac Heuer (3-3, 5.50 ERA) vs. TBA

1-2-3 HEADLINES:

* The Red Raiders finally return home after an eight-day, six game and three city road trip that included games at ACU, TCU and Arkansas. Tech enters the weekend having won at straight games at home, 11-of-12 and 18 of 21 at Rip Griffin Park this season. The Red Raiders have outscored opponents 268 to 146 at home in the 21 games.

* The Red Raiders will look to rebound this weekend and snap a four-game losing streak that includes a two-run loss last Saturday at TCU (4-2) and three one-run losses in the series finale to TCU and two one-run losses at Arkansas. In total, Tech’s last six losses have come by a combined seven total runs. Tech entered the six-game road trip riding a six-game winning streak, and after winning at ACU 21-3 in run-rule fashion, the Red Raiders closed out a seven-to-one win over TCU in the series opener

* This weekend’s series against West Virginia will provide another huge opportunity for the Red Raiders who will play No. 22 ranked West Virginia. In addition to be ranked in the top-25, WVU sits atop the Big 12 standings at 11-4 and at 26 in the RPI. The Mountaineers enter the weekend at 23-13 and after going 12-9 in the non-conference have now gone 11-4 in conference play. West Virginia have won seven straight Big 12 games and are an impressive 5-1 this season on the road in Big 12 play. That includes a three-game sweep at Kansas and a series win at Oklahoma.

WEEKEND NOTES:

LOOKING FOR THREE OF FOUR OVERALL

The Red Raiders with a series win would record their third series win in the last four matchups against WVU. The lone series loss in that span came last year, when after a Friday afternoon series win the Mountainers won 17-2 and 5-3. In that Friday opener the Red Raiders saw Friday’s projected starter Aidan Major. Major pitched four innings and allowed just four hits and two runs.

ROSTERS HAVE TURNED OVER

While both teams have staples in their lineups (Kash, Bazzell and Green for Tech; Grant Hussey and JJ Wether holt) both teams have seen significant turnover on the mound. Of the six starting pitchers that started their respective game for their respective team only one pitcher is on their same roster and healthy (Robby Porco). Both Friday’s starters (Mason Molina, Arkansas; Ben Hampton, TCU) have transfered from their respective university while WVUs Saturday starter Blaine Traxel graduated. Trendan Parish who is currently injured started the Saturday game for Tech. Sunday’s Tech starter Zane Petty is also injured. Porco started the Sunday game for WVU and pitched to just two batters. In total just 11 of the 21 pitchers that appeared in the weekend series are still on their respective roster.

MAZEYS LAST DANCE

Entering his 12th season at the helm of West Virginia baseball, skipper Randy Mazey has announced his intention to retire at the conclusion of the 2024 season, Like Tadlock on the opposite side, Mazey got to WVU in 2013. Mazey was twice named Big 12 Coach of the Year.

BACK AT THE RIP

Following a long eight-day, six-game and three city road trip, the Texas Tech Red Raiders return home this weekend for the start of a four-game homestand that will feature the weekend set with the Mountaineers as well as a midweek contest with New Mexico. Tech’s six game trip totaled nearly 900 miles. Tech enters the weekend with 12th-lonest home winning streak in the country.

ONE STREAK WILL END FRIDAY

Once the opening game of the weekend series between Tech and WVU is decided a streak will end for one of the two teams, as Tech enters with an eight-game winning streak at home while WVU enters the weekend as winners of four straight overall and have won seven straight Big 12 games. The lone loss for WVU since a Mar. 30 Big 12 loss to OSU was an Apr. 10 loss to Marshall in the midweek. WVU has swept back-to-back B12 series to vault to the top of the Big 12 standings. WVU swept KU in Lawrence two weeks ago before closing out a home sweep of new Big 12 foe UCF.

P5s ALL WEEK FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS MONTH

For the second time in three weeks the Red Raiders will face five games against Power Five opponents. The last time Tech played all P5 opponents in a week was the first week of April (1-7) when Tech played host to Stanford (Apr. 1-2) and Houston (Apr. 5-7). This week, the Red Raiders will play at Arkansas (Apr. 16-17) before returning home for a weekend series with WVU (Apr. 19-21). Tech went a perfect 5-0 two weeks ago against Stanford and Houston.

CLOSE LOSSES HAVE BEEN THE NORM

Texas Tech enters the weekends having lost three straight-one run games. In fact when you open up to include Tech’s last six losses, five have come by a singular run, and the other loss was by just two runs. Tech’s last six losses have come 6-5 at UCF (Mar. 28), 2-1 at UCF (Mar. 29), 4-2 (Apr. 13) at TCU, 4-3 (Apr. 14) at TCU and a pair of 9-8 and 5-4 losses at No. 2 Arkansas early in the week.

THREE MORE AGAINST THE P5

Texas Tech enters this weekend series having played 39 total games this season. Of the 39 games, 26 of those contests have come against Power Five opponents. The Red Raiders are just 13-13 overall against P5 opponents however they have won seven straight home games against P5 competition. Against high-major competition the Red Raiders have scored 165 runs and allowed 165 runs.

RANKED AT THE RIP

Texas Tech welcomes a ranked opponent to Rip Griffin Pakr for the first time since Mar. 8-10 when they welcomed then-ranked No. 24 Texas. West Virginia enters the weekend at No. 22 in the D1Baseball Poll.

TOP-35 CLASH

When Texas Tech and WVU meet on Friday afternoon the weekend set will be a top-35 series in terms of RPI as both Tech and WVU enter the weekend inside the top-35. WVU is No. 26 overall in RPI while Tech enters at No. 33 in the RPI.

BROUGHT OUT THE BROOMS
The Red Raiders recorded a series sweep over Houston last weekend, for the program’s first Big 12 Conference sweep since the 2022 season when the Red Raiders swept Oklahoma State (May 12-14) in Stillwater. The home sweep of Houston is the first home sweep for the Red Raiders since an Apr. 8-10 series against K-State in 2022.

GREEN IS COMING ON
Austin Green has been on fire as of late, as the switch-hitting outfielder is now 12 for his last 19 (five games) and has scored six times. He has walked four times and has not struck out. The stretch is largely helped by a 5-for-5 performance Tuesday night at Arkansas in which Green hit a home run and drove in four runs. Since taking an 0-for-5 in the Mar. 28 loss at UCF that dropped his batting average to .271, Green has gone 18-for-36 (.500) and has raised his average over 60 points all the way up to .339.

NINE IN SEVEN BRINGS SCHOOL RECORD
The Red Raiders slugged a school-record nine home runs in the victory over ACU, as four different Red Raiders hit multiple home runs (Cade McGee, Gavin Kash, TJ Pompey and Drew Woodcox). Tech became the first Big 12 Team since 2019 to sock nine home runs as the four players with multiple home runs are the most by a Big 12 team since at least 2011.

BRAVO. DAMIAN BRAVO.
Damian Bravo has been suburb in his second season in Lubbock, as the Sophomore has hit a team-best .420 over the season’s first 35 games. Bravo has also recorded and on-base percentage of .510 and has a team-best 39 RBIs and 19 doubles. Bravo entered the week as the only player in the country with at least 55 hits and 45 runs scored this season. After hitting .565 (13-23) with three doubles, two home runs and eight RBIs, Bravo was tabbed the Big 12s Player of the Week (Apr. 8), Bravo slugged nearly 1.000 for the week, and scored 12 runs. Bravo has a team-best 18 multiple-hit games and 10 multiple RBI games. The OF missed both games due to injury in the midweek at Arkansas.

RUNNIN’ RUNNIN’
The Red Raiders have clearly been aggressive on the base-paths this season, as the club has now stolen 40 bases in just 39 games played. The Red Raiders went until Mar. 23 against BYU without a caught stealing as the Red Raiders went 28 consecutive stolen base attempts with out a caught stealing. Tech has been caught stealing just four times and already have stolen 12 more bases than 2023 (28).

ROLLIN’ IN THE DEEP
Another pitcher who changed his warmup song in 2024 was senior Josh Sanders, who will now warmup to Adelle’s Rolling in the Deep. So far it seems the warmup song is working for Sanders, as the righty has pitched 30.0 innings thus far, allowing just 18 hits and eight runs (six earned). Sanders has now struck out 33 batters in his 30.0 innings of work. Hitters are hitting just .167 against him. Sanders pitched 6.1 scoreless innings two weeks ago , earning two wins. The righty retired his last 14 batters in a row including three perfect innings in Friday’s win over Houston. Sanders struck out 12. Sanders has not allowed a run in his last five appearances (10.2 inning) and has allowed just four hits in those five outings. Sanders pitched 4.1 scoreless last weekend against TCU.

HUGETYRA
Freshman Parker Hutyra has really emerged in his first collegiate season as the freshman has allowed just one run in 13 appearances and 20.1 innings pitched. Hutyra has struck out 22 batters this season, and has not allowed a run since Feb. 21 vs. Oregon State. That stretches 18.1 innings and includes five straight key outings against BYU, UCF, Stanford and TCU. The righty has struck out 15 batters in his last 11.2 innings pitched. Prior to Sunday’s appearance in a loss the Red Raiders had won six straight games he’d appeared in. Overall the Red Raiders are 9-5 in his 14 appearances. And while Hutyra has continued to perform at a high level, he did maybe his best work of the season last week against Houston as after throwing 45 pitches in nearly three scoreless innings, Hutyra entered in a four-run game and fired a scoreless ninth to close out a series sweep. The right-hander suffered the loss due in large part to a pair of errors at Arkansas on Tuesday, marking the first time all season he received a decision that wasnt a win.

IT HAD TO END AT SOME POINT
Entering Saturday’s contest having won eight straight overall and five straight Big 12 games the Red Raiders fell 4-2 on Saturday. Over the eight game winning streak which started with the Red Raiders sweeping Stanford in a midweek series and Houston in a Big 12 weekend set, the Red Raiders dropped back-to-back tight games at TCU.

READY FOR A HUGE WEEK AND STRETCH
The two game midweek series against No. 2 Arkansas kicked off another critical week for the Red Raiders who will home this weekend for a three-game set with No. 22 WVU who currently resides in first place in the crowded Big 12 standings. In fact the Red Raiders have just four Big 12 series remaining (WVU, @KU, OU, @OSU). Each large in its own right, the four remaining series could easily decide the outcome of Tech’s season as they come against the No. 1 (WVU/OU), No. 3 (OSU) and No. 8 (KU) teams in the Big 12 standings.

UP NEXT:
The Red Raiders close out the second-to-last homestand of the season on Tuesday afternoon when New Mexico pays a visit to Lubbock for a midweek contest. First pitch from Rip Griffin Park is set for 2 p.m.

–TECH–

Release Provided By Andrew Stern Texas Tech Athletics